Living in the Spirit

July 1, 2020

Scripture Reading: Song of Solomon 2:8-13
The voice of my beloved!
   Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
   bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle
   or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
   behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
   looking through the lattice.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away;
for now the winter is past,
   the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
   the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
   is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
   and the vines are in blossom;
   they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away.

Reading this is a blessing after another morning of lousy news getting worse. Spring does follow winter. As Robert Browning writes in Pippa Passes, “God’s in His heaven— All’s right with the world!”

God grants us the choice of striving for the better or wallowing in the worst. I like the approach of a pragmatic optimist. We need to face the reality in which we find ourselves to discern ways to move forward toward our goal of being the hands and feet of Jesus on the earth today, creating the Kingdom He foresaw as possible.

I do not think many want to hear, we have a long, steep road ahead of us, but if we work together, we can realize success. I see this playing out in the political ads now routinely interrupting my viewing options. I hear some singing the same song regarding two or three issues that have little or no impact on most people. The ads often contain words that immediately bring to mind hot-bottom affairs. They include no explanation addressing how they intend to impact those issues. Fixing the economy is a good example. Does that mean the candidate is going to work to increase the stock market or assure that every worker earns a living wage? I have not heard anyone suggest he or she is going to try to address both. Such ads are skillfully designed for you to hear what you want to hear, not what the candidates’ intentions are.

We need to realign our own lives with God’s ways as we try to create that Kingdom Jesus foresaw. The foundation of that Kingdom is love. That is is a great place to begin our exploration of what will work to take us from chaos into Kingdomtide.

Prayer: Lord, help us see past the hot-button issues to the real needs of our world. Help us grow together in oneness so that when we come together in your name, we get positive results for our efforts. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.