Living in the Spirit
October 4, 2021
Scripture Reading: Amos 5:6-7
Seek the Lord and live,
or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire,
and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.
Wormwood– something bitter, galling, or grievous*
Wormwood as used in the Hebrew Scriptures–From an unused root supposed to mean to curse; wormwood (regarded as poisonous, and therefore accursed) — hemlock, wormwood**
There is an actual Wormwood plant that is very bitter and poisonous. Thus, the word has been culturally adapted to define being cursed. The very graphic picture of justice being turned into something bitter and cursed is startling. One person’s justice is another person’s loss. We are caught in that same struggle in our world today. A male relative of mine indicated that he felt persecuted by what I will call here for general purposes, the women’s movement. He did not accept my explanation that losing privilege is not the same thing as being persecuted.
What is just and right are difficult questions to answer because we each see the issue from our personal or group’s peculiar vantage point. So how do we discern God’s vantage point, and, harder still, how do we build our lives around God’s justice and righteousness in a world where culture is the primary source of determining what is right and wrong?
We turn to the Bible for help and find book after book dealing with this same issue in different times among varied cultures. For example, the first time I read an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (see Exodus 21:24), I was appalled at such punishment for a crime until I learned that before this rule was established, one might get a death sentence if one poked out another person’s eye or knocked out a tooth. Our ancestors in faith were struggling with defining fairness in a progressively adapting world where change was the primary constant.
During WWII, men were pulled away from all kinds of jobs to fight the war. Women also served in some capacities in the war, but they primarily filled the positions the drafted men had left. Fast forward to 1973, and we find that it was the first year a single-income family could not earn a living wage in the USA. In both instances, the role of women changed out of necessity.
Jesus instructed us that the primary commandments were to love God and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. So we need to start from that point and move forward as we develop a just world.
Prayer: Lord, broaden our vision to see what is happening about us that may require us to reconsider what is just and what is right. Amen.
*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/wormwood
**https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3939.htm
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.