Living in the Spirit

June 20, 2023

Scripture Reading: Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
   for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you;
   save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God; be gracious to me, O Lord,
   for to you do I cry all day long.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
   for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
   abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
   listen to my cry of supplication.
In the day of my trouble I call on you,
   for you will answer me.

I am a member of the Poor People’s Campaign—A National Call for Moral Revival.  In 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others called for a “revolution of values” in America. They sought to build a broad, fusion movement that could unite poor and impacted communities across the country. Their name was a direct cry from the underside of history: The Poor People’s Campaign. Shortly after this vision was put forth, Dr. King was assassinated, and his vision was never fully implemented.  In 2018, Rev. Dr. William Barber II set forth to call together a group to foster that Moral Revival.

We live in a wasteland of poverty, with over 140,000,000* people in the USA living in poverty. The problem we must first address before we can make headway on assuring that everyone has enough to meet their basic needs is the poverty of our souls tied up in the modern-day idolatry of greed and lust for power. Jesus calls us to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. (Matthew 22:39) I have come to believe that what we are missing in answering that calling is loving ourselves. For some reason, we seemed to have adopted a worldview that to be of worth; we must be better than others. That results in the twisted truth that we do love our neighbors as we love ourselves with an inferiority complex that we try to correct by putting others down.  

All people are created by God, and all people were deemed to be good. Once we can each accept that fact, we can build the world as a beloved community where all have enough.

Prayer: Lord, heal our souls, make us whole, make us one. Amen.

* https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/140-million-maps/

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.