Author Archives: WOJ@deborahsdescendants.com

The Word of God

Living in the Spirit

October 7, 2021

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from Spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. –Hebrews 4:12-13

The Greek word, Logos, is used here and in John 1 to denote something more than scripture saved for posterity. The recording of the history of the acts of God lays a necessary foundation for our faith. However, it does not encompass the wholeness of God’s continuing acts of creation, including ongoing interactions through the Spirit with each of God’s children who seek to recognize God’s role in their lives. Strong’s Concordance describes the “word” used in the above scripture as:

reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, calculating, etc.: once so in the phrase ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, of the divine mind, pervading and noting all things by its proper force, Hebrews 4:12*.

I find myself praying, “God, help me see what I am missing,” while trying to understand what is happening around me and our world today. Elemental forces of change are ever-present. Thus, we must seek and foster God’s path as we struggle to make sense of it all. We face the challenge of loving all of God’s people or not as we play a game of who is acceptable and who is not. Every day, we gamble our future regarding how minimally we can respond to make the changes necessary to correct and adapt to climate change. But what are we leaving the next generations by our failure to act more aggressively? Have we reached the time when war no longer works, if it ever did? How do we attain harmony amid a world that feeds on division? And finally, how do we end the pandemic of greed that is usually woven through every disaster we face?

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from Spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. We must seek this word of God in everything we do.

Prayer: God, help us see what we are missing and to find your way, your truth, and your life. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/greek/3056.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.

Wise Hearts

Living in the Spirit

October 6, 2021

Scripture Reading: Psalm 90:12-17

So teach us to count our days
   that we may gain a wise heart.

Turn, O Lord! How long?
   Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
   so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
   and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be manifest to your servants,
   and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
   and prosper for us the work of our hands—
   O prosper the work of our hands!

I have never thought about a heart having the quality of wisdom. We view the heart as an essential pump that pushes blood throughout our system. The Hebrew word used here, lebab, translated as heart, means inner man, mind, will, heart*, which was the perception of that day and remains with us today. So, what is a wise heart?

The rest of the poem outlines what would be gained by having a wiser heart. God giving us compassion surely means we are to share kindness with others. God’s love for us brings us joy, our love for others should be a source of pleasure. I do not perceive that God afflicts us unless we count the gift of free will as the source of our troubles. A wiser heart would guide us toward better decisions. We must also deal with the wrong decision made by others that our poet describes as evil. Addressing the injustices we see in our world calls us to let God’s work manifest in us as we strive to carry out God’s vision of a world ruled by love.

Prayer: Lord, give us wise hearts to serve you more nearly. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3824.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.

Out of Balance

Living in the Spirit

October 5, 2021

Scripture Reading: Amos 5:10-15

They hate the one who reproves in the gate,
   and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
Therefore, because you trample on the poor
   and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
   but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
   but you shall not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your transgressions,
   and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
   and push aside the needy in the gate.
Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time;
   for it is an evil time.

Seek good and not evil,
   that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
   just as you have said.
Hate evil and love good,
   and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
   will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

The economy in the USA is out of balance. It has been for some time, and the tax cut of 2017 made it much worse. The poverty rate is meaningless in today’s economy. It was designed in the late fifties based on multiplying the cost of food by three. The federal minimum wage is just as outdated, and correcting it would cause significant challenges to the economy. I would throw them out and use the living wage as a marker of families having enough to live on and thrive. MIT and others have addressed the idea of the actual cost of having enough income. You can see its living wage calculator at https://livingwage.mit.edu.

Even amid a pandemic, the unemployment rate in August 2021 was 5.2% in the USA, 3.2% in Oklahoma. People are working. These are conservative figures based on people seeking jobs. More difficult to count are those who are not working and not looking for work.  Non-disabled non-elderly adults who receive SNAP (food stamps) must prove they seek employment to qualify for the help. Childcare subsidies are directly tied to work.  The Poor Peoples Campaign estimate that 140 million people in the USA live in poverty or are one high health care cost away from bankruptcy, which is the case among many having been treated for COVID or having lost a loved one to COVID.

Bringing our economy into balance will take time and a solid commitment to making it happen. It can be done, but we must work past special interests and greed while not trampling on the poor to succeed.

Prayer: Lord, help us find our way out of discord and balance so that every family can attain a living wage.  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.

What is Just?

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.

Being an Example

Living in the Spirit

October 3, 2021

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:2-16

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. –Mark 10-13-16

Children take in whatever their senses pick up. Psychologist Jean Piaget believed that children do not begin to develop the ability of abstract thinking until they are at least eleven years old. We joke about how children interpret life. A cartoon illustrates a child hearing his mother say on the phone that she was all tied up and could not talk. The image that forms in the child’s mind is the telephone cord wrapped around his mother from head to foot. If a child hears adults say something, like a curse word, they assume it is alright to say it until they utter the word at dinner with their grandparents.

We all have the responsibility to live our lives as examples for everyone around us but especially children.  The hate-filled anger displayed on TV by adults refusing to wear masks indeed causes great consternation for the child who must wear masks in school. I have wondered what kind of example those adults had as children made them think their adult behavior was appropriate. It does not need to be that way. Children have fun wearing masks playing make-believe characters. Wearing a mask during this COVID pandemic is a great way to teach children how to love their neighbor as themselves. We do have the right to free speech; we do not have the right to do it in an unresponsible manner.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer*.  Amen.

*Psalm 19:14

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.

What’s is a Family

Living in the Spirit

October 2, 2021

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:2-16

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’ –Mark 10:2-12

What’s in a family? As a people, we seem to have lost our way regarding the most critical influencer in our lives, the family. God created the family as the means of procreating and maintaining the human species, but that is hardly the family’s sole purpose.  I am reading The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, the story of an Irish girl whose parents both died on the ship bringing the family to the USA in the 1700 hundreds. This child was sold as an indentured slave to a family that lived on a plantation staffed by enslaved Africans. She was integrated into the house servants’ group. They became her family until her indenture was nearly over. She was separated from that family as a teenager to be reintroduced into society as a white person. What’s in a family, indeed?

The story of the first couple God created began the long history of God’s family, which includes all the diverse people of the world called to love God and love one another. With that example, humans formed other families with the same calling. The behavior of human families and how they interact and influence current and future generations is crucial to fulfilling the calling to love all of God’s children. It is a sacred trust. Doing anything to damage such a trust is harmful to all involved. I think that is the point that Jesus makes in the above scripture. He did not quote the Hebrew practice of stoning the guilty parties*. He even intervened to save a woman caught in adultery from being stoned, forgave her, and cautioned her to sin no more**.

I think Jesus is saying for people to take control of all aspects of our lives, appreciating the gifts God has given us to receive and share love and not make a mockery of love. When we make mistakes learn from them, and when we do love, love with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength as part of the family of God.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when the habits of the world overcome the ways of your love. Please help us serve you more nearly in all aspects of our lives. Amen.

*Leviticus 20:10

**John 7:53–8:11 Jesus and the woman caught in adultery

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.

The Word

Living in the Spirit

October 1, 2021

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. –Hebrews 1:1-4

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

The Word with a capital “W” is dynamically alive. We value words recorded and passed down over the centuries to expand our understanding of the Word of God, who was and is God’s Son, Jesus the Christ. Described in the above scripture as being present at creation, I have wondered if the mysterious Melchizedek was the Christ. There are not enough trees on earth to create the amount of paper required to tell the story of God with Us or gigabytes of storage to contain it. Yet, I do not remember a time in my life when my friend Jesus was not available to me, if I sought him.

I read the story of Chicken Little as a child. Based on the English tale of one Henny Penny, its moral cautions us of the danger that people trying to incite panic can result in opportunists like Foxy-woxy doing real harm*. Unfortunately, there is a lot of that going on around us today. We need to stop being used for nefarious purposes and recognize that panic does not help and is unnecessary because God with Us has graced us with the life of his Son, Jesus the Christ, who has already overcome the world**.

I serve a risen Savior
  He’s in the world today.
I know that He is living,
  Whatever men may say.
I see His hand of mercy;
  I hear His voice of cheer;
And just the time I need Him
  He’s always near.
               He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives?
    He lives within my heart***.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we get caught up in the frenzy of the world’s panic. Grant us your shalom to carry us through such distractions from working for you in building your Kingdom. Amen.

* https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/henny-penny-the-sky-is-falling

**John 16:33

***First Verse and Chorus of the hymn He Lives by Alfred Henry Ackley see at https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/503

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.

Sacred Trust

Living in the Spirit

September 30, 2021

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,
‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
   in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’ -Hebrews 2:10-12

I have a biological sister and brother, and we are markedly different, but even in that small sample, we illustrate that our differences complement one another. God created an interdependent world from the grass that feeds the cows to the rain that grows the grass. As children of God, we have been given a sacred trust to care for one another and the earth that sustains us.  Our failure to respond to that trust has landed us in a precarious place. One hundred and forty million* people live in poverty in the USA or are one major illness from living in poverty. If we do not address the challenges of climate change, we may not have an earth to sustain us. The findings of their review of more than 14,000 studies are clear: climate change is affecting nearly every part of the planet, and there is no doubt that human activities are the cause**.

My mother would describe our actions or lack of action as cutting off our noses to spite our faces. The COVID pandemic has impacted our lives in ways we could not have imagined before it struck. However, it has not caused near the damage as the pandemic of greed that has overtaken our land. In some ways, the devastation of COVID is being made worse by our greed.

Greed is an addiction and must be treated as such. First, we must recognize that most of us suffer from some level of greed. Second, we must work to remove it from our habits of life. Third, we must identify the ways it is controlling our society purging greed from our way of being and channeling the energy it burns into fulfilling the trust responsibilities God placed on all of God’s children.

Prayer: Lord, free us from the addiction of greed and open our hearts to fulfilling our sacred responsibilities to you, one another, and our earth. Amen.

*https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/about/jubilee-platform/

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.

The Future

Living in the Spirit

September 29, 2021

Scripture Reading: Psalm 8
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God
   and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
   you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
   and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
   whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth!

What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? God loves each of us and all of us. God’s Love is so powerful that it comes to us uniquely and gains synergy, greater power, in communion with one another. We live in a time when we need to harness that power for the good, leaving no room for what divides and conquers. I was reminded of a song included on Barbra Streisand’s Album Higher Ground. The song is entitled At the Same Time*.  It talks about diversity, change, and hope for the future.

The USA has become a great empire. Most historic great empires have failed, primarily rotting from within. Our challenge is to be the first that overcomes the forces that divide us and work toward a world where all have enough, acting together for the betterment of everyone. That can be done in as many ways as there are nations and cultures within our world. We do not contribute to success when we capture ideas and ideals and use them as ammunition to kill the very heart of positive progress. Socialism is not a bullet; capitalism is not a knife. They are no longer economic ideas; they have been hijacked by those caught in greed and lust for power as ammunition, distracting us as their means to divide and conquer.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows we can live into the vision of creation. Jesus knew the way when he called us to be one in his prayer** before his crucifixion. Let it be so.

Prayer: Lord, make us whole, make us one with justice for all. Amen.

*The lyrics can be seen at https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/barbrastreisand/atthesametime.html

**See John 17

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.

Partners in God’s Service

Living in the Spirit

September 28, 2021

Scripture Reading: Genesis 2:18-24

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
this one shall be called Woman,
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

As quoted from the NRSV Bible, the word partner used here is more accurately translated from the Hebrew as helper*. NRSV leans more toward equality of responsibility, which the word helper may no longer possess. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a helper as a relatively unskilled worker who assists another, especially by manual labor. As I look back on my life, I realize that I grew up in a very egalitarian environment. Everyone was expected to do their part based on the skills they possessed. At the age of five, I gathered eggs and feed chickens, my sister and mother worked in the garden, my dad was driving a tracker baling hay, while my brother, balancing on a moving sled, became strong as an ox sledding hay bales as they popped out of the bale. I could not lift a bail of hay, much less stack it in a perfect square cube as high as my arms could reach. My over-sensitive sinuses precluded me from doing much in the garden, and my sister was afraid of chickens. Our tasks changed as we aged, and progress introduced milking machine and round hay bales. I cringed when I read the derogatory words, unskilled worker. No job in the world does not require some level of expertise.

Recognizing the worth and skills of every person is essential for our attaining the goal of building a world where everyone has enough for the necessities of life. That is important in every aspect of life and never more important than in marriage and families with children.

Prayer: Lord, help us redefine the cultural values that allow us to overvalue some things while undervaluing others. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5828.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.