Together

Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. 

 - From Psalm 85

"Together" is a word that we take for granted. We do not dwell enough on it: it's meaning. It's important. It's urgency for enhancing human progress.

Together works, as a great idea, because it implies the coming together of two formerly discordant ideas. Together is wonderful, because it implies that I may find common ground with my enemy. We may be worlds apart in our values, our worldview, our highest hopes and aspirations (although I doubt people are too far removed from each other in each of these ideals); but if we're together, it means we will keep each other's backs, against common foes. In fact, it means that, since we have covenanted with each other, that anybody threatening our unity is a foe. 

Together is the lifeblood of the idea of marriage: that two people, as different from each other as the typical male, and typical female is, can wield an alliance that literally makes them one: one flesh, one symbiosis, one purpose under Heaven. The classical concept of male and female carries with it the powerful notion that two people, made essentially different from one another, are able yet to combine into an inseparable whole. 

If humanity is to survive, we must have this sense of total unity, between people that heretofore would never want to be in each other's company.

This is why the harsh divisions in the world are so dangerous today. You can't have together, if you can't at least admit that together is desirable, especially between two incompatible parties. 

And we will utterly fail as a species, if we cannot get ourselves together.

This is also why it's such a big deal, for mercy and truth to come together in God's strategy. Total mercy requires that we arrest our devotion to truth. But truth without mercy can be a lifeless corpse. Righteousness and peace, too, are risky partners. An excessive enforcement of righteousness is anything but peaceful, for the half of the population falling short. 

But we need to be together. Like oil and water. Like fire and ice. Like lions and lambs. We need that first. We need a commitment to each other first. And then let nothing tear us asunder. 

Punish - Pity - People

. . . it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God." 

 - From Hosea 1

Hosea had a decidedly anguished life. As a prophet, it seems, the nature of his prophesying seems to have been, to conduct his life so that he might experience, in parallel, what God had been dealing with, for generations, via the infidelities of His people Israel. 

The passage seems wrought with inconsistencies. Is God done with Israel, once and for all? Or what does it mean, though, that Judah will retain some favor in God's eyes?

Hosea's three eldest children received names with bitter meanings. One of the child's names represents God's punishment. The next represents God's withholding of pity, from Israel. And the third bears the message of "You are no longer God's people."

Somehow, those three kids got through life, with such names that may cast them as pariahs. Every time you said one of their names, you were reminded of God's horrible judgments upon His own chosen people.

But there's an interesting twist at the end - which is often the case when it comes to God ("but God . . . "). 

The people that had been pronounced no longer God's "people," are now called "Children of the Living God." Somehow . . . God is going to remain true to all of His pronouncements and dictates. He will not fail in a single iota of His assertions.

He gets around all of it, by converting what were once His possessions . . . His PEOPLE . . . into His family . . . His CHILDREN. 

And now we see how Hosea, with a wife and children that bring him such constant grief, can love them anyway, can love them as God does: They are his kids! 

And in thinking about other religions and how they may talk about being members of a nation, or a people, always remember: While they are a people, or a nation . . . we are a family. 

Lowly

Your strength does not depend on numbers, nor your might on the powerful. But you are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak, protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope.

 - From Judith 9

My reference today is from an Apocryphal book, Judith. Although not part of the accepted, final Canon of Scripture, I find the Apocrypha, with its setting during the time of the captivity of Israel between the Testaments, as particularly relevant in 2022, a time of increasing trouble for Western culture, of threats to freedom of speech and conscience, and of aggressive attacks against the institution of the Church, from official channels. 

It has been said that Christian European culture has held sway for too long, that a legacy of brutal racism and colonialism is the true characterization of Christianity having too much influence.

But that's bunk. 

People can appropriate Christianity for all kinds of purposes, from the most benign to the depths of terror. But that doesn't make it Christian. 

Let's review a sampling of those to whom the Christian message is sent:

• The lowly
• The oppressed
• The weak
• The forsaken
• Those without hope

It's hard for any of the above, to colonize anything. 

But temporal governments, the rare ones that may actually care for the groups in the list, can actually help them most effectively, by protecting freedoms of speech and assembly, and requiring due process, blind justice; prohibiting violent aggression, and supporting the right of people to defend themselves and their property from others that mean them ill. 

Christ is for the most needy of all of us. We don't need a class of power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats defining the needs of the needy for us, or presuming to have the right solutions. 

If the Church implemented it's mission faithfully, consistently, we may find oppressive governments disappearing, for lack of anything to do. If oppressive governments backed off  . . . we may find the Church thriving in its prime directive: Caring for "the least of these."

Brothers

But go to my brothers . . . 

 - From John 20

There's always a designated response involved in every interaction with the Lord. He gives us instructions, that usually begin with the word "Go . . . "

And when we have gone . . . the objective is usually, just to report what we have just seen, and heard, with our own eyes and ears. We are to be a witness of what has happened. We are to go, and tell others. 

Jesus directed Mary to go to "my brothers." She was to tell them that He was ascending to His Father and our Father; to His God and our God." But I think that what He was really saying, what I would guess is meant in the original language: "Hurry now. Go tell my brothers that I am here. I'm alive. But stress to them, that I am leaving soon."

Time was of the essence.

If you knew you had only 40 days left with your brothers and sisters . . . what would you do? What other activities would you give  up? What hobbies would you put on hold? What vacations, self-indulgent purchases, recreational plans, would you put on hold? And when you got together with them, how would you spend your time?

I would probably make it so our time was spent in a wooded, secluded setting. I would have musical instruments around. I would have good food available. I would have various meeting and recreational options for all of us. 

The entire dialogue between Jesus and Mary is touching in its urgency. And it is woven through with tenderness, courtesy of the phrase "Go tell my brothers."

My brothers. 

Family is a big deal. It's so essential of a concept, that God made it paramount throughout the Old Testament, and when the plan of salvation was finally laid out there, one of the main outcomes was that we would all be family. We're family. Brothers and sisters.

So, don't let anybody put-down the concept of family. Unlike the popular memes going around, that diminish the idea of "family" as, basically, people that make you feel good. Jesus' definition of family is describing people with imperfections. People that don't get what you're saying. People that doubt you all the time. People that deny you. People that betray you. 

People you're stuck with. 

This is what family is. We learn about it in the blood-related group we're born into. You can totally split with your father. But he will always be your father. 

This is the construct we are to operate under, when we look at our brethren in Christ, and are told that they are our family. 

Themselves

And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. 

 - From 2 Corinthians 5

Self-importance is a tense, stressful lifestyle. 

Until we're perfect, and immortal, there will always be something a little bit wrong. There is always something to complain about. The person that wants to complain does not need to look far. 

When your focus is on your own feelings, your own aches and pains, your own disappointments and frustrations, you find that the feeder of things to worry about, is constantly replenishing itself. 

There is no such thing as a perfect day. Even a sneeze, or a mosquito whirring about, makes a perfect day imperfect. Everything may be going right, all day. But inevitably, something goes wrong. And if you look just a little, probably scores of things are wrong, right there in your orbit. 

But if you live for others . . . if you live for Christ . . . even the little bit you do for them, seems like a refreshing sacrifice. When you feed your desire to care, and to serve, it multiplies in effectiveness in the good it does, and it multiplies in its benefits to you, personally. First, it takes your focus off of yourself, which has it's own benefits - you aches, pains, and worries magically drift away! Second, it helps a person with hidden pains and griefs buried deep, that you do not know are there. 

We never know the lasting impact of our good deeds to others. 

Living for yourself is costly, overwhelming, hurtful, disappointing. Yet, we emphasize it because, like children, it may be all we know. 

But living for others, is liberating. 

Heaviness

 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? 

 - From Psalm 42

The Psalmist was suffering depression, brought on by the trauma of exile. He was facing continual mocking from his Babylonian captors, that laughed at him and asked "Where is your God?"

When you have experienced trauma, your life seems to stop at one point in time. Your forward movement is blocked. You freeze. Your own thoughts become your enemy. It takes a toll on your physical health. Your soul, your very spirit, becomes heavy. There is a very real sense of stress, pain, and distress, in your chest, as though it had been weighed down by some force . . . except the sensation is like the weight is attached to your lungs, your heart, your other organs, and was pulling it all away from the safety of its skeletal support. 

When my marriage was at its lowest point, I became so troubled that the physical pain in my chest became overbearing. The pain traveled to my shoulder and down my arm. My breathing became weak and my heart raced. I felt that perhaps I was having a heart attack. An ambulance trip and overnight at the hospital showed me that it was not a cardiac problem. But stress that is severe enough, will do that to you. 

The last thing you need, when you're dealing with the effects of trauma, is a crowd of people gathering around you, mocking you. And it doesn't need to be Babylonians. It can be your closest friends and family. They mean well; but their misplaced words come across as taunts, like the friends of Job. 

Today, in a conversation, someone suggested to me that everybody should receive regular therapy sessions. Those that are emotionally and mentally well would need it, for training on how better to interact with the people around them who, inevitably, suffer from hidden emotional distress. 

If we knew the harm we do to others, by way of ordinary, simple words and deeds, we might act totally differently. And the world, in turn, would be a much better place. 

Conspired

I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, `Go, prophesy to my people Israel.

 - From Amos 7

Amos was no expert. He prophesied, while not being a prophet. He was not considered to have prophet talents. He didn't earn credentials in prophesy by going to a prophet college. He had no published, peer-reviewed writings that demonstrated his authority. He received no grants, did no research, studied no foreign languages. He was not ordained, nor had the hands of respected elders ever placed upon his head. 

He was just a herdsman. 

A guy from Flyover Country. He did not "appear successful," so he was not treated with deference. 

He might have worn a MAGA cap. He might have been called a Deplorable, from out of a basket of Deplorables. 

He might have resisted mandates from secular government . . . even those that were for our own good, or that were designed to keep other people safe. He held his own counsel. 

Whatever he did, though . . . it drove the movers, shakers, the wealthy, the puppetmasters, the experts crazy!

Amos was a spreader of misinformation, and he was a spreader of disinformation. He called out people with the power to have him executed. He was a spreader of conspiracy theories, or so the projecting authorities would have you believe, as they conspired, themselves, to keep themselves in power, and anyone challenging them, in check. 

Did Amos live in America, in 2022?