Aim High, Then Look Around

I was talking with a woman lately who was part of an “intervention” for her brother a few years back.  Her brother had been drinking a lot lately, and the consequences of his drinking had been mounting. So she and two other family members met with the brother one night and tried to give him some tough love about their concerns and the real impacts that the drinking was having on everyone. They offered their help, love and support but really wanted to make sure that they were clear. His drinking needed to stop.

Tough love is never easy to take in. Tough love is rarely easy to give. I wonder if you have been on either side of that equation?

Today’s readings are a form of tough love from God and Jesus, and they are a lot to sit with.

In the first reading from Isaiah 1, the prophet (speaking for God) is talking to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. God is making them aware of their “sin.” In traditional understandings, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was said to be sexual in nature and has been weaponized against a lot of people – especially the LGBTQ+ community. But we know that this is just not the case. Ezekiel, for example, says explicitly that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy (16:49).”

Arrogant. Overfed. Unconcerned. Neglecting the poor and needy. Throughout the scriptures, God seems much less concerned with what goes on in the bedroom and very concerned with what goes on in the boardroom! And historically it’s been easier for institutions like the church to go after sexual sins than confront greed, affluence and neglect of the poor!

And so Isaiah says to the people (and I quote here at length),

What care I for the number of your sacrifices?
says the LORD. I have had enough of [them]…In [your sacrifices]
I find no pleasure. Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me.
Your festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load.
When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you;
Though you pray the more, I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes;
cease doing evil; learn to do good.
Make justice your aim: redress the wronged,
hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. 

I wonder what is coming up in you as you read these words? What does it get you thinking of in our modern context?

If we were doing this study in person, we’d form small groups and list all of the things that we think God could be talking about in this day and age. I’d do this not to overwhelm us but to get us focused on what God might be saying in the world right now – and especially to our country and the Christians of this country. Would our collective “faith response” be what God is seeking?

The critique doesn’t get any easier in the gospel from Matthew 10. Jesus addresses his disciples and says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.” He goes on to say that families will be set against each other and says that “whoever does not take up their cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”

Woof!

Clearly these are tough love teachings from Jesus.  He cares so much for his followers that he wants to tell them the truth about what is really happening in their lives and what discipleship might require of us.

In the past, I’d read readings like the ones from today and shy away from them because I could never live up to them. I lived in more of a binary faith world, and if I wasn’t able to do it fully, I would feel less than. And there was always some person who I’d read or hear about who was doing it better or more fully than I was.

But I love the ending from the passage of Isaiah. The prophet encourages us to “make justice your aim” meaning that we are called to keep aiming towards that – knowing that we will never “arrive” at justice. The same goes for redressing wrongs, hearing the orphan’s plea and defending the widow. We will never do these 100%, but maybe we can keep looking for opportunities to lean into this a little more. Holding an intention is a powerful spiritual discipline because, in the spiritual life, we move closer to that which we attend to.

The same is true with “taking up our cross.” While this has something to do with carrying the burdens that we each face, it also has a lot to do with engaging the pain and harm in the world and trying to be agents of transformation. In Judaism they call this tikkun olam (the healing or repair of the world) and one of my favorite Talmudic sayings says, “It is not our duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”

And also, just so we all hear it, focusing on our own healing and wellness IS, in fact, part of the wellness and healing of the world. Jesus even questioned what we really profit if we lose ourselves in the process of doing anything. So please attend to yourselves and to those around you. This is holy and good work. Jesus’ counsel today, however, is “just don’t stop there.”

My wife, Lynne, is a yoga instructor and begins all of her yoga classes with inviting participants to do intention setting. What is it people hope for as a result of this practice on this day?

We might consider doing the same (if we don’t already). Maybe we make it our aim/intention to have our eyes, ears and hearts opened this day – to injustice, to wrongs that need to be redressed, to the widows and orphans in our midst. And maybe we pray that we will see, hear or feel a path forward to try to address those in some small way (but if you feel called to a big way, go for it!).

This week, may we aim high but keep our focus right in front of us.