What Do We Build Our Lives Around?

I am just coming off quite a big week. On July 19, my son, Jonah, married his love, Eliza, and they now begin a new chapter in their collective lives. It was an intimate ceremony with just a small group present – as we heard them profess their beautiful vows to each other. The backdrop was an incredible mountain range in northern Maine.

Like with any wedding, union or exchange of vows, there is a profession of faith in this other person to stand by you – through ‘better and worse’ and to trust that this other will be there for you no matter what. It is a testament to finding something that is ‘true’ that you can build a life around.

In our first reading today from Exodus 32, Moses has come down from Mt. Horeb with the “ten commandments” which were written by God in stone as a promise to the people of Israel. These were to be what the Israelites built their lives around. Moses comes down from the mountain, however, to find the Israelites in a party of sorts. He then realizes that they are dancing around a fire and paying homage to the image of the golden calf that they have made.

Side note: Moses had been on the mountain for a few days, and folks weren’t sure he was coming back. So they melted all the gold that they had together and made the calf that they now danced around and “worshipped.”

Moses, of course, is furious. He throws the stones he’s carrying to the ground and then takes their golden calf and throws it into the fire they’re dancing around. Later he talks to God and says, “This people has indeed committed a grave sin in making a god of gold for themselves!” God agrees.

I relate this story because it begs the question, “In what do we put our faith? What do we really trust? What do we consider “true” that we build our lives around?”

How might you answer that question? It is not a simple one by any means.

Following the wedding, my wife, Lynne, and I took a little vacation time in Maine. As part of my ‘vacation reading,’ I read a book called At Work In The Ruins: Finding Our Place In The Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics and All Other Emergencies by Dougald Hine (I know, not exactly everyone’s idea of ‘beach reading’…). But Hine tries to engage his readers in thinking about what, ultimately, they put their faith in. Is it government? AI? Technology? Science?

He says that none of these will offer us a solution to the mess we’re in because they have all been part of the reason we have gotten to where we are. Part of his conclusion is that it is in indigenous (pre-modern) wisdom that we will find paths and that these will require us to remain in a difficult in-between space of not-knowing before we will begin to see what we can build a new way of life upon (versus relying on the systems we have built modern life upon now).

It’s no secret that in the United States we place our faith in money, success, power/control and convenience and ease. These are the things that, generally speaking, we think that if we have, we will be OK. We remain “true” to the profit margin, annual economic growth and competition. 

Like the Israelites, however, we, too, have put our faith in things that are not really worthy of our trust. Like Moses tells God, “This people has indeed committed a grave sin in making a god of gold for themselves!” Our “god” may not be a golden calf, but we also often worship the god of gold.

Regardless of ideology and political party, says Hine, we’ve put our faith in something that will fail us. Part of his book explores the ways that our current systems – in pursuit of “things” and wealth – have always been an extractive, harmful system. These systems caused climate change and disruption for so many already, and they are now causing disruption for the primary beneficiaries of the systems. The emergencies we face have been here for a while. It’s just that our privilege has protected us from them.

And, yet, Hine remains hopeful for our future. How?

In our gospel today from Matthew 13, Jesus tells some parables to his disciples. He talks about the mustard seed which is the smallest seed and yet it grows into the “largest of plants.” And he tells the parable of the woman who mixes some yeast into the dough that goes on to provide unexpected leaven to the entire batch.

There is, no doubt, a subversive element to these teachings, and what I love about the gospels is that – even if we have placed our ‘faith’ in all the wrong things – there is a path that is available to us that can bring us back to ‘right relationship’ with each other and the world.

Hine, for his part, puts his faith in this subversive (and often unrecognized) element. He said that it can be a ‘humbling moment’ when we realize that what we put our faith in is, actually, not trustworthy and that there is another path available to us if we are willing to let go of our certainty.

Jesus called it the kin-dom of God. Moses called it the ‘ten commandments.’

These are what the ancestors of our tradition put their faith in and tried to remain true to. This is what they used to orient their lives. And while I know that we must discern what these mean – as individuals and as a collective – there is something fundamental about them that has produced great and revolutionary people.

This path will require us, however, to reflect deeply and honestly on what our priorities are – what we wish to remain true to – and will likely require something of us that puts us at odds with our mainstream culture. 

And it will necessitate behavior changes – what Hine calls disinvestment in these systems (borrowing language from Vanessa Machado de Oliveira). He says that “as we wake up to the costs of the ways we have been living, there’s an urge to escape, to get off the grid…But it’s almost impossible to get off that grid…and tends to be a mark of privilege [to do so]. Disinvestment is a different kind of response, where we give up on modernity’s promises: ‘we do not invest in the future of modernity, while staying with modernity’s troubles, facing our responsibilities, and gradually developing discernment to reorient our desires away from modernity’s violence and unsustainability – without resorting to heroism or escapism.”

As I read Hine’s words, I can’t help but think of Jesus – gathered with so many who could not escape the violence and unsustainability of empire as they lived in first century Palestine – offering them another way together. A way of love. A way of community. A way of enough.

What I love, however, is that even if we are not sure what this means or how to do it, God has already “baked in” some elements into the system that enable our return and enable the flourishing of the kin-dom. The possibilities already exist in our life and can grow if given a chance.

For today, take some quiet time and just reflect on what is “true” for you these days and what guides your life. If there are changes that you want to make, ask God for guidance and begin yet another process of disinvestment in that which cannot take us to where our hearts desire us to go.