Looking to our prophets for insights, instructions on how to live a meaningful life we are consistently directed to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8). This our mandate.
How does this actually play out now? In this unforgettable spring and summer of 2020?
The other vital phrase from the prophets is to “Let justice flow like a mighty stream” and yet we watch as the stream becomes a trickle in these desperate times of the Covid-19; the separation of loved ones from one another, the protective cover we provide for one another, the arms that envelope all of us are not there. Anger roiling in the streets is a manifestation of the deep running frustration that we are not meeting the needs of the most vulnerable, and they are growing in number. As we are stuck at home with our masks covering our faces trying to make do with the intense loneliness each of us is experiencing.
What do we do?
What do we do to change this dynamic? What do we do to reclaim our joy and complete or God-given mandate of making that stream flow mightily down the mountain once again (Amos 5:24)?
A brief story tells of the Warsaw Rabbi who went around collecting children, teaching them, foraging food to fill their empty stomachs and gathering the newly orphaned to help them live another day. Do you know what he taught those children and those grown-ups who would listen?
He would tell them, “The best thing you can do for another person is to do them a favor.” In the depths of hell here was a teacher telling people to do favors for each other. If you can do favors, lift people up while bullets and malnutrition were killing people in the streets, are we really so helpless?
Friends, these are trying times and when we withdraw into our protective cocoons and self isolate, we dam that stream; we prevent it from flowing down the mountain clearing the path for those who need water, refreshment, a moment of calm, knowing someone is upstream working to clear the path.
We are directed biblically to love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Lev 19:18). How can we accomplish this? By doing what this teacher taught his students, doing favors. You see, when we help another person, we remove a rock from the dam and allow a little water to free flow. Then the next person removes another rock, an impediment for the sustaining water of life and more gushes down. We become fully human when we love our neighbor. In other words, we love ourselves more when we reach beyond the borders of our own self-interest. How do you love your neighbor when you do not love yourself so much? When you help someone else find a home, get equal education, get access to medical and mental health.
So you want to know the secret of how to love yourself better? Give that love away by working to make this a more perfect world, doing a favor removing a rock, letting the stream become a river. We are able to wholly love when we remove the impediments for justice and allow God’s purifying water to roll down that mountain, washing away all the detritus of hunger, prejudice, homelessness, and living in a two-tiered society.
And how will we do this? Our combined voices will be heard in the halls of power, all starting at your table. It will not be easy to remove the rocks but with you we can do it! It can only happen with you. Remember- apart we are adrift, alone and powerless. Together we are mighty, powerful, able to bring water to a parched land.
Now more than ever we need each other and to free ourselves from the restrictive bonds of this time.
God is waiting for His hands and feet to make this a reality. You nd I are those hands and feet.
