We're All in This Together

 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.    Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.  Do not be conceited. (Romans 12:13-16 NIV)

When you go to worship, you never know how you will be fed that week.  Sometimes it's the sermon.  Sometimes it is a particular song.  Sometimes it is communion, or the scripture reading, or the children's sermon, or even in the fellowship.  For me yesterday, it was the quote by Lilla Watson that Pastor Chad used in his sermon.  It stuck with me all day.  The more I thought about it, the more profound I found it:

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

 This is what, at its core, is wrong with the world today... or at least our country.  "Help" mostly comes in the form of the "greater" person coming to the aid of the "lesser" person.  I've even seen spiritual illustrations of sharing our faith as one person (at the top of a pit) helping the person at the bottom of the pit out.  Doesn't that say in an unspoken way that the person at the top has all the answers?

Our own liberation truly is bound up with every other person's.  And the only way to attain it is to work together as people all hurt by the same problems.  There are problems in this world and in this country that are not being solved because we think we have to give what we have to those who don't have it.  No!  We need to understand that when there are millions who don't have, then neither - really - do we.  There truly is a connection between all humanity that when one suffers, we all suffer.  To solve our problems, we have to start to feel that suffering again.  There is so much of it that we have become desensitized, even paralyzed to it.

I see beautiful signs of what the world should be when I work with Holy Cross in outreaches like Project Matthew or Hesed House.  It really feels a lot less like we are "helping" others and a lot more like we are all liberating one another.  It's not one group giving and another taking.  It is everyone sharing the grief and joy that brings us all together.

No one has all the answers.  Therefore no one can stand at the top of the pit to give the hand up.  Really, the best we can do is to work together to build some steps from the sides of the pits and walk out hand-in-hand.

Father,
Help us to truly feel our connection with every other person in this world.  Only when we feel the grief and despair as our own will we be moved to work together to solve the problems. Amen.

Joys:  A Sunday school room full of toddlers and preschoolers; both my granddaughters on my lap; Kevin's excitement about starting his new job on Friday.