WORSHIP

Pastor's Message

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

            I think many people these days feel overwhelmed. Whether that shows up in numbness, withdrawal, or anxiety, there is this sense that things are spinning out of control, and it seems so much larger than we can understand, much less address. What can be done when it seems like so many of our community’s problems feel so intractable and massive.

            The quote above is perhaps one you have seen and is attributed to a mashup of writings from the Jewish Talmud, basically ancient Jewish biblical scholars commenting on the texts from the Hebrew bible. This quote is in reference to Micah 6:8 which states:

 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
   And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
   and to walk humbly with your God.

It would be easy to read this as a call to squeeze the absolute most out of every moment of life, to enact justice everywhere, to embrace and bring about mercy and humility and all these things to their fullness right now. I don’t know about you but that sounds exhausting! It is daunting as the Talmud points out to address the vastness and perniciousness of the world’s sorrow and sadness.

            Yet if we examine the text more closely and listen to the Talmud’s wisdom, we see that we are in fact not obligated to bring this work to completion. That’s not the ask or the expectation. We are simply to begin the work, to start work and see where it leads. Julie Andrews was on to something when she sang, “Let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start.”

            So, what does that look like? Well, the answers are as diverse as the number of people reading this column. Perhaps it is investing more in your faith community, or a non-profit organization or club that captures your heart and attention. Maybe it looks like some form of activism or engagement. Maybe it is something that begins with yourself, reordering your life’s priorities to work on and heal yourself. After all, an empty cup has no water to pour into others.

            Whatever the work you discern through contemplation and prayer, know that you are not obligated to complete it, but you ought to start it. The goal, as Martin Luther put it, is not so much in being but in becoming. You are not now what you will be. It is true that we have grace for those sins of omission, things we fail to do, however, we ought to take comfort, to take heart, that through God’s grace we are empowered to “sin boldly” to make good faith mistakes living out of the grace, love and mercy we already have in Christ.

As Ever in Christ,

Pastor CJ