I’ll start right off today with a quote:
This quote is from Bishop Steven Charleston, a retired bishop of the American Episcopal Church. Those of you who attend Church of the Open Door in person should be well familiar with Bishop Steven, since I have read and quoted him to you for years now. He is a Native American of the Choctaw people, former Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, and a prolific and profound writer.
I love his base idea here that we -- all of us -- are in a working relationship with the Holy Spirit. We are not here just as another piece of creation. As he phrases it, we are not here just to “sit and look pretty.” We are here as partners in the process of creation, because life is an un-finished act. Creation was never meant to be just a one-and-done event. Hope is, as yet, un-realized. There is work to be done still and we are – hopefully -- here to do it.
It’s all in our contract -- the implied contract we have with the Holy Spirit that comes with our life. We are, indeed, given this gift of life freely and with no strings attached. We are given the gift of waking up each morning to a new day, given another day to be part of God’s creation, being with those we love, seeing the sky and feeling the wind, thinking and creating and being. We get all of this but in exchange the Holy Spirit asks us to be here, ready and willing to participate in the process of working on this unfinished life – to act to bring hope to the point of being fully realized everywhere.
Well, that all sounds lovely, but what does it mean in concrete terms? What is it the Spirit actually wants from us in fulfillment of our end of the contract? Luckily for us, this is an easy one this week – this is a question which has answers scattered all throughout scripture. The problem will be to pick which ones.
We can start out with our old favorite, Micah 6:6-8 – always a good place to start:
This scripture has the benefit of not only telling us what God wants us to do -- act with justice, love mercy and kindness, and be humble before God – but it also tells us the kind of performative worship that God does not want.
The first chapter of the prophet Isaiah has a verse very similar to this one with a few additional must do’s:
Now I’ve always taken the Old Testament language of widows and orphans pretty literally – children without parents and married women left without husbands, but in my studying for this message I came on information that gave me a whole new way to look at what scripture says about widows and orphans.
Story International** a non-profit organization, began, as they put it, in the orphanage business – trying to help the most vulnerable of Guatemala’s poor. Over the years they have grown into something much larger – a multilevel organization trying to work with multiple generations to get to the heart of the devastating poverty in Guatemala rather than simply putting a band-aid on the most obvious wounds.
I’m not trying to push this organization because I know nothing of them but what I just read on their own site – which is very interesting, by the way -- but what they did give provide for me is a much broader understanding of just who is included in “widows and orphans” – and what that means to our understanding of scriptural uses of this phrase.
In most parts of the world, according to them, around 80% or more of the children living in orphanages have at least one living parent. They are situational orphans. Most of them didn’t become “orphaned” until they ended up in an orphanage where the parent or parents placed them themselves because they could no longer care for them sufficiently. A very high percentage of these “orphans” are the victims of poverty, war, disaster, abuse, neglect, illness, or death. It’s not as simple as parents dying and leaving a child alone.
Similarly, a “widow” is generally imagined as the woman left to fend for herself after the tragic death of her husband. In biblical times this was bad enough, but if we expand our understanding as we did with “orphans” we can see so many other causes for “widowhood” – women become “widows” in this biblical sense not just with the death of a spouse also because they left their spouse to escape abuse, or because their spouse is incarcerated, suffers from a chronic and debilitating illness, is engaged in war or conflict, is unemployed, addicted, or any number of others factors that leave a single parent to meet the needs of their children. This may be more modern language but, because people are people and always have been, there is no reason to believe that these very same situations did not exist in biblical times.
With these expanded definitions, we can see that the prophets of old as well as the teachers of today are talking about something much more widespread and deeply ingrained when we are called to action for "widows and orphans" by our part of the Spirit’s contract.
As I said earlier, I could go on all day with various scriptures describing what God’s Spirit desires from us while we are here enjoying this life, but we do not have all day, and these, I think, give us plenty to ponder on.
I’m going to finish here with the words of Jesus himself that state quite clearly what is required from us – from Matthew, chapter 25. A very familiar reading:
We are blessed with life and goodness. We are asked to share that blessing and care for each other – all of the least of these. There is nothing new here except for a new way of looking at the whole question. I like Bishop Steven’s way of seeing our exchange with the Spirit and our place in this beautiful creation as a contract.
Unfortunately we are living in a time right now when hate seems to grow every day. Hope is going unrealized because too many are wallowing in hatred and distain for others. A time when ordinary people routinely perform acts of unbelievable cruelty and callousness. It is now even more imperative than usual that those of us who care for our brothers and sisters and for this creation all around us do so actively and openly.
I recently reposted a meme on our facebook page. It reads, simply: “When hate is loud, Love must be louder.” Loud doesn’t necessarily require decibels but it does require presence -- active presence. Our contract only calls for us to be loud and present in our loving. May we continue to be so.
* Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage' Steven Charleston, (c) 2021, Broadleaf Books
** Story International, https://www.storyintl.org/
- "You and I have a contract with the Spirit. We have a working relationship. Our purpose in creation is not just to sit and look pretty, but to stand and go to work. Life is unfinished. Hope is not yet realized. There is much to be done, and much of it can only be done by you and I.....Each day the exchange is made: the Spirit offers me another day, and in return asks only that I make the most of it. The gift of life, of being with those I love, of seeing the sky and feeling the wind, of thinking and creating and being—all of this is freely exchanged for the promise within my soul, the possibility of great thoughts and caring actions, the ability to love, and the capability of change, if only I make the effort to meet the Spirit halfway.*
This quote is from Bishop Steven Charleston, a retired bishop of the American Episcopal Church. Those of you who attend Church of the Open Door in person should be well familiar with Bishop Steven, since I have read and quoted him to you for years now. He is a Native American of the Choctaw people, former Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, and a prolific and profound writer.
I love his base idea here that we -- all of us -- are in a working relationship with the Holy Spirit. We are not here just as another piece of creation. As he phrases it, we are not here just to “sit and look pretty.” We are here as partners in the process of creation, because life is an un-finished act. Creation was never meant to be just a one-and-done event. Hope is, as yet, un-realized. There is work to be done still and we are – hopefully -- here to do it.
It’s all in our contract -- the implied contract we have with the Holy Spirit that comes with our life. We are, indeed, given this gift of life freely and with no strings attached. We are given the gift of waking up each morning to a new day, given another day to be part of God’s creation, being with those we love, seeing the sky and feeling the wind, thinking and creating and being. We get all of this but in exchange the Holy Spirit asks us to be here, ready and willing to participate in the process of working on this unfinished life – to act to bring hope to the point of being fully realized everywhere.
Well, that all sounds lovely, but what does it mean in concrete terms? What is it the Spirit actually wants from us in fulfillment of our end of the contract? Luckily for us, this is an easy one this week – this is a question which has answers scattered all throughout scripture. The problem will be to pick which ones.
We can start out with our old favorite, Micah 6:6-8 – always a good place to start:
- With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?
- Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
- Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
- Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
- He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, but to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
This scripture has the benefit of not only telling us what God wants us to do -- act with justice, love mercy and kindness, and be humble before God – but it also tells us the kind of performative worship that God does not want.
The first chapter of the prophet Isaiah has a verse very similar to this one with a few additional must do’s:
- Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
Now I’ve always taken the Old Testament language of widows and orphans pretty literally – children without parents and married women left without husbands, but in my studying for this message I came on information that gave me a whole new way to look at what scripture says about widows and orphans.
Story International** a non-profit organization, began, as they put it, in the orphanage business – trying to help the most vulnerable of Guatemala’s poor. Over the years they have grown into something much larger – a multilevel organization trying to work with multiple generations to get to the heart of the devastating poverty in Guatemala rather than simply putting a band-aid on the most obvious wounds.
I’m not trying to push this organization because I know nothing of them but what I just read on their own site – which is very interesting, by the way -- but what they did give provide for me is a much broader understanding of just who is included in “widows and orphans” – and what that means to our understanding of scriptural uses of this phrase.
In most parts of the world, according to them, around 80% or more of the children living in orphanages have at least one living parent. They are situational orphans. Most of them didn’t become “orphaned” until they ended up in an orphanage where the parent or parents placed them themselves because they could no longer care for them sufficiently. A very high percentage of these “orphans” are the victims of poverty, war, disaster, abuse, neglect, illness, or death. It’s not as simple as parents dying and leaving a child alone.
Similarly, a “widow” is generally imagined as the woman left to fend for herself after the tragic death of her husband. In biblical times this was bad enough, but if we expand our understanding as we did with “orphans” we can see so many other causes for “widowhood” – women become “widows” in this biblical sense not just with the death of a spouse also because they left their spouse to escape abuse, or because their spouse is incarcerated, suffers from a chronic and debilitating illness, is engaged in war or conflict, is unemployed, addicted, or any number of others factors that leave a single parent to meet the needs of their children. This may be more modern language but, because people are people and always have been, there is no reason to believe that these very same situations did not exist in biblical times.
With these expanded definitions, we can see that the prophets of old as well as the teachers of today are talking about something much more widespread and deeply ingrained when we are called to action for "widows and orphans" by our part of the Spirit’s contract.
As I said earlier, I could go on all day with various scriptures describing what God’s Spirit desires from us while we are here enjoying this life, but we do not have all day, and these, I think, give us plenty to ponder on.
I’m going to finish here with the words of Jesus himself that state quite clearly what is required from us – from Matthew, chapter 25. A very familiar reading:
- ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
- Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
We are blessed with life and goodness. We are asked to share that blessing and care for each other – all of the least of these. There is nothing new here except for a new way of looking at the whole question. I like Bishop Steven’s way of seeing our exchange with the Spirit and our place in this beautiful creation as a contract.
Unfortunately we are living in a time right now when hate seems to grow every day. Hope is going unrealized because too many are wallowing in hatred and distain for others. A time when ordinary people routinely perform acts of unbelievable cruelty and callousness. It is now even more imperative than usual that those of us who care for our brothers and sisters and for this creation all around us do so actively and openly.
I recently reposted a meme on our facebook page. It reads, simply: “When hate is loud, Love must be louder.” Loud doesn’t necessarily require decibels but it does require presence -- active presence. Our contract only calls for us to be loud and present in our loving. May we continue to be so.
* Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage' Steven Charleston, (c) 2021, Broadleaf Books
** Story International, https://www.storyintl.org/
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