stepping into a old story
Reflection for the Monday in the First Week of Lent
It didn’t start with Jesus. The command to do justice runs back, through the prophets, into the mists of time, back to semi-mythical figures like Moses and Jacob and Abraham.
If we take seriously the idea that our Lenten fast is that we live a life like Jesus, who loved his enemies and served the poor and gave away all he had and demanded justice from those in power, if we live like that, then we are stepping into a stream of justice-seekers stretching back thousands of years. We make ourselves part of a story, the story we read in Scripture, in the words and actions of the Hebrew prophets and forefathers. In a world that was defined - then as now - by the idea that might makes right, that the strongest will always win and the most ruthless will dominate and any sign of weakness or softness will get you killed, the people of God were living a different story.
“You will be partial to the poor.”
“You will not hate.”
“You will not take vengeance.”
“You will love your neighbor.”
Jesus took these words seriously, so seriously that he took them to their farthest logical conclusions.
“You will love your enemy.”
“You will turn the other cheek, go the other mile.”
“You will die before you are willing to kill.”
“You will welcome all, serve all, give up all.”
When we step outside the rushing waters of the modern world during these forty days of Lent, we make a choice to step outside of the very old and yet still very relevant ideas that rule the world:
look out for yourself,
take all you can,
give no ground,
your home is your castle,
you owe nothing to no one.
We leave those rules behind, and make ourselves part of God’s story, the story that started in the sands of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Sinai and the waters of the Jordan thousands of years ago. We inhabit a better story, a story that seems nonsensical and foolish to the powers that be, a story that cannot win wars or make us rich or keep us safe, but which gives the world life like nothing else can. This is our story. These words to Moses are words for us. Let them shape who we become when we emerge from the desert.