Monday, March 05, 2007
From AscensionNYC
Monday in the Second Week in Lent
Psalm 79:1-9
Daniel 9:3-10
Luke 6:27-38
The Measure You Give
As most of us never tire to admit, living inNew York Central Park to the enormous variety of experience through the arts, to the vast bustle of shopping, shopping, and more shopping. "The City" is a place of individual and communal accomplishment and enjoyment. Indeed the very streets and subways teem with people who bear a vast array of social, economic, and racial differences, each person with their own rich and complex heritage. As the old film stated, "There are eight million stories in the naked city." Our consideration of ourselves and of "others:" the person down the hall, across from our cubicle, even in the next church pew, seems to be a theme of today's readings.
The psalmist bewails the state of the world and our inextricability from it: "Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?" he asks. In the next reading, Daniel, though penitent decries an "open shame" which exists on the people ofJudah
In the midst of this deep and disquieting contemplation the Gospel reading offers the seeds for an alternative set of behaviors most us have heard in one form or another since childhood, and which exists in all major religious movements: "do to others as you would have them do to you." How often has this adage been turned into a justification for hitting back against those who have hit us? The language of conflict sometimes appears to be a palliative: "the war on poverty," "the war on drugs," "the war on cancer," to name a few. Might this stance of "war" be a distracting facet of the problem and not the solution? Surely the gospel offers a more complex, alternative message. I'm reminded of Mahatma Gandhi who said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
To reflect critically on ourselves, to pray and contemplate on our habits of mind, to apply these "golden rules" is, of course, enormously challenging. As we rush out the door with our venti lattes and rush through the hubbub ofNew York
Daniel 9:3-10
Luke 6:27-38
The Measure You Give
As most of us never tire to admit, living in
The psalmist bewails the state of the world and our inextricability from it: "Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?" he asks. In the next reading, Daniel, though penitent decries an "open shame" which exists on the people of
In the midst of this deep and disquieting contemplation the Gospel reading offers the seeds for an alternative set of behaviors most us have heard in one form or another since childhood, and which exists in all major religious movements: "do to others as you would have them do to you." How often has this adage been turned into a justification for hitting back against those who have hit us? The language of conflict sometimes appears to be a palliative: "the war on poverty," "the war on drugs," "the war on cancer," to name a few. Might this stance of "war" be a distracting facet of the problem and not the solution? Surely the gospel offers a more complex, alternative message. I'm reminded of Mahatma Gandhi who said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
To reflect critically on ourselves, to pray and contemplate on our habits of mind, to apply these "golden rules" is, of course, enormously challenging. As we rush out the door with our venti lattes and rush through the hubbub of
Jeffrey Johnson
