Daily Lesson for October 2, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hosea chapter 4 verses 1 through 3:

Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel;

   for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.

There is no faithfulness or loyalty,

   and no knowledge of God in the land. 

2 Swearing, lying, and murder,

   and stealing and adultery break out;

   bloodshed follows bloodshed. 

3 Therefore the land mourns,

   and all who live in it languish;

together with the wild animals

   and the birds of the air,

   even the fish of the sea are perishing.

Here is a picture of a community in crisis.

First, all sense of faithfulness and loyalty are lost. I take this perhaps to there is no civic or religious connection or commitment. Traditional institutions like various religious or civic organizations are abandoned and the resulting effect is that “there is no knowledge of God in the land”.  Religion, which literally means “binding”, no longer binds the community. In fact, nothing truly binds the community.  And what is left of God-language is merely a shell — some words without soul, law without grace, buildings without people. In a generation even the buildings fall in. 

And as T.S. Eliot said, “Where there is no Temple there are no homes.”

Soon the homes fall away also. “Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out,” the Lesson says, “bloodshed follows bloodshed.” Even the fish perish, the land and sea both falling prey to environmental degradation and destruction.

This is indeed a civilization in crisis, and even a whole civilization on the verge of collapse.

What can be done? Is it too late to help the community, to turn the tide of the civilization’s fate?

I take to heart what Mayor Mike  Rawlings of Dallas said after the terrible police shootings in his city two years ago — surely horrific acts of bloodshed following bloodshed. He said the “cancer of separatism” is killing our body politic. What we need is return to the three things that can save us: Faith, Hope, and Love.

“We must have faith in each other, in our institutions, we have to have hope and believe that tomorrow will be better, and we must love one another,” he said. 

Now is not the time for disengagement, for separatism, and for retreating into our homes, or neighborhoods, or tribes. Now is the time for engaging with one another, for volunteering, for joining a group or cause, for joining and actually going to a church, for getting a recycling program up and running, for walking blocks for a candidate, or for running ourselves for public office.

We need the things that bind us now.  We need community. We need community organizers. We need good government. We need good laws. We need good people making and interpreting good laws. We need the Temple. We need each other. 

Now is the time.