Daily Lesson for February 3, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 54 verses 2 and 3:

Enlarge the site of your tent,

and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out;

do not hold back; lengthen your cords

and strengthen your stakes.

3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left . . .

This is where the image of the big tent comes from.

It is a hope and a dream that our multitudes might be so many and so together that the tents would have to be stretched far wider.

These the tents of our nation, and states, and churches, and denominations, and board rooms, and universities, and governmental and and non-governmental agencies, and so much more.

But while we our stretch our curtains, the Scripture says, we also have to strengthen our stakes. In other words, we have to dig down deep into the grounding of our civic values and practices.

The things which must be strengthened include our commitments to:

Democracy as a practice

Protection of the vulnerable and the minority

Care for the sick, the aged, and the stranger

The inherit dignity of all people and their equality under the law

Equity amongst the genders and the races

The value of the common good -- including the good of our public schools

The support of decent conditions for those who labor -- including, especially, those who labor for our government, our military, our schools, an our churches

A free and independent judiciary

The right to protest and peaceable assembly for the purposes of redress

Truth and consequence

We want the tent broad. We want many people to come and be a a part. We want the chords drawn both to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south.

But if the tent is big, the stakes must also be deep. For in order for the tent to be big it must also be steady and firm and a sure shelter from the storm.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.