Friday of the Second Week of Lent
Reading today’s riveting and tragic stories from Genesis and Matthew, I can’t help but feel anger. Anger at these stories of greed, violence, cruelty, and injustice. Joseph’s brothers consider killing him or leaving him to die in a cistern, before finally deciding to sell him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver and then Jesus tells a parable about a landowner’s tenants who seize and kill two groups of servants and eventually the landowner’s own son. There is a large part of me that wants to agree with the chief priests and elders of the people who respond that the tenant should “put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants…” (Mt 21:41). Of course Jesus’ response shifts the focus and calls us to remember Psalm 118 “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes.” Turning to consider the victim, the rejected stone, is not only a good reminder spiritually, but also a best practice in bystander intervention. If you witness a problem as a bystander, one option is to create a “distraction” where you approach the victim with a reason for them to leave the situation, perhaps acting like you know them and creating an excuse to get them away to safety. Obviously, there are a lot of factors in potentially dangerous situations, but I wonder what would have happened if someone had intervened for Joseph or the landowner’s servants or son. We know the end of Joseph’s story. We know how God used his brothers’ horrible act of greed and selfishness so that Joseph could save people from famine. We also hear Jesus calling us to be a people that will produce fruit for the Kingdom of God. (Mt 21:43)
In the podcast Another Name for Every Thing (Season 3, Episode 4), Richard Rohr and his colleagues from the Center for Action and Contemplation discuss Jesus’ life of nonviolent resistance. Talking about Jesus, Richard says, “So it’s non-cooperation with stupid systems, ignoring them, and building up a better system by his teaching to his disciples. Now, his name for the better system was the kingdom of God or the reign of God. That’s a unique approach. The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. ‘Hey guys, we’re just going to do it better. And I’m going to give you the rituals, and the keys, and the teaching to how to do it better, but let’s not be anti - people. Let’s be for something.’”
What do we stand for? How can we practice something better? This applies to so many issues in our society. The difference between being “anti-abortion” and “pro-life”, or “anti-war” and “pro-peace.” Some of the goals are the same, but the approaches and the ways we would spend our time and energy are extremely different. This shift takes practice. Doing something different, something better, takes practice. What small steps or actions can we take today to practice? Jesus gave you and me the Kingdom of God. So what do we stand for and how do we support the stone that the builders rejected? He gave us the Kingdom, how do we produce its fruit?
Peace,
LeeAnn Meyer