KEEP OUR STEPS... Psalm 119.129-136; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
Many of us wear a FitBit, the brand name, or some similar device to keep track of our steps each day. Mine is designed to keep me on the move, with hints of Way To Go, almost there, you are in the zone! I can run and with its GPS it will produce a map of my route, my pace per mile, my heart rate and breath rate. I have a friend who goes rowing with hers. She forgot to turn it off and the map had her rowing all the way up Stoneway.
The American Heart Association recommends 10,000 steps a day as a goal for adults. It is based on a longitudinal study of Quaker Farmers in Ohio and Pennsylvania who are so heart-healthy, the medical establishment had to examine them. What they found is Quaker farmers keep moving all day long. Of course, they don’t drive a car, ride a bus or take an Uber. Not so hard for them to get that many steps. I have to admit, my Fitbit keeps me accountable. I get a weekly report on the app on my phone about steps, sleep, heart rate, breathing, etc. It compares to the previous week and files weekly reports I can examine for the last 6 months. If I wanted to, I could keep track of glasses of water each day, food log, weight loss or gain, and maybe even my mood swings! IT compares my data with other women my age so I can glow in my health and well-being. It’s quite something, this data driven device. Used to be I just went by how my clothes fit:)
I wonder if the Psalmist would enjoy a Torah Fitbit, some way to measure the steadiness of her steps as she pants after God’s commandments, her desire for obedience so powerful as to take her very breath away. In this paean to Torah, written in 22 parts, each section starts with a different Hebrew Letter: ours today is Pei, the 17th letter. It’s symbolic meaning is mouth.
At times, Torah has been reduced to the Holiness Code or just the 10 commandments by Christians. We are known to reject the God of the Old Testament as way too violent for our tender ears. We like sweet Jesus, who disrupts, but does it gently. We lose so much with this view: the beauty of the poetry of the Hebrew language, the knowledge and understanding of the whole of life, every single part of it is caught up in the law, teaching and instruction of Torah, even the powerful voice of Adonai, whom we name Lord, who speaks, directs and redeems ancient Israel. The Psalms have lots of words to identify this great gift God has given: precepts, decrees, words, promise, commandments, statutes. A rich vocabulary to define the eternal covenant first given to Israel, then fully realized in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A covenant still in place, we have to be reminded. KEEP OUR STEPS...
The scaffolding of faith and practice are built into this Torah Teaching before us today. There is no way to have ‘just a spirituality’ that only deals with what gets labeled ‘things of God’ without the full examination of the practices of this faith in our daily lives. You might hear some Christians say, “don’t be so political. Just stick to the Bible.” Well, the Bible is full of politics, communal relationships, intrigue, revenge, alliances. Its why our Psalmist cries out: Turn to me. I long for Your Commandments, I pant, like a dog on a hot summer afternoon, I want Your instruction so badly. Be gracious to me.” We know about how much we need God’s graciousness to come near. Otherwise we are barbaric toward one another. It is in the concrete actions of love toward God and love toward neighbor by which we are measured. It is the danger of iniquity, sin, that is ever before us. What Torah keeping does for us is to focus our whole being - mind, heart, soul and body, -in movement toward the nourishment of relationship with God in the unfolding of relationship with God’s precepts and God’s gathered people all over the world. We are under obligation to take up the burdens of others in our enacting love for our neighbors. Even if we don’t exactly understand their burdens. It is the realization of this fundamental truth: We love, because God first loved us and sent us Jesus Christ, the full embodiment of Torah. “Keep Our Steps...”
Jesus brings the whole realm of God into view as He goes about teaching, healing, confronting, challenging, disrupting, the religious and political status quo. “Hey, My kingdom is here. See the Mustard Seed? It’s like that. Starts out small, buried with the good seed, and then becomes this enormous bush that risks overtaking the good wheat. What do you think of that?” Or how about, “My kingdom is like leaven. I’m the woman who makes it from rotten bread left out to spoil, not too long or too short, takes just a small amount for 3 measures of flour, enough to make 100 loaves.” Common farming or household management is described here. Is this a predictable action by Dear Jesus? Is God’s reign just a keeping on, keeping on? Doin the same thing over and over?
Or might it be that our image of God is too diminutive?
What God is not: our personal assistant to make our life better. God is the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. This God does not grow weary or faint. He’s not turned His back on His precious creation. This Word is near. This is the power we must claim and proclaim, as we go about loving God and loving our neighbor.
Let me suggest a radical idea. God is in the midst of the building of Her Kingdom using the tools of rebellion, racial justice and Black Lives Matter. Makes us white Christians so uncomfortable, but thats exactly right! Look at the Mustard Seed! Look at the leaven for the bread! Totally disruptive. And we cannot even begin to imagine where its going to end. BUT, we have this Torah Promise of redemption and shalom, from the very beginning of Scripture, even as Israel waits with baited breath to enter the Promised Land. Moses says, “The Word is drawn near to you today.” This same Word came to the Psalmist, and then was fully embodied in Jesus. This Word is not dead. This Word is alive. Remember? Resurrection! This Word is still moving through our world and our lives to bring about a complete, in-depth, comprehensive, radical restructuring of life as the kingdom of heaven rather than a patriarchal white supremacist empire. It is what we pray for every week: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Do we mean it? We’re going to be uncomfortable for a long time. Maybe the rest of our lives. “Keep Our Steps...”