Dear Friends,
It’s been a tough week for a lot of us, huh? Less than a week ago, I was sharing my Diocese’s newsletter with information on our call to “vote faithfully.” The next day, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. She was, as it says in the Book of Proverbs (and as Rachel Held Evans describes so joyfully in A Year of Biblical Womanhood), a woman of valor in the truest sense. The days since then have been fitful and frightening, but all of it brings into focus the work our faith demands of us as members of a community.
These requirements are highlighted in this week’s reading from the book of Philippians: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”
As some have written, we should vote with the needs of the most vulnerable among us in mind. This demand touches a more tender place for some of us than for others. When I first became engaged, for example, I knew I could marry in the state where I was planning my wedding, but could not in the state where I was living. I fret over my health insurance constantly. And I have the privilege of doing that with white skin. It’s easy to see why Bishop Curry describes voting as a Christian obligation - and that being nonpartisan is not the same as being morally neutral.
So, what do we do now? My last two newsletters focused on the need to step back sometimes, but sometimes the demands of the world are greater. In praying with my congregation’s Vestry recently, I concluded with a paraphrase from Perkei Avot (Chapters/Ethics of the Fathers): “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief…You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” These are the days in which we are called to return to the work, and that looks many ways. It looks like:
Voting, and ensuring others have the right to vote and access to the polls
Sharing powerful stories, like this simple accounting of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s importance in the board book, “I Look Up to Ruth” - and grownups can’t go wrong with this post on RBG over at the Salt Project
Praying for justice - and then acting for justice (as the saying goes, if you ask God to move a mountain, prepare to wake up next to a shovel)
Ask: how does God want to use my life? We might be a bit late for Fall Ember Days, but it’s never the wrong time to ask these questions, or the wrong age? Ask yourself. Ask your kids and your friends. Vocation is not just for priests. We all are called in our own ways.
Back to the work my friends. This week I’m keeping “We Will Make No Peace with Oppression” performed by The Porter’s Gate at front of mind.
Do not abandon the work.
A. Bird