Sunday, July 12, 2020

Being the People of God

ONLINE REFLECTION, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY
JULY 8, 2020

TEXT:   Psalm 137

This psalm is not part of today’s daily lessons… but it connects to the Old Testament lesson which is from the Book of Deuteronomy.   It is near to the conclusion of the Hebrews 40-year sojourn in the wilderness.

During their time wandering between Egypt and the Promised Land of Canaan, the Hebrews had become a great and numerous people. Even though Moses had trouble managing the people, the creation of a numerous people was part of the promise made to Abraham in the Book of Genesis.

The Hebrew term is qahal Yahweh – the people of God.  A key element of God’s promise to Abraham was that this childless man would have descendants that numbered like the stars.

Moses was called to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt – not one or two people, but the whole mass of them.

Hundreds of years later – after Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah and other prophets – this people found themselves exiled from their Promised Land to the strange land of Babylon.

Nevertheless, they maintained their identity.  They identified themselves as a people of the covenant… a chosen people.  They would maintain that identity during the ensuing centuries as they spread across the known world in what was known as the diaspora – the dispersion.

Sadly, it was their maintaining their identity as a community of faith that led to the various pogroms, persecutions, and ultimately the 20th century Holocaust.  Yet, to this day, they maintain that identity as qahal Yahweh – the people of God.

In a sense, we lay down beside the waters of Babylon now.  We are in a time unlike anything we have ever seen.  We are largely separated from one another and from that which is sacred and holy to us.

The challenge is for us to be the qahal Yahweh – and not just individuals on our separate journeys.  We are to recognize the tie that binds and, as best we can, hold and treasure one another as members of a Holy Community.  Not just individuals, passing like ships in the night.

In the coming days, we will be seeking to be that community of faith, even though we are in a very strange time.  We must maintain our care for one another, seeing that we show that we both love God and one another as ourselves.

I invite your prayers… your commitment… your suggestions… for living into our role of being the people of God, even as we lay down by the waters of Babylon.

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