Comfort, Call, and Hope

Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

—Deuteronomy 6:6,7

In a world gone mad, this admonition from God is a source of comfort, a call, and hope. In world gone mad, there is no greater wisdom than that which does not come from us, but from the transcendent, transformative presence of God. To apply this wisdom to our particular here and now, let’s look at the comfort, hope, and call individually.

COMFORT

The comfort that comes through God’s admonition is simply that it makes God the center of our existence. It is an assurance that God is here with all the gifts of grace we find revealed in Jesus. What God is asking us to do is to remind ourselves of this presence by reminding ourselves of the parameters for thinking, speaking, and doing on a daily (if not hourly) basis. 

More than that, we can assure those dearest to us—our beloved, our children—that God is with them, too. We show them the presence of God by sharing with them the ways God keeps us through his commandments and counsel for human existence. God is with you. See? This is what God needs you to be and to do today.

Moreover, we find that as we truly seek to put God’s framework into play as we go about our daily business, it helps order the chaos of daily living. It gives us a way to settle and center ourselves even as the news of the world reveals one more instant of insanity, or Facebook reveals nothing but our sure ability to spew ignorance, venom, and flat out cruelty at one another. It gives us a center even as we manage an overbooked calendar and a stuffed schedule of running here and there. 

Finally, it gives us a respite—a spiritual time out, if you will. Need a pause or exit from life for a moment? Consider God’s law. Release yourself to God. Take a break in the everlasting arms.

CALL

Now we can consider just what God wants from us. Talk of “law” and “commandments” begins to raise the specter of rigidity. It seems to be a retreat into moralism or a closed system of judgment and judgmentalism. 

Let that go.

We are followers of Jesus. That means that any definition we give to God’s commandments and law is centered first and last in the way in which Jesus interpreted those things. And how did Jesus interpret those things? He shifted our attention from the literal words of the law to what lay behind them—the love that is God; the love in which we were created; and the love through which we become who it is God made us to be. 

As followers of Jesus, we accept the call to embody his love as we make our way in the world. We embody that love when we embody compassion, grace, mercy, and welcome. We no longer talk of rules and regulations, we become the love we proclaim. We no longer talk about Jesus, we bring Jesus to others by meeting them as Jesus met others. We no longer speak of the ways of community in Christ, we take that community with us wherever we go.

The great consequence of being so is that it becomes full reassurance. We need not fear that such a life cannot be led because we lead it ourselves. We need not fear that there cannot be peace among people, even people who are radically different from each other, because we live that peace. We need not fear that the chaos of the world will destroy us because we bring order in creating communion between persons each and every day as we live Christ in our own interactions, encounters, and engagements with the world.

HOPE

Now it comes as no surprise that our call leads directly to our hope. If we can live our vocation where we are, as we are, and in whom we are; then we see hope blossom continually. We can make a difference. It begins as we alter our way of being in our homes, neighborhoods, work, school, and so on. A simple thing like a Wednesday night dinner with our Muslim brothers and sisters sows seeds of peace and understanding that immediately diminishes fear and confusion—see? these are our neighbors down the street; these are parents with kids in school just like us; see?

The more we can live in such a way, even through such utterly basic and simple acts, the more we can shine the light of hope. Terror, violence, and meanness may make spectacular moments, but love is eternal. It lasts, it changes our existential nature, and it fully reveals the child of God that each one of us is. 

So, to borrow from St. Paul, three gifts come through meditating on God’s law—comfort, call, and hope; but they are all manifestations first and last of love, the love is God, the love that God made us through, and the love that was the man Jesus.

Take these gifts. Use them well.