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Deuteronomy 4.1, 5-9

So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children—

Upon reading this piece on Deuteronomy, I at first panicked and thought about how maybe I should ask Deacon John to change the piece by giving me another reading at a later date. I did not like the very direct words of statutes and ordinances, rules and laws. That is all I could think about. Why could I not get a reading perhaps from Mark or the other Apostles? But of course, I did not ask him to change it, and I knew that there was something there for me to learn.

When reading the first words of statutes and ordinances in this piece from Deuteronomy, I immediately thought about the Capitol Building on January 6 and how many rules and statutes were broken that day and how the attack was done by people who also used religion to justify the destruction of property, lives and the attack our Democracy. These people used their understanding of statutes and ordinances in the name of religion. As I watched on television, I had a chill down my spine. I had been to the Capitol building a few times for work. I knew how beautiful the place was inside and what it meant for me walking through that building as I spoke to US representatives and Senators about our students of color and their achievements and how I wanted them to continue supporting our scholars with federal funds. I thought about who I was, as a Latina-woman and first-generation college and graduate student and how privileged I was to lobby for our students in the Capitol building the few times I had been there. A place of respect for the rules of law, statutes and ordinances, now defiled, and the perpetrators, most of whom did not pay for what they did. In anger, I wanted all of them to be punished. But is that what God is calling us to think about in wisdom and discernment?

Whether it is the commandments or the rules of law, they are there to create some structure, guidance and perhaps a benchmark to start and live a life in wisdom and discernment. We need to know when to be flexible and when to forgive. I think the Pandemic and the incident in the Capitol building continues to remind us how chaotic things can get, quickly, when one is not paying attention or when people do not care about the consequences and the affects to the lives of others, as with our past President. Deuteronomy says: “take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.”

We need to remember that, as hard and difficult this past year has been, perhaps all of this was a sign to take time to think about the things that are important in our lives-our family, our friends, our freedom and democracy, which though imperfect, is still more perfect than other countries around the world. Putting a pause on every aspect of our lives this year has to mean something? Perhaps each of us have gained a little wisdom and discernment, we have become more creative, more thoughtful, more patient and perhaps the words that I was hesitant to think about in the beginning of this reading “statutes and ordinances” was just a hesitancy on my part, due to fear about what was broken this past year and wondering, “how do we get back to some sense of order?” Are people going to continue to attack our democracy and hate? How do we now begin rebuilding, strengthening and growing our spiritual tools? May we all grow in faith, love and compassion and use this time to pause, re-set and think about how we can make our world a better place to live in love, light and compassion.

Luke 3.1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

As I read this passage from Luke, the last piece, where John is proclaiming repentance caught my attention. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” It reminded me of this past week's lessons from our Sacred Ground Group on healing and trauma. The crying out in the wilderness or trauma that we all go through at times can be so debilitating and damaging to us and for many generations to come, and yet in order to heal we have to forgive our oppressor. How do we do that? How difficult is it to make the rough ways smooth or the crooked paths straight? It is never easy because in repenting and forgiving we have to behold the other person's grievance and accept the transgression and forgive them. Then and only then can the healing begin.

During this time when we are restricted in many ways of doing the things we love because of the pandemic, I am sure many times we have been angry, sad or depressed because maybe those in power made things worse by putting politics before lives, or when issues of race become imbedded in hate. Can we forgive those who continue to hurt us? In this passage, God is calling upon us to make our paths straight, perhaps by making every mountain and hill low, straightening what is crooked in us by forgiving others. When you forgive those that hurt you, a time of healing begins. Coming into the new year I am hopeful that we can all work on forgiveness and start 2021 by preparing the way of the Lord and healing ourselves, “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Psalm 91  

¹ He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, *
abides under the shadow of the Almighty.
² He shall say to the Lord,
"You are my refuge and my stronghold, *
my God in whom I put my trust."
³ He shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter *
and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He shall cover you with his pinions,
and you shall find refuge under his wings; *
his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler.
⁵ You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, *
nor of the arrow that flies by day;
⁶ Of the plague that stalks in the darkness, *
nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.
⁷ A thousand shall fall at your side
and ten thousand at your right hand, *
but it shall not come near you.
⁸ Your eyes have only to behold *
to see the reward of the wicked.
⁹ Because you have made the Lord your refuge, *
and the Most High your habitation,
¹⁰ There shall no evil happen to you, *
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
¹¹ For he shall give his angels charge over you, *
to keep you in all your ways.
¹² They shall bear you in their hands, *
lest you dash your foot against a stone.
¹³ You shall tread upon the lion and adder; *
you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet.
¹⁴ Because he is bound to me in love,
therefore will I deliver him; *
I will protect him, because he knows my Name.
¹⁵ He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; *
I am with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and bring him to honor.
¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him, *
and show him my salvation.

I had just spent a week hunkering down and making contingency plans to work from home before the CUNY Chancellor said that everyone was going online because of the Corona Virus. At first it was faculty and students; I was neither, I am considered staff.  However, because I had upper respiratory stuff going on, I wanted to make contingency plans to work from home; my Assistant Director and I met and we began to think about ways to go virtual with the Honors Program I run at Hunter College.   I was not nervous about what was going on, I was only trying to be proactive because I knew that things could change rather fast, and I have many responsible hats I have to wear.  
 
On Saturday when I first read Psalm 91, I froze.  My first response was OMG! God this is happening now!!!  I started to feel anxiety since the Mothers had just announced that we would have church online.  What?  Church online?  Knowing that I would not be singing along with the choir, or shaking hands during ‘the peace’, or even the special Lord’s Prayer when we hold hands with each other, in those beautiful hand-held lines, almost like a bridge to heaven-singing the Lord’s Prayer while looking at the altar and that big majestic stained glass window of Jesus (a moment I always feel God’s presence). I have to admit, I felt a moment of panic. 
 
I re-read Psalm 91 on Sunday after online church (which was not so bad, I thought) and realized that verses 1-6 talked about God giving us refuge and delivering us from “the snare of the hunter and from the deadly pestilence.”  As the weekend passed, I knew that the virus was the snare of the hunter. The more I heard the news, the more I felt compelled to hear it, and the more I would focus on God, prayer and trust in God.   I could not control what was happening, but I could do my best to stay home and look after my parents, take care of myself and my partner and make sure that everyone who lived in my home had the resources they needed to work from home.   I have high wireless connectivity in my building, and my tenants have a guest pass.  One of my tenants set up a google calendar to schedule all of us, so as to not overtax the internet.  How cool?  This would not have happened otherwise, but we learned to figure things out. 
 
Verses 7-14 mirrors what is going on currently.  Yes, there is a virus, and many will succumb to the virus. However, the more you grow in God’s love and share with your community and help each other out, the more things will get better sooner and then we can begin to win the fight with the “snare of the hunter.”  I am opting not to listen to the news obsessively, except to keep informed every day, but I do not want to panic.  Let’s spend our efforts in “self-study,” and looking within.  What is it about what we are doing now, or our eating or our communicating, that we can work on a little harder to change for the better, to serve in God’s calling?  Yoga rules from the Eight Limbs of Yoga call it Svadhyaya, which means to intentionally find self-awareness in all our activities and efforts, even to the point of welcoming and accepting limitations.  By practicing svadhyaya, the desire of worldly objects diminishes and taste for spirituality increases.
 
I look forward to seeing you all in-person soon.  In the meantime, let's practice self-study. God will take care of us. Now we owe it to him, to give back and help others escape from “the snare of the hunter and from the deadly pestilence”.