What I’m Thinking: What is Important?

My first thoughts are for those struck by so many disaster around the world. I can’t keep them in my head – I couldn’t in recording these thoughts (I omitted the wildfires in the western United States), which makes me say: God, remember those I cannot.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking that it’s a bad week when I can’t even hold in my memory all the places in the world that are suffering so terribly from natural disasters. I’ve lost count of the number of nation in the Caribbean that were affected by Hurricane Irma, there was the earthquake in Mexico, and Houston and other parts of south Texas and Louisiana are still struggling with the impact of Hurricane Harvey. That’s not to mention the typhoon – not the typhoon, but the monsoon – in Bangladesh and other parts of southeast Asia.

I’m thinking of a lot of people, and most of them, I will never ever know their names. May God be with them.

In the lectionary this week, we are on Just Peace Sunday at Church of the Holy Cross, and so we’re in the 14th chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. And in this section of the letter, Paul, who is writing to a group of people for once that he does not know well, is trying to give some advice for the way that a church should function. 

And in this section he makes sure to tell people that it’s OK to disagree, [that] this is not about coercion of opinion. The essentials need to be identified, but other things? Who’s going to eat food or not eat food that has been sacrificed to idols? These things are of less consequence.

Well, in this world, as we really are struggling these days with notions of what is just and what is right in our society: What is essential and what is opinion, that is probably one of the most consequential questions of our day.

And I’ll just say it: that justice for all, that is essential. 

And choosing what is justice for all: that is one of the biggest challenges that we face.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking. So leave your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.