Daily Prophets
Day 197
“A day of God is coming…And God will be sovereign over all the earth and in that day God is One and God’s Name is One.”(Zechariah 14:1,9).
The prophet is telling us that a day of God is coming and, while he describes frightening experiences for some of that day, he is not saying it is the end of the world nor the end of nation states. I think about this first phrase and realize that everyday is a day that God is here, not just coming. I disagree with the prophet’s description while understanding his employment of hyperbole to get the people to serve God and to stop living in fear of scarcity and pain. God is here, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, and God is searching for us, therefore maybe Zechariah is telling us to open up our eyes, our hearts and our souls to experience God’s presence and leave our fears in the past so we can rejoice in today. When we are open to God entering our lives, when we are open to God guiding our actions, we are overwhelmed with a serenity/clarity that allows us to distinguish what we should change and what is beyond our power to change, as Reinhold Niebuhr teaches us in the Serenity Prayer. When we allow ourselves to be found by God, we become fuller human beings, our inner lives and outer actions become more congruent and we are more integrated, holy and joyous. God is here today for us and we can have this experience today and everyday, if only we let God in.
The second verse above, we say at the end of every prayer service, after the Aleinu prayer. Rabbi Heschel teaches that this verse comes to remind us that a human king is not to be worshiped, not to be deified. “While the prophets did not go so far as to call for the abolition of the monarchy, they insisted that human pretension to sovereignty was dangerous, a fake and a caricature.”(The Prophets pg.480). Our reliance on the strongman/ autocrat to protect us is a false belief, an engagement in self-deception. The prophet is reminding us that it is God who is our salvation and no human power can replace God as Sovereign, as Redeemer, as Savior. The autocrat/strongman is selling us a load of BS and we are eating it up when we follow the “only I can fix/do this’ line that these con artists are spewing out. We have to have leaders to help protect us from outside enemies and inside enemies, to keep order and to work for the common welfare of the people of the nation(s), we have to remember that they are not God, not the ultimate authority, rather they are here to serve God and to serve us.
We are all responsible to make this day happen! As I said in the first paragraph above, God is here, the Day of God is here, we have to welcome it, we have to honor it, we have to lean in and live into God’s will and God’s ways. Not in lockstep with each other, not everyone doing the same thing, we do this by living the Unique Image of God we are created in out loud, fully and completely and joyously. We are the inheritors of God’s gifts, we are the partners in creating a more perfect world, we are the servants who get to live in God’s reflection and light, yet we refuse to do this because of pettiness and pride, envy and enmity. We refuse to do this because of our desire to be god and rule over another(s) and have people serve us instead of us serving God. While we do give lip service to this concept, as I said, it is in our prayer books, we refuse to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in actions because we worship power and might, not right and justice. On this day, we can make God One in our hearts, minds and actions, we can appreciate and honor the aspects of God that another(s) people/person/religion holds and come together to gain a fuller, broader, more complete experience of God. We can, on this day, lay down our need to dominate another(s) and find the ways to cooperate and live together, lion and lamb, Jew and non-Jew, Black and White, people of all colors and stripes. This is the promise of THIS DAY, it takes us to turn this day from a promise to a reality. Will you?
In recovery, we are doing the best we can to move the ball forward in our living. We believe that we can make a difference and we are not stuck in some revolving door of pain, sadness, escape and getting dried out to do it all over again. We know that we need to reach for God each and every day so we can rise above our own negativity and sorrow and pain. We are sure that God will guide us if and when we seek God out. We spend time cultivating a practice to get more and more understanding to “improve our conscious contact with God praying only for God’s Will and the power to carry it out”. In recovery, this is not a burden, not taking something away from us, it is a gift that adds immeasurable joy, contentment and serenity/clarity to our lives.
I invite God in to my life every day and then I excuse God from my life sometimes as well. When I am unable to see clearly, when I am unable to restrain my passion at the times I should, I have excused God from my life. When I live my passion appropriately, when I live my purpose and help another human being, when I am loving in my actions and words, when I am immersing myself in life, in God, in wonder, when I am living in Radical Amazement, when I am fighting for what is right, for the needy and the poor, the stranger and the sick; God is alive in my life. When my insides and outsides match, when I am not going along to get along, when I am willing to risk everything for principle and for faith, God is alive in my life. When I connect with another and engage in love, God is alive in my life- when is God alive in your life? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark