The Sauntering Pilgrim

“If the foundations are destroyed,” the psalmist wondered, “what can the righteous do” (Ps. 11:3)? It’s not an idle question; it’s a pressingly relevant question for today. After surveying a range of opinions about the state of the nation, New York Times staff writer Katherine Miller last December wrote, “There’s an argument that this is the end, or the beginning of the end, that the infrastructure of our democracy is crumbling, and that the jittery quality in the economy portends collapse and that the nuclear risk in Russia’s war in Ukraine could combust into something much bigger” (New York Times, 20 December 2022). In short, so the opinion goes, there’s plenty to worry about.

“And this leaves out the deeper worries people have,” Miller continued, “which also contribute to a sense of societal disintegration, about teenage depression and anxiety, declines in reading and math, the omnipresence of fentanyl, the resurgence of antisemitism and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. violence. The police took an hour to intervene while a broken young man shot children. Young people shot grocery shoppers because they were Black, patrons at a gay and trans nightclub, college football players after a field trip to see a play. Lives just ended midway through something normal, and few things make people feel more like the world is ending than that.”

Three thousand years ago the psalmist wondered, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” In 2023 we might ask the same question: if the foundations upon which our society and nation are built crumble and collapse, what can we do? I believe we can find help with that question if we turn to the prophet Hosea. About 250 years after the psalmist raised his question, the nation of Israel did collapse. Hosea lived in a time of virtual anarchy during war with Assyria. In a span of fourteen years, four of their kings were assassinated, their capital city Damascus fell, and their final defeat by the Assyrians came soon after.

No wonder they felt God had turned away from them. “I will return again to my place,” they understood God to say, “until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.” So they resolved to return to God, trusting that if they did, God would heal them, bind up their wounds, and revive them (Hos. 5:15; 6:1-2). So “let us press on to know the Lord,” they said, assured that God would come to them “like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth” (v. 3b).

And God waited patiently, eagerly for their return. Hosea imagined God as a loving parent clucking over a beloved and wayward child. “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?” Israel’s love was volatile and fleeting, it evaporated “like a morning cloud, like dew that goes away early,” so God allowed them to suffer the results of their waywardness while continuing to call to them through the prophets (vv. 4-5).

Hosea understood what God wants: “steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (v. 6). God does not want a rigid discipline of law and ritual. God does not want a renewed institution of religion; God wants renewed relationship. God wants us to show, in every aspect of daily life, that we truly value God, all of the neighbors God has given us (friend and stranger alike), and all of God’s creation.

What binds us to God – for that’s what “religion” means: re-ligio, “to tie [us] again” to the source of our life – is, in the words of the prophet Micah, “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). What rebuilds our foundation for life in community is to love God with all we have and all we are, and to love every other person as we love ourselves.

Rebuilding our national life may be an impossible task for any one of us or for any single congregation of us, but the smallest single step in that direction will make a difference for good. As St. Teresa of Calcutta is reported to have said, “We cannot do great things, we can only do small things with great love.” God does not ask you and me to rebuild a faltering nation. God asks only that we do what we can with great love. And here are three simple rules for how to begin.

The first rule is, do no harm. It may seem a small thing, but it can work wonders in a world that suffers so much harm today. We all know people and groups bound up in conflict, sometimes over profound issues, sometimes over issues that seem just plain silly. We all know how practices we take for granted are destroying the environment that supports our life. We all know how small steps lead us further from the natural harmony of the created order. Start by identifying one thing you’re doing that harms yourself or someone else or any of God’s creatures, and stop doing it. Then identify another, and another, and another after that, until the harm you do has ceased.

The second rule is, do good. John Wesley famously urged, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” And Saint Augustine wrote, “You owe your conscience to God; to one another you owe nothing but mutual love.” To everyone, we owe the debt of love, especially to those who seem undeserving. Our task is not to determine if someone is worthy of love; our task is simply to love them without exception or reservation and leave the rest to God.

The final rule is, stay in love with God. We will name our spiritual practices differently, but all of us need to identify and employ practices that keep us in love with God. Daily prayer and contemplation; devotional reading of scripture or other sacred texts; participating in the life of a community of faith; doing acts of kindness and justice; unmediated immersion in nature – these are a few of the practices that will keep you in love with God. Practice them regularly.

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” We can follow these three simple rules: do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. The rules are simple; they can also be challenging, especially as you practice them more intentionally. They are aspects of the steadfast love of God that will bring us to life in all its fullness. ▪