Though the Mountains Should Shake--Shutdown

First, sequestration. Now, shutdown. These signal all kinds of issues for our nation politically and economically. They might have the same kinds of issues for us personally, but I am more concerned about an effect they have on the spirits of many of my people. I debated saying “our people,” but I am sticking with “my people” because I am their pastor, and I hold them in my heart.

There are lots of headlines, stories and memes about the shutdown, about federal employees going in to the office on Tuesday to fill out their shutdown papers, but what I have read and heard, often between the lines is uncertainty. And even more, I saw a demoralized sense that their work is not valued, that they are not valued.

This is not an experience for only federal workers. Many in industry and other occupations have experienced it over the last few decades. There is a decrease in a sense of relationship within the workplace between employer and employee. Trust has lessened. I saw my father face it towards the end of his long years with his company.

Just as the rich man forgot his relationship with Lazarus at his gate, so we have been treating one another as cogs in a wheel, as figures on a ledger sheet, as things to be used and toss aside. We have forgotten to treat each other humanely, with dignity, with respect, with care and compassion. On Sunday, Jeremy asked us to take time in the days ahead to spend time with someone alien to us or someone from a different socio-economic group, to build relationship with them. However we deal with that challenge, let us take time and attention to see one another, to care for one another, and to provide a place where we are known and respected.

Though the mountains should shake around us, though the waters threaten to overwhelm us, in God—and hopefully, in God’s people—we find refuge and strength because we can take a longer, larger view. Our beginning, our present and our future is all in God’s care, as is the beginning, present and future of all creation.

Psalm 46:1-3

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble with its tumult.