The Long and the Short of It

Many of us live with the tension between our immediate needs and desires and our long-term goals and best interests. Some people are so busy working toward something or goal that they miss attending to the people and situations and joy of life right in front of them. Other people are so attuned to the joy and pleasure of the present moment that they completely neglect planning for the future. Fullness is found somewhere in between.

So too with the call of God upon our lives to work for justice and righteousness. If you have the ability to feed the hungry person in front of you and do not do it, then what does that say about your love for God? At the same time if you feed that person but pay no regard for why they're hungry and what that says about the systems and structures of our culture, then what does that say about your love for God?

People like to offer up the phrase about teaching a man to fish versus giving a man a fish. That's all well and good, but teaching someone to fish takes a long time and a hungry person can't wait to learn how to fish. They will learn much better on a full stomach. So the answer is not either or but both and. Give a man a fish, and then after he's eaten… Teach him how to catch more fish and even how to teach his neighbors to do the same.

The Ten Commandments are given in Scripture (Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5) as God's essential guidance for human conduct. It's worth noting that the first three Commandments are about our relationship with God, the last six about our relationship with other human beings. And the fourth serves as a bridge. Keeping of the Sabbath is both about our worship of God and our respect for all around us: ourselves, our neighbors, our employees even the animals that are part of our lives. All of creation deserves and needs Sabbath rest.
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True righteousness is found when we live with attention both to our relationship with God and our relationship with creation others and self. We must look both to the long and the short term interests of ourselves, one another and the world. What do justice and righteousness look like in the immediate context? What does long term systemic justice require of us, now and into the future? Our righteousness is incomplete unless we attend fully to both.

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