An Everyday Choice

A Reflection on the First Reading for August 29th, 2021:
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Deuteronomy
4.1-2, 6-8

“Now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.

“You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’ For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?”
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Recently, I experienced something I never thought I would.  


A full-on, real life riot. Riots don’t happen in MY city. Not Halifax. We’re too small. We’re easygoing East Coast people. We don’t riot. Well, apparently we do. My heart broke that day. As it has so many times in recent days… weeks… months. 


Whether the issue is of home insecurity, indigenous rights, abuses of all kinds, international defeat — pray for Afghanistan — the feeling of being overwhelmed is all too real. And don’t forget the underlying ever constant impact of an active global pandemic for the past 18 months! Geesh! How are we to survive this?


With laws and ordinances. God’s laws and ordinances.   


I do not pretend to know all the issues around affordable housing or the protests and the riot that ensued. I do know that everyone should be able to “go home” to a safe and healthy place to rest, relax, and regroup. Civil laws and ordinances are supposed to help make that possible for EVERYONE. Just as in Moses’ time, the holding up of or breaking down of laws and ordinances is up to the people who live them. However, people can (and do!) interpret laws and ordinances in their own way, not God’s way. 


God knows that. And God continues to patiently and lovingly wait for us to recognize that the goodness is in His good order. There is a freedom that comes from following a good and gracious God who sets before us expectations — high expectations — of how to be in relationship with not only Him, but with everyone. I recently heard freedom defined as: the ability to do what one ought to do. True freedom allows us the capacity to act with justice, respect, kindness, and love. When I choose to see freedom as such, my lens on life becomes more communal rather than focusing only on my needs and wants. With this big picture view, Hope can enter more easily; a Hope that is never-ending and everlasting, just as God is.


I would be naive to think the craziness in our world would be over and done if we all just wholly believed in God’s good order. That would be too simplistic. However, each day I can choose:

• To believe in a God who does so much more with me than against me. 
• To witness that belief to others. 
• To live God’s laws and ordinances, not my own adapted versions of them. 
• To witness the freedom that comes from living God’s laws and ordinances so that when life looks rather bleak, I can find the strength to call on the Lord: “For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him?”

Every day I can choose God because God chose me first. In doing so, rather than experiencing something I never thought I would, I can experience something greater than I could ever dream. 




Aurea Sadi

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