Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘There will be peace and security in my days.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, November 26, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Isaiah has just predicted the Babylonian exile. Earnest but dumb-as-rocks Hezekiah has just shown off all his wealth to an envoy from Babylon, as if dangling a shiny object in front of a crow. Isaiah says (without saying it) “Now you’ve done it, you idiot.” But ever short-sighted, Hezekiah thinks, “That’s cool. I’m only going to live another fifteen years so it won’t effect me.”
And here we are, those of us over fifty, wondering why our young adult children or grandchildren are so up in arms about the climate crisis and the rising conservative extremism in the US and around the world. (Truthfully, I’m feeling pretty young here at 51. If I live as long as my grandfather did, I’ve got another 41 years ahead of me and that’s an awfully long time to deal with the level of uncertainty that makes my children’s anxiety go off the charts).
I wrote yesterday about the importance of living a richer, more meaningful life in whatever time we have left. There is another side to that. We also ought to be committed to working our backsides off for the well-being of the generations following after us. If I had a childhood blissfully ignorant of climate change (despite the fact that by the time I was in elementary school, oil companies had known for more than a decade that fossil fuels would eventually lead to global warming) I owe my kids a future where we have addressed the issue as aggressively as possible in the hope of salvaging a livable world in which they can enjoy nature’s majesty without worrying about catastrophe. If my forebears fought for my right to make medical decisions about my body, I owe my daughter a future where those rights are not only restored to her, but also strengthened.
These are just a couple examples. Let’s not be shortsighted like Hezekiah and either think, “It’s not my problem” or, as in his case, not think at all about the long-term consequences of our actions.
How can I take responsibility for making the world a better place for future generations?
