My dad immigrated to this country from The Netherlands in 1921. In his home they grew up speaking Dutch and English. In my mother’s home they also spoke Dutch and English as both of her parents were also born in the Netherlands. But when they were married they were exceptionally stringent about not speaking Dutch and so we missed out on growing up bi-lingual. They were determined to do things the American way. English was the language of the household.
I think about this as I continue to ponder the passage I am writing a sermon on for this Sunday. Essentially Paul is telling the Jews in Rome to take the new teachings and live them. You are in a new place, do things the new way. You have learned a new, and implied better, way so live the new life. Specifically Paul is referring to leaving behind the old ways of alienating one another and be a unified people.
How is it that we can find a better way to bring people together, steer clear of alienating one another, and be a more unified people at every level? From the local community here where families work three and four jobs to make ends meet and can look just down the street to see million dollar pleasure boats sitting in the water that only are used once or twice a month for 4 months of the year; to a world community of faith that includes many different faith people all essentially working to the same end. How can we be one?
I have a few ideas that I hope and pray will one day be part of the solution.
– A minimum wage on which a couple can live and work and have time to be with their family while being able to afford a warm, dry, safe, home.
– Gun violence must be curtailed – we cannot bring unity if we are killings ourselves and others with the guns in our homes. See “safe” home above.
– Along with gun violence comes an increasingly important role we must play in treating the mentally ill of our society.
– The right to love and marry the person to whom you are most attracted to should go without saying. Equality in marriage is a must for building unity.
– Together we must all work for seeing a better way to bring unity among religious people. When multiple religious groups are speaking up for peace – we ought to be able to find peace amongst ourselves.
– Within Christianity we must seek the common ideals of compassion and justice that Jesus talks about and begin again to more stringently identify ourselves by the thoughts we share and not by our differences.
Those are ways we can build stronger communities, locally and globally, working towards understanding ourselves, first as people drawn together to help one another and then to help all. We can speak one language in this household, we really can.
Blessings to All friends.
