Proverbs 1:20-33

Pentecost +16 - Year B

Proverbs 1:20-33

Howsomever we identify, we eat the fruit of our way.

This approach to the desired and undesired parts of our life and the life of others and all together does not justify the way in which we interact. There will be folks who get away with mean and nasty acts all their life and others cut short well before their prime. This is not about karma or reincarnation. It has to do with self-justification and an excuse to continue a journey we might otherwise shift.

Evelyn Underhill puts it this way:

The true rule of poverty consists in giving up those things which enchain the spirit, divide its interests, and deflect it on its road to God--whether these things be riches, habits, religious observances, friends, interests, distastes, or desires--not in mere outward destitution for its own sake. It is attitude, not act, that matters; self-denudation would be unnecessary were it not for our inveterate tendency to attribute false value to things the moment they become our own.

Eating the fruit of our way is the reinforcement of a habit or a way of approaching life. Some of this seems to be hardwired, but even that can be amenable to choices made regarding what we will attend to. To begin eating the fruit of another way, of another's life or identity, draws us closer to their experience of life. Here lies the possibility of community that calls us to accountability for the whole of life, not just our own.

In the care of the larger the smaller is also cared for - infra-structure for all is a blessing. Concentration of wealth in a few is a fever indicator of the ill-health of a community. O, we could go on about the importance of one life, but note how the larger context is changed. It is not simply that a next best thing is done, but that it is done in a context.

Whose identity needs to enter your life today, to be tasted and enjoyed in its own right?