I see it all around: the issue of how to both preserve and integrate cultures. In my parish, Latinos plan for months for the Our Lady of Guadalupe celebration on December 12. Then they have Posadas before Christmas. On Epiphany they cut King cakes to find the baby Jesus inside. Those who find the baby Jesus then have responsibilities for Candlemas on February 2. It is all one extended rich cultural experience. They invite us Anglos to participate—integration. They often give their children major roles in the celebration—preservation. How wise!
At work I have the privilege of working with a national refugee resettlement group. My job is to help train agency staffs so they may better help refugee families stay intact while they adjust to America. It is very sad that too many families who have endured war, famine, and years in refugee camps lose their unity and much of their strength as their cultures encounter (and too often succumb to) American culture. Much of the work I do is to help facilitate cultural integration and preservation.
From close friends from both Africa and India I get inside details. Children learn American language and ways in school far faster than their parents do at home. They make American friends. Soon they want to do what their American friends do. Parents insist on maintenance of traditional values and behaviors—especially around relationships, independence, and religion. There is confusion, conflict, struggle: how do you know what to integrate in and what to preserve?
This is the central theme of the New Testament book of Hebrews which will give us our first reading for the most of January. Several years ago I read Hebrews and found it so difficult that I put it down. This time I’ve done some research to help me understand it. It is a beautiful effort to guide any situation where there is struggle between old and new, integration and preservation.
We do not know who the author of Hebrews is. We do not know when it was written. We do not know who was to receive the letter. For all these reasons it almost did not make it into the canon of Sacred Scripture. Yet it spoke truths with clarity. God must have wanted it included, because it was.
From information contained in Hebrews, scholars surmise that it was written to second generation Christians of Jewish descent who were in between bouts of persecution. They were probably living in the vicinity or city of Rome. While there is speculation about the author, there is no solid evidence for anyone.
If you look at Hebrews through the lens of cultural and preservation questions, it is fascinating. These questions might include: “How do we as Christians with Jewish heritage know what to keep of our Jewish faith and what to let go of? How do we preserve what needs to be kept from our Hebrew past and integrate our Judaism with both the Greek and totally new components of Christianity? What do we hold onto? What do we compromise about?”
Tough questions. Fascinating questions.
In today’s selection from Hebrews the author quotes from Psalm 95. Psalm 95 is the primary beginning prayer of the day for all those around the world who pray the Liturgy of the Hours. After those who say the Divine Office begin with “O Lord, open my lips…that my mouth may proclaim your praise,” they begin their day of prayer with some of the words from today’s psalm:
“Come, let us bow down in worship;
Let us kneel before the Lord who made us.
For he is our God,
And we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.”
Then the verse goes on to say what the author of Hebrews references today:
“Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
They tested me though they had seen my works.
Forty years I was wearied of that generation..”
The psalmist and author of Hebrews are both referencing the time during the Exodus from Egypt when the people quarreled with Moses because they did not trust God to give them water in the desert. (Exodus 17:1-7).
The author of Hebrews is saying, “This memory, this understanding of the necessity of bowing will to God is essential. It must be preserved. No matter how wonderful it is that Christ saved us on the cross, we must not grow lax in bowing our wills to God and in remembering how God has cared for us in the past in difficult circumstances. God knows best. His job is to care for us. Our job is to trust and obey. This part of our heritage we must keep and pass on.
And, indeed, this understanding has been preserved through the centuries as the Church around the world begins its day of prayer by calling its members of each new generation to pray today, worshipping the God who made us, listening to what He has to say to us today, and not rebelling against his leadership.
O that today our whole world might hear His voice.
O that today I might hear His voice. What might God be saying to me today?
Sometimes listening for God’s voice can take a turn. Such is the case today. I wrote this beginning meditation early in the morning, then went to a funeral at church for a man who had been away from the Church for most of his adult life. I did not know him. About a year ago he traveled to Rome on vacation. God touched him on the trip with a desire to “come home to Rome.” Once he returned to Kentucky he contacted our pastor and was received back into full communion. Just before Christmas he received word he had a short time to live. A few days ago he died.
God’s voice came to me today in a song that was sung as a prelude to the funeral mass. It spoke to me of my life and how wonderful that God took me back when I wandered away from him. It also spoke of my father’s death in 1975 of the same disease that killed him in just the same way as it killed this man. It reminded me of my father’s conversion to Christianity when I was 14 and he was 54, and the deepening of his conversion right before he died.
But then God went deeper and spoke to me to answer a “what should I do” question that is troubling me just now. Suddenly, the pieces fit. How I should handle myself in a difficult situation was clear. As I checked to make sure the solution was of God, it was. It met criteria for discernment.
Now, in none of this did I hear a physical voice say, “Mary….”
God can do that, but that is not his usual way. His usual way is to be MEDIATED through Scripture, person, worship, event, thought, or feeling. His voice today spoke to me through a piece of music. It spoke through memories of my father. It then spoke to me in my thoughts with a realization of a good way to handle a troublesome situation.
The universal Church tells its members EVERY DAY in Psalm 95: “Oh, that today you would hear his voice.”
We could not hear God’s voice if He did not speak to us. God does not ask us to do what cannot be done.
My own dilemma of the day that God helped me solve is one of integration and preservation—not so much of culture as of the similar question, “On what do I stand firm (preservation) and on what do I seek a “win-win” solution (integration)?” In either circumstance Hebrews can guide me. This admonition is for me today: “Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God.” God’s final word to me today is that I must have neither evil nor infidelity in my heart. I must work from my relationship with a God who is very much alive.
How is God speaking to you today?
Prayer:
O Lord, thank You for the many ways You find to speak to us, to speak to me. Thank you for bringing a pilgrim home to You and to Your Church before he died. Thank You for bringing my father to You—and for bringing me back to You. Thank You for the understanding You gave me this morning that guides me. Thank You for saving, forgiving, and loving me every day.
Lord, today and every day, give me the grace to hear Your voice. Protect my heart from the hardness of sin, fear, pride, judgment, infidelity, or unforgiveness. Lead me, guide me. Amen.
Link to today’s readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/011217.cfm
NOTE: Reflections on Thursday for the next several weeks will look at tough questions we face today in light of the advice Hebrews gives us.
