The Ones Who Need It (Or, Remembering the Sunflowers)--June 30, 2020

The Ones Who Need It (Or, Remembering the Sunflowers)--June 30, 2020

"The word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying: Thus says the LORD of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear.  They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his spirt through the former prophets..." [Zechariah 7:8-12a]

I'm picturing my sunflower seedlings behind my house, thirsty for water.  Hold their image in your mind.  We'll come back to them.

But first, picture the prophet Zechariah delivering these words long ago.  He is tired.  He is weary of having to say the same thing over and over again.  But he says it, as God has been sending prophets to say it for centuries: "Do not oppress the widow... or the orphan... or the alien... or the poor.  Instead, show kindness and mercy and justice."

And the moment those words leave his lips, you can just see someone walking past the prophet on the street-corner and interrupting this proclamation with an eye-rolling, "Well, actually, Zechariah... we shouldn't oppress anyone. Not just the widow, the orphan, the alien, and the poor, but everybody.  Don't you know that?"

And I'll bet you can guess how the dialogue would go from there.  Zechariah seems to sense that God has been having this same conversation with people for ages, and he knows that this won't be the last time, either.  Zechariah notes that this isn't the first time God had spoken the direction to the people to care particularly for the folks who were most at risk, exactly because they were the ones most at risk.  The trouble is, the people of God have pretty consistently not wanted to listen.  We still don't.  So, as the prophet notes, we turn away, shrug our shoulders, plug up our ears, and harden our hearts, so we won't have to hear God's ancient word, "Love your neighbor--particularly those most vulnerable."

Of course, both Zechariah and the God for whom he speaks believe that nobody should be oppressed.  But the problem was that some people in ancient Israel were particularly at risk of being taken advantage of, stepped on, or left to suffer.  And so those are the people Zechariah lifts up specifically--not because God doesn't care about people whose parents or spouses are still living, but because widows and orphans were in particular need. Without parents or a spouse, you were left without a way of providing for yourself, and were likely too old or too young to make a living on your own. Zechariah specifically names "aliens"--that is, foreigners who are not ethnically Israelite citizens but who have come to live among the people of Israel and Judah--because these are the people who are much less likely to be treated well.  They don't have family around to support them, they likely do not have land of their own to farm and provide their own food, and they stand out because of their "otherness."  And the poor, well, that's obvious, too--if you're struggling just to keep your own farm already and a bad harvest forces you to sell, the neighbor who bought up your ancestral land is going to be doing fine, but you don't have a way to feed your kids.  

In other words, of course God cares about the well-being of everybody--but if you've got a giant piece of property yielding a fortune in harvest and wealth, you're going to be fine.  If you've got generations of family around you looking out for your well-being, you're going to be OK, too.  And if you look like everybody else, you can just blend in and not draw any undue attention to yourself.  In other words, nobody has to speak the warning, "Don't oppress the guy with four cars, a vacation home, and a booming family business," because that's not a concern--nobody is oppressing that guy at the moment.  

But the ones who were easiest to take advantage of because they were desperate, or because they knew they didn't have anybody backing them up if they were cheated?  Yeah, they were constantly in fear of being taken advantage of, mistreated, or left without any hope.  So prophets like Zechariah had to be raised up, generation after generation it seems, to say once again, "Ok, I'll say it again: don't oppress the vulnerable--that means, look out especially for widows and orphans, foreigners and those in poverty."  It's not that these folks were more virtuous or more noble than anybody else and "deserve" more than anyone else--it's that they are constantly most at risk for being cheated, undersold, or overpowered.  Zechariah says we are not to oppress "the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor," not because nobody else matters, but because these are the ones who need it to be said.

And that's why I'm picturing my sunflowers in the yard behind my house.  It's because of all the plants and flowers and trees in my yard, they are particularly vulnerable right now.  When we get a dry spell like the last couple of weeks, or a bout of hot, sunny weather, the little sprouts that we planted as seeds at the start of June start to wilt. Their spot behind the house gives them plenty of sun in the afternoon, but the gutter and the soffit of the house block some of the rain.  And since they are just starting out (delayed in planting because we had a cold snap in May that killed a lot and warned us to hold off on planting sunflower seeds), they are particularly in need of regular watering.

The locust, oak, and pine trees in my yard, they are going to be fine.  They're big enough and stable enough that they are going to weather through dry spells without a worry.  And the grass in the yard is going to be fine, too--it keeps spreading and reseeding itelf anyhow, and all I need to do to help it survive a week without rain is just not to mow it.  Even the flashy looking flowers on our front step are fine, really, because they get attention every time I walk out my front step or drive to work in the morning.  I don't need a reminder to water the marigolds and pansies in my front yard, because I can't forget or ignore them.

But the sunflower seedlings in the back--the ones that are just two little leaves and a tiny stem right now--they are particularly vulnerable right now.  I need to leave myself reminders, "Don't forget the sunflowers!" because they are the ones it is most easy to ignore, and they will pay the highest price if I do ignore them.  The long-established, decades-old trees in the back will be fine.  And the blossoms on the marigolds in the front are conspicuous enough already to get my attention to water them.  But the ones that are most vulnerable require a special reminder--exactly because all my plants and yard matter, but also because the sunflowers are the ones in particular need right now.

It seems to me that Zechariah sees himself in the same position as he speaks to the people of God in his time.  Of course God loves and cares for everybody, but in all honesty, some folks are long-established trees that will be able to weather a drought just fine, and others are attention-getting marigolds or pansies that you can't miss.  But the sunflowers against the house--they are easy to forget, and particularly vulnerable.  So Zechariah says what God has said since the days of Moses:  give particular care to the widow, the orphan, the alien, and the poor--because these are the folks especially at risk when things get difficult.  If you only have so much time or attention or water, make sure it goes to the sunflowers first--they are the ones that need it most at this stage.

You get the feeling that Zechariah was tired of speaking the same message over and over again, like he was beating his head against a brick wall as he spoke it, because it wasn't (or shouldn't have been) news.  It was simply that every time he and the prophets before him had brought this same message, the people stuck their fingers in their ears.

And yet, despite the tiredness of the prophet, he keeps speaking.  He keeps saying, "Look out for these ones who are especially vulnerable, whether because of their family situation, or the way they look, or how much money they have, or where they come from.  Give special care for them, because they are the ones, like the sunflower sprouts, who need it right now."

And just as surely, he must have run into the same repeated refrains of people who didn't want to hear what he was really saying, and who just shut him down like they did to the prophets before him with a shrug as they said, "You should water ALL the plants, Zechariah!"  And so he would try all over again to explain what he--and the patient God who sent him--really was getting at all along.

We are slow on the uptake, and so God keeps sending voices like Zechariah's, who will keep being willing to say what we all should have understood long ago.  But we still need people--maybe it will be you or me today!--to get up and say, "Don't forget to water the sunflowers!" We still need people who will identify the people and groups who are most vulnerable and make sure we don't let them fall through the cracks.  And every time we retort back indignantly, "But what about the marigolds?  Or the grass?  Or the pine trees?" we need those voices to stick to their convictions and say in reply, "Yes, of course, those plants need water, too, but they have not been planted in a place that makes them more likely to be lacking water and they are less at-risk when someone does forget." We need someone who will say, "You know what?  Every time I tell you to go water the sunflowers, you automatically go and water the marigolds out front, too, and you check on the grass and the trees--but sometimes you forget the little seedlings in the back when you water the showy flowers in the front."

We need voices like Zechariah's.  We need the honest that comes with their weariness.  We need them to keep saying what God has been raising up prophets to say for a very long time, and we need them to keep reminding us to water the sunflowers around us because they are the ones that need it right now, even simply by virtue of where they have been planted.  Maybe we need you to be one of those voices in the world, too.

Spend your energy making sure you don't forget the sprouting sunflowers today, and everything else will take care of itself.

Lord Jesus, help us to work to provide what is necessary for all of us to bloom--especially those we easily forget or write off.