Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4 NRSV)

We were sitting and trying to pay attention to the presenter in the conference room of our hotel in Savannah, Georgia. The room was located on the same level as the Savannah River. Just as the presenter tried to drive home a main point about the church’s efforts to reach people unaffiliated with a faith community, a huge cargo ship passed by with its multi-colored containers. The presence of the ship broke my concentration and triggered my imagination. What kinds of goods were there inside those containers? What was coming in? What would be going back out to other parts of the world? What are the people like who work on these ships? How long have they been away from their families so that I can get the goods I need conveniently and in a timely fashion?

It all boils down to this—all life is interrelated. God’s creation is structured with interdependence. Proximate neighbors need each other. Distant neighbors need each other through open trade.

My reflections provoked by the cargo ship led me to an excerpt from a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967:

We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese ... Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.

Let us pray ... God, you have created us to be interrelated and interdependent. Help us to be gracious givers. Help us also to be gracious receivers. Amen.

Contributed by Pastor Dan
Monday February 3, 2014
Liturgical Year A: Week 10
Liturgical Color: Green
Sunday Gospel reading:
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany