Rescue Me

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we live as community, especially in terms of economics. Issues of taxes, healthcare, education and the role of government in business have been plastered all over the headlines, day after day.

I'm reminded of the time I lived in a retirement community, and people would occasionally say to me, "I shouldn't have to pay taxes to run the schools. I don't have any children in school."

I would begin to think of how these current school children were the ones who would soon be supplying our food, our medical care, selling us cars, running our water treatment plants, fixing our electrical infrastructure. I wanted them smart and educated.

I'm also a big believer in health insurance. The money of the many pays for the tremendously expensive needs of the few. Then those people, having been saved sometimes from death and certainly many times from financial disaster, turn around and help us in other ways. I think of the countless people who have profoundly touched my life after surviving major surgery or receiving medicines for chronic illness.

In chapter 14 of Genesis there is a delightfully violent little story about Abram's nephew, Lot, getting captured in a local war. Nine kings of small kingdoms began to skirmish, four kings against five, in rebellion and counterstrike, battling from the hill country to the desert. In the midst of it Lot, seemingly minding his own business, gets carried off, along with all his possessions.

(There is a graphic little piece in 14:10 where the marching into battle turns into fleeing for life, and in the midst of the fleeing, a bunch of people fall into tar pits. It is this kind of detail that certain people enjoy...if you don't believe me, look to Hollywood. People have not changed much in many thousand years. Running, terrified people falling in tar pits makes for "good" film.)

Anyway, Abram, hanging out under the trees of Mamre, hears of his nephew's capture. He could have just stayed under the trees, but he forms a rescue party. During the night he divides his trained men for attack and routs the enemy. Great word, rout.

He gets back all the men, women, loot and possessions of Lot and his company.

There is something very Star Trek about going back for the captured friend. I have watched episode after episode across the years in which the crew members leave their own relative safety to risk their lives to go bring another crew member home.

Most of the time in real life this happens in quiet ways behind the scenes, and no one ever knows the cost. Every day I visit hospice patients and I see the ways in which the family and friends who care for them sacrifice their time, their energy, their sleep, their sanity and sometimes their own health to give needed care for the sick and dying member of their community.

If you look down the street in your suburban neighborhood, in all likelyhood one of those houses has this drama playing out even now. You would never know it from the curb.

We sacrifice and risk for members of our family, for members of our crew. Sometimes in very hands on ways, sometimes in the flow of money to taxes and insurance premiums. But in each case, we are living out the model of Abram. How can one sit in comfortable shade when another is in mortal danger?