I’m famous for spilling my coffee.

In fact, I’m so clumsy that a good friend refuses to get near my coffee cup because I’m so likely to spill it.

Of course, she’ll forgive me for spilling my coffee on her. But it’s far better if I don’t spill my coffee on her in the first place!

I need to do for her what I would want her to do for me—not spill my coffee on her!

The shape of coffee cups matters!

Most of the coffee cups in our home curve outward near the rim, making it easy for sloshing coffee to spill over the side.

But a few of our coffee cups are a bit larger and curve slightly inward near the rim, making it much harder for sloshing coffee to spill over the side.

Shapes matter!

In civilizations, we need to shape our laws and customs in ways that make it harder to “spill coffee”.

Systems matter!

Not just systems of laws and customs shaped to reduce and end racism.

But also systems of laws and customs shaped to improve education, work, health care, and retirement.

For example, in Ancient Israel, the ideals of the Law of Moses and the Prophets shaped systems of laws and customs to improve education, work, health care, and retirement.

How?

By strengthening and empowering the “family farm”!

For example, a family’s possession of the “family farm” was assured from generation to generation by returning it to the family each 50 years during the Year of Jubilee—even if the family had gone bankrupt and been sold into slavery during the intervening 50 years. (Leviticus 25:8-13,54-55).

In that agricultural civilization, children were trained as they grew up on the farm. There was always worthwhile work to do on the farm. Members of the family provided health care. Aging family members were valued and surrounded by people who loved them and looked after them.

Tying all these benefits to the family farm strengthened family ties.

Of course, our vastly different economy and culture mean we need to shape our systems of laws and customs differently to improve education, work, health care, and retirement.

For example, the Law of Moses provided different rules for people living in walled cities than for people living in unwalled villages and on farms. (Leviticus 25:29-34).

The point is that systems of laws and customs should be shaped to facilitate doing for other people what I would want them to do for me. (Matthew 7:12).

To be sure, individual efforts are important regardless of the shape of laws and customs.

For example, despite the ingrained evil of slavery in the Roman Empire, the Apostle Paul encouraged Philemon, an early Christian, to set free his slave, Onesimus. (Philemon 1:1-25).

A “grace full” person such as the Apostle Paul won’t spill their coffee even when drinking from a cup filled to the brim of its outward curving rim.

But I’m clumsy!  I’ll spill my coffee when drinking from a full cup shaped unwisely.

We need to design coffee cups—shape our systems of laws and customs—for people who are “clumsy” as well as for people who are “graceful.”

Because, in one way or another—ALL of us are “clumsy”. ALL of us “spill coffee”.

Or, as the Prophet Isaiah put it: “All of us like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way.” (Isaiah 53:6).

We have all spilled coffee and messed up our lives, communities of wisdom, families, businesses, nations, and civilizations.

Therefore, the “shape” of our systems of laws and customs matters.

I’m just as “clumsy”—go just as much “astray”—using both types of coffee cup. Yet with one shape, I spill my coffee. But with the other shape—the wise shape—I don’t!

Shapes matter!

Systems of laws and customs matter!

Each person has gone astray. (Isaiah 53:6).

Each person has “spilled some coffee.”

Each community of wisdom, family, business, nation, and civilization has gone astray. (Isaiah 53:6).

Each community of wisdom, family, business, nation, and civilization has “spilled some coffee.”

Of course, God will forgive us when we “spill our coffee”. But it’s far better if we don’t spill our coffee in the first place!

We need to shape our systems of laws and customs in ways that do for others what we would want them to do for us.

This means we need to shape our systems of laws and customs in ways that will reduce and—as much as humanly possible—end the “spilling of coffee”.

As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. prophesied: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Therefore, let’s not shape our “cups of coffee”—our lives, communities of wisdom, families, businesses, nations, and civilizations—with systems of laws and customs that bend toward the foolish, unjust ways of the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of the World.

Instead, let’s shape our “cups of coffee”—our lives, communities of wisdom, families, businesses, nations, and civilizations—with wise, just ways that reduce and—as much as humanly possible—end the “spilling of coffee.”

Let’s shape our “cups of coffee”—our lives, communities of wisdom, families, businesses, nations, and civilizations—with wise, just systems of laws and customs that do for everyone what we would want done for us.

Let’s shape our “cups of coffee”—our lives, communities of wisdom, families, businesses, nations, and civilizations—with wise, just ways that bend toward hesed: faithfulness, love, mercy, steadfast love, lovingkindness, and kindness.

READ MORE

People of goodwill have good faith differences about how best to shape systems of laws and customs in order to do for others what we would want them to do for us. For example, Ancient Israel relied on family farms (the private sector) to improve education, work, health care, and retirement. But in the United States today there are almost no family farms. Therefore, the government plays a much larger role (but not an exclusive role) improving education, work, health care, and retirement. To learn more of my thoughts about these matters, please read my blogs “Deceptive-Drawings-Designed-To-Deceive-and-Divide”, “Intensive Care Units or Health Clubs?” and “Pandemic Wisdom: Multiple Choice Exams & No-Win Scenarios”.

To read more about how the “family farm” sustained a strong “middle class” in Ancient Israel, please read my blog “Jezebel and Ahab: Greed, Lies and Violence” and the chapter “Ahab Takes Naboth’s Vineyard”, in my book Healing the Promised Land, at pages 221-226 & endnote on page 376-377.

For more of my thoughts about the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of the World, please read my blogs “Do Not Live on ‘Bread’ Alone”, “Do Not Jump Off the Temple”, “Do Not Seek the Kingdoms of the World and Their Authority”, “Beware the Power of Money”, “Beware the Power of Religion”, “Beware the Power of the Kingdoms of the World”, “Keeping the Powers of Money, Religion and Kingdoms Separate”, and  “Jesus Climbs the Temple Mount”.

For more of my thoughts about the hesed of the LORD God, please read my blogs “The Hesed of the LORD Endures Forever”, “Hesed Saves and Nurtures Baby Moses”, “Hesed Saves Israel—Passover”, “Hesed Nurtures Israel—From the Red Sea to Mount Sinai”, “Hesed Nurtures Israel—Mount Sinai”, “Hesed Establishes the Work of Moses’s Hands—Mount Nebo”, “Hesed Blesses Forever—David”, “Walking Humbly With Hesed—Micah”, “Hoping in Hesed—Jeremiah”, “Hesed Returns Israel to Jerusalem”, “Jesus Embodies Hesed—The Vision of Isaiah”, “Jesus Embodies Hesed—Fulfilling the Law of Moses and the Prophets”, and “Jesus Embodies Hesed—Saving Lost Sheep, Lost Coins, and Lost Sons”.