Snagged

Sometimes when you're fishing you get snagged on something under the water, and you usually try to free your hook and often end up breaking your line.  One time when I was fly fishing, I had my line sort of trailing behind me down stream, contemplating the next cast up into a rather promising looking pocket of water at the base of a large boulder.  When I started to gather my line in to start casting, I was hooked on something.  As I began to curse and do my usual "letsgetunsnagged" routine (that's trademarked by the way), I realized that the thing I was snagged on was an actual fish, which turned out to be one of the nicer trout I caught that day (actually it was the only trout, but it sounds better if  you think I caught fish not by accident too).
I got snagged yesterday during my sermon, in a similar way, by something I thought was kind of off the course and maybe could even derail the whole mess.  I said I would talk about it some other time, and I think I certainly will, but I want to hash it out here before I forget.  It may even be the actual trout I was fishing trying to catch in the first place.  The parable was about the talents and what the slaves did with the talents.  I was talking about economics and how our idea of economics was different from the ideas that first century Jews would have had.  As I was winding my way along, the thought-snag occurred to me: what if, at some point in the future, we actually get to the point where we realize, with some urgency, that we all need to get along a lot better than we do.  What if we realize that a world where everyone has enough and greed does not rule our economy, is actually a beautiful idea that is worth working for every bit as much as personal acquisition.
I know the idea could be described utopian, naive, marxist, and all sorts of other pejorative words, and I know that sin is a thing, but what if we ever get to the point where we, on a primal level, realize that our connections are stronger than our differences?  What if indeed.
I'm snagged on that idea.  I'm snagged on the idea because my daughter, with intuitive grace, asked the question that sort of unlocked the sermon for me at least: "why don't people realize that they can't be happy unless they give to others?"
Why do we buy the disgusting myth thing must always remain broken?
Why do we accept the logic of the various and sundry proponents of the status quo, who say, "That will never change"?
On our visit to Mount Vernon, I was thinking a lot about antebellum slavery.  From the moment we pulled up, I couldn't help thinking about how the remarkable and heroic George Washington was a slave owner, and about how all the remarkable features of the Mount Vernon estate were founded on the backs of slaves.  Down in the corner of the property, below the Washington family crypt is the slaves graveyard and monument.  Hundreds of nameless people buried in unmarked graves, and very lately memorialized.  I thought about the fact that G-Wash had emancipated the slaves at Mount Vernon upon his death, but also about how he held on to a practice that he must have somehow recognized as un-just, as long as it benefited him in some way.
I thought about the myth of just and benevolent slave owners.  I though about the fact that many of the slaves probably actually did live with more dignity and probably in more comfort at places like Mount Vernon than some of the freedmen experienced in the cities of the north.  I thought about, for a moment, the fact that the system seemed utterly ironclad to the likes of Washington and Jefferson, but would be gone, declared illegal and immoral, in less than 100 years.
I wondered if my own feeling of helplessness at an income inequality, systemic injustice, persistent poverty, and a culture so acquisitive and consumptive that it cannot possibly be called moral.  I wonder if some day those things that crush us, will seem as far away, and unfortunate as slavery (at least in its antebellum form) seems to us these days.
Moreover, I wonder, and I hope that God is working us towards that point.  That hope is the snag that I think is turning out to be what I was fishing for all along.
Something inside me tells me that, from a human perspective, it's impossible, but then again, where do I of all people, get off looking at things from a purely human perspective?  I guess I need to keep a better look out for what God is doing.