Faith

Are you cursed or blessed? Thursday, 2nd week in Lent – Jeremiah 17:5-10

We want the undivided attention, affection and loyalty of certain people in our lives and to safeguard them, we seal a deal. When we profess undying love to another, we seal it with the bond of matrimony. When we enter into an agreement with an employer, we seal it with a contract. God loved Israel. He was to be their God and they would be his people. To seal this deal, he entered into a covenant.

Israel, in time, decided to freelance her affections. Yahweh was often traded for another foreign god and his commandments were flouted in his face. He had threatened to punish his beloved-vine, Israel but she just laughed in his face and set off, as we are told in the prophet Hosea, like a prostitute selling herself off at the crossroads. Which spouse would tolerate this? Which husband or wife would not reign down the might of civil suits, damages in restitution, and for good measure call down curses.

Read the text of today’s first reading in this context. The prophet Jeremiah has pleaded with the people of Israel to mend their way and keep his commandments. They were to be his people trusting in him, yet they trusted in their own strength (verse5)

The writing was on the wall. The ‘heat’ (verse 8) of the Babylonian Empire could be felt on their necks. God warned the King and the people not to make an alliance with the Egyptians against the Babylonians but in God they would not trust (see verse 7) because their hearts had turned away from Yahweh (verse 5).

The text of today has a curse and a blessing. Cursed are those who put their trust in men, in their own strength, for they like the shrub in the desert shall live on parched, uninhabited salt land. This is the course that Judah took when they forsake their covenant with Yahweh. THEY CHOSE a curse; God did not pronounce one on them.

They could have chosen a blessing. The blessing is for those who “trust IN the Lord and those whose trust IS the Lord.” Is there a difference? I like to look at those who ‘trust IN the Lord’ as those who place their trust in him for a while. It may be temporary and for a reason. Then there are those whose ‘trust IS the Lord’ and that is when they live every breath trusting him; this is a permanent trust and not just for a reason but in every season.

It is they who allow themselves to be planted by God and not chose the wilderness. It is they that allow God to take the call to plant them by the waterside. God has a purpose that they may not see but they trust in the location that God has picked for them. The results are clear, for this is where they get rooted, this is where the water is free flowing, this is where the heat does not get them, and famine does not destroy them. It clearly teaches us that those close to the Lord are not exempt from heat or famine but having trusted in the place he chose for them, they have no need to ‘fear’ or be ‘anxious.’

Those who are blessed bear fruit, in fact they do not cease to bear fruit even in famine. (verse 8) Jesus in the Gospel of John tells us that when we abide in him (15:4) we bear fruit, more fruit and much fruit but apart from him we can do nothing (15:5). The reading of today ends with Jeremiah explaining to us the reason why Judah eventually chose the curse rather than the blessing. At the heart of the matter, was the matter of their heart. “The heart is devious above all else and it is perverse,” he proclaims. Many are taken in by the romanticized notion of faith and God and may have excellent liturgical expressions that glorify it and celebrate it. God SEARCHES the mind and the heart. He examines it, he checks it, he certifies it and then ‘accords to us, according to the FRUIT of our doing.’ (17:10)

COULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENT SECTION AND SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH OTHERS

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Should Pope Francis not have a temper? Wednesday, the second week in Lent – Jeremiah 18:18-20/Matthew 20:17-28

We think of prophets as perfect! They were far from it, yet God called them, as he did with so many in the Bible and through history, knowing fully well that those called were not perfect. Jeremiah did not even want the job. He protested when God called him from the countryside to the city, from local interests to national concerns.

His ministry spanned forty years and such was the sadness, loneliness and rejection that he faced, that he has come to be known as the weeping prophet. He lived to see the fall of the northern kingdom to the Assyrians, then the subordination of his own country as a vassal nation to a new superpower, the Babylonians and finally the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the exile of his people.

Jeremiah called his people time and time again to repentance. They simply rejected his call and what’s worse is that they plotted to kill him. The text of today opens with the words of the people who are plotting against him. They seem to suggest that there was no dearth of prophets, priests or wise men that made Jeremiah indispensable. They would rather bring false charges against him than hear this prophet of doom and gloom.

While the text reflects the suffering of the honest and those of integrity at the hands of powerful and corrupt wheeler dealers it also leaves one wondering why does God allow the innocent to suffer? Here is a prophet who by his very words cries out in innocence. It was he who intervened and held back the wrath of God against them and yet they would rather kill him than repent.

Ironically, this suffering prophet also gave in to thoughts of revenge. The words of revenge are venom-filled. Verses 21-23(not in the reading of today) tell us how he wishes famine over the children of his adversaries, wishing these children dead by the sword. He prays that their wives become widowed, their men die of pestilence and their youth die on the battlefield. He wishes their houses destroyed by marauders and he finally asks God “not to forgive their iniquity.

These are not words we expect from a man of God yet it gives us an insight into the fragility that these earthen vessels, chosen by God, truly are. We tend to highlight their failings and faults, even as in the case of Jeremiah, they are between few and far. We like to malign people who stand for God because they hold a moral mirror to the world; one that does not show us the powder and paint of made-up beauty but the blackness of our soul.

Does Pope Francis get angry? I know he does. There have been several public instances when an over-enthusiastic pilgrim has caught his hand and almost toppled him over. He has reacted in a moment of anger though after which has profusely and publicly apologized. Yet the haters will make little reels to mock him as if by highlighting his little failings they will assuage their sinful positions and proposition of life.

Like the prophets and saints, we all struggle. The spiritual life is never easy though it is not impossible. If Jeremiah could lose his composure and wish every evil in the world for his adversaries then we have to take comfort that God overlooks our moments of indiscretions. The challenge is to ensure that those failing are but moments and not turned into a lifestyle.

If you have read this far…leave your thoughts in the comment box. 

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Your brand of religion makes me sick – Tuesday, 2nd Week in Lent – Isaiah 1:10,16-20/Matthew 23:1-12

The text of today’s first reading seems like another Lenten appeal to transform our lives. It seems like a loving God who wants to “talk this over” with us, offering us an exchange of our sins as red as scarlet for a robe of righteousness bleached white as wool. And yes, there seems to be some rather tame ‘threat’ of death should you not take this amnesty scheme.

But read the whole of this chapter and you can see that God, through his prophet Isaiah throws political correctness into the dustbin and sails right through the people of Israel. He not only called a spade a spade but he even dug a pit to push a few into it. Isaiah reflects God’s wrath with a people who were mollycoddled for way too long and had learnt nothing; not even the fall of the northern kingdom had any effect on them. (Read verse 7)

In some sense, the text of today does a great injustice to the wrath that God expresses. This is not a God who decides to lather and shave. In Isaiah chapter one, God stands with a blade to the throat, ready to slit it. This is not a God who has got up from the wrong side of his bed, this is a God who seems fed up of stiffed neck people. To Israel he says, “the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib,” yet ironically Israel does not know its God. In a way, God was telling Israel, that even a donkey and an ox are better than they are.

But that is not all. God calls them out for who they are, “a sinful nation laden with iniquity,” and “children who do evil. (verse4) “They seemed to have not learnt their lesson and so God rhetorically asks them if they want another round of beating. (Verse 5). To God, they were sick in the head. (verse 6)

It is not that Jerusalem had not seen the consequences of God’s wrath on Sodom and Gomorrah. It is not that they did not know how God had rejected their sacrifices and called them worthless. God rejected their offerings when he said, “Who asked for this (these sacrifices) from your hands?” (verse12) Then God said the unthinkable, “Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates, they have become a burden. Read the Hebrew text and it makes you recoil for God says your sacrifices make me nauseous. Your brand of religion makes me sick.

Israel had to learn and learn quickly. We know that sadly they did not. But God did try. He appeals to them in today’s text, “cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Israel was steeped in sin, a sin that God colour codes as red. They lived in the danger zone and so he makes one last appeal.

There is an amnesty offered only “IF they were willing and obedient.” (Verse 19) Sadly, this is a narrative that did not end well. This was not a Zacchaeus or a Matthew transformation. Israel did a Caiaphas and dug their heels deeper into sin and God destroyed them.

Read this text how you may, it does not change the reality of God’s patience. “Oh, that today you may listen to his voice, harden not your hearts.” (Psalm 95:7)

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Reading the scriptures with a scissor in your hand – Monday, the second week in Lent – Daniel 9:4-10/ Luke 6:36-38

Many Christians live lives that are convenient to their understanding of the faith. They read the scriptures with scissors in their hands cutting off whatever sounds inconvenient to them. This extends to both, the right and the left, those who propagate an exclusive vertical spirituality and those who aggressively support a horizontal one. Christ was clear; Love God AND your neighbour.

Jesus had just chosen his twelve disciples (Luke 6:12-16). He has settled on the plain where a ‘great crowd of his disciples’ and a ‘great multitude’ of people have gathered. Interestingly these are people from Judea and Jerusalem and Tyre and Sidon. Make no mistake these two sets of cities were not bosom buddies. They had a long-standing racial feud but now they are united in their need for healing, troubles and possessions. It is in this context that Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Plain

It is to sworn enemies, now united in their misery, that Jesus teaches the principles of humanity which draw their source from divinity. It is in God’s nature to be merciful and Jesus asks the crowd to be merciful not by their standards but by God’s standards. Mercy prompts us to a Godly life in which we don’t judge each other, condemn one another and learn to forgive those who have even been our traditional enemies.

Let us make one thing clear. Scripture is not given to us for us to conveniently fling into each other’s faces like you have thrown down a trump card. Some may say, “If Christ said you should not judge and condemn” why do Christians judge at all? Christ did not say you can’t make a moral judgment. No one in their right mind would say that a murderer should not be judged. What Christ is telling us is that when we deal with others we should not judge or condemn them as if we know the mind of God for them. The thief who died with Christ won heaven at the ninth hour and it was not a saint who walked into paradise with Christ but a sinner.

The appeal of Jesus is that we are merciful like our heavenly father is merciful. Right off the bat, you will realize that mercy by its very nature is unmerited, yet Christ asks us to show mercy to those whom we may think don’t deserve even a side glance on compassion.

Finally, the last line of today’s reading must be read in its context and not as some pot of gold that will be given to us if we are generous with our money and things. “Give and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over is not some bumper interest or return that we get for giving a thousand rupees to a street urchin in Lent. It is a promise of mercy and kindness from God who when he sees how we have been merciful will show us the same mercy; in good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over.

Alas for those who thought otherwise!

LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS AND SHARE YOUR FAITH- IT JUST TAKES A MINUTE

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

God, do you have to be so specific? Second Sunday in Lent – Genesis 22:1-2,9,10-13,15-18/Mark 9:2-10

How easy our life would be if God was vague in his demands of us. Vagueness gives you the ability to find a way to slither out of a tough call. But God is ‘annoyingly’ specific when he makes demands of us and no matter how we choose to interpret his call, in our heart, we know what he demands of us specifically.

God was specific with Abraham, “Take YOUR son, your ONLY child ISAAC, whom YOU LOVE, AND GO to the land of MORIAH. There you shall OFFER him as a BURNT OFFERING, on a mountain I WILL POINT out to you.” This was crystal clear and perhaps Abraham would have wished God to be even a wee bit vague because this was a death sentence he had to carry out and it was his son whom he loved that God wanted sacrificed.

The Gospel of today may seem to distract us from the harsh reality of the first reading. It may seem to smoothen the specific demands of God by focusing on the transfiguration, by focusing on Moses and Elijah and the dazzling clothes of Jesus. But make no mistake, this text is sandwiched by two other texts which are in your face. Jesus predicts his passion death and resurrection just before the transfiguration (Mark 8:31) and immediately after this text (Mark 9:31) and still again in 10:32. And just the turn of the page of the Bible or simply complete chapter ten and you will find Jesus entering into Jerusalem to die on the cross. The theme of the second Sunday in Lent cannot be softened no matter how much you try

The readings of today make God sound cruel, harsh and extremely demanding. But God himself was to offer his son for the sacrifice of the world and this time there was nothing that stopped God’s hand. No substitute ram took the place of Christ. He is the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world by dying on the cross. Like Abraham, this was also God’s son. Like Abraham, this was God’s ONLY son. Like Abraham, this was God’s beLOVED son but unlike Abraham, no ram took Jesus’ place; this was THE LAMB OF GOD and he had to take away the sins of the world. He is the perfect sacrifice that could not be replaced by any other sacrifice.

The readings of today are not easy to digest. My hands tremble as I type these words. We feel a sense of fear that our God could also demand the same from us and it is rather likely that you and I may fail this test when comes our turn. Yet, many in this time, in this history, have lived this mystery of God. Like the Psalmist of today, they too ‘have trusted even when they are sorely afflicted.’ How many parents have since had to ‘sacrifice’ a young son or daughter to God’s will; a will they perhaps even now have resigned themselves to but cannot remotely fathom?

Sit back, pray for grace, that when the moment comes you may say, “Father, if it is your will, let this cup of suffering pass me by, but let your will not mine be done.”

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading