Tuning Out the Gospel According to the World

Tuning Out the Gospel According to the World

February 27, 2013

Wednesday of the Second Week in Lent

By Colleen O'Sullivan

Heed me, O Lord, and listen to what my adversaries say.  Must good be repaid with evil that they should dig a pit to take my life?  Remember that I stood before you to speak in their behalf, to turn away your wrath from them.  (Jeremiah 18:19-20)

“... (W)hoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.  Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”   (Matthew 20:26b-28)

Piety

Lord, help me to empty myself of all desire for praise, acclamation, wealth, or power.  May my heart be filled with compassion for the needs of my brothers and sisters.  Grant me the grace to follow in your footsteps as a servant to others.

Study

Jeremiah is one of my favorite characters in the Old Testament.  He’s so human.  He’s beset by so many of the same frailties that afflict you and me.  God sends this prophet to the people of Judah in an attempt to bring them back to their God.  Jeremiah proclaims the message God gives him.  But now, in today’s Scripture reading, he begins to sound like you or me.  Okay, Lord, I’ve been faithful.  I’ve spoken your words to the people.  But this whole thing just doesn’t seem fair.  I did what you asked, and my reward is a death threat!  The people are digging a pit; they want to throw me into it and murder me.  Such a man of this world, believing that good deeds are rewarded with earthly admiration or well-being (or, as we sometimes believe, prosperity or acquisition of power).

And then along comes Jesus, challenging our deepest notions about ourselves and our world.  He reminds us as we journey through Lent with him that we are on the way to Jerusalem, to suffering and death, before we get to the Resurrection.  His faithfulness in proclaiming the Kingdom, his love for all of us as manifested by the many times he touches people’s lives with healing and forgiveness are not rewarded with any kind of well-being, but with an ignominious death on the Cross.  As he responds to the mother of the sons of Zebedee’s request that her sons be awarded seats of honor in heaven, he lets us know that in his Father’s Kingdom, all our world-inspired assumptions about greatness, fairness, and rewards get turned upside down.  If we truly want to be great in God’s eyes, we have to die to ourselves and become servants to others.  No prosperity gospel here; just plain talk about being last and least in order to be first in the Kingdom.

Action

From the moment that we begin to toddle around, the world teaches us that actions have consequences.  As a two-year-old, if you do what Mommy says, you are rewarded with her smile.  Later, if you pay attention in school and study hard, you’ll get an A.  If you wear the right clothes and hang out with the right people, you’ll be popular. If you go to college, you’ll get a good job.  If you work hard, you’ll get a promotion and a bigger salary.  Then you can buy a bigger house and a sportier car.   If you become the CEO, you’ll have power over others. This is the gospel according to the world. (It doesn’t, however, prepare us for bad things happening to good people, for discrimination, for learning disabilities, for ill health, for job lay-offs, or for underwater mortgages, etc.)

How often do you find yourself sharing Jeremiah’s feelings?  How difficult is it for you to tune out the world’s gospel and hear Jesus’ words instead?  What are you doing this Lent to serve others?

Turn to God in Love

February 20, 2013

Ash Wednesday

 

Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth… When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them, he did not carry it out.  (Jonah 3:4-5, 10)

At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.”  (Luke 11:32)

Piety

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.  (Psalm 51:19)

Study

Eons ago, before time as we know it began, there was God.  One day, for reasons incomprehensible to the human mind, God decided to create the universe and all that is in it.  With a surge of joy, he placed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the planets in the skies.  With great pleasure he covered the earth with lands and seas, flowers, plants and trees as well as fish, birds, and every other type of animal. 

Then, in a further outpouring of his love, he created the first human beings.  With that same love, God created you and me, knit us in our mothers’ wombs, thought about all the plans he had in mind for us.   Like a new mother, he gazed upon us with eyes of wonder and delight.  All he asks of us in return is that we love him back and love everything he has created, including all his other children.

Lent is the time of year when we reflect on God’s great love for us, a love that issues forth in his sending his Son into our world to die for us, to redeem us from our sins, to be our Savior.  From the very beginning, we human beings have found it impossible to love God with the same single-minded devotion with which God loves us.  Sometimes it’s because we love ourselves more.  Or we like being our own little gods.  In other cases, we’ve fallen in love with the ways of the world and discover that we treasure wealth or power over everything and everyone else.

If the Ninevites, who were Assyrians and didn’t even know the God of Israel, could turn from their sinful ways to the Lord at the word of Jonah, how much more we should be able to turn from sin back to the God we profess to love.   We know Jesus and, through Jesus, we know the Father.  The Holy Spirit dwells within us.  Through the Holy Trinity we are loved into being, accompanied on our journeys, rejoiced with in our delights, comforted in our sorrows, and empowered to love others.  All God asks for is our love in return.

Action

What in your life do you love more than God?  Are you willing to give it up, to turn away from sin, to repent and turn to the Lord?

If you would like to confess what it is that comes between you and your love for God, for the fourth year in a row, the Arlington Diocese is sponsoring, “The Light is On for You,” an opportunity where every Wednesday from February 20 – March 27, from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m., a priest will be available in every parish to hear confessions.   See your parish bulletin for additional opportunities for the Sacrament of Reconciliation.