Leaving Everything Behind

February 24, 2007

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. Isaiah 58:9-11

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. Luke 5:27-28

Piety

Lord, teach me your ways that I may walk in your truth. Jesus, help us act on your call. When the phone rings, we answer it. Give us the initiative to do the same when we hear your Word. Help us to work to eliminate poverty, oppose war, teach the ways of peace, oppose the expansion of the death penalty and to be a consistent witness for life at all stages from conception to natural death. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/022407.shtml

Jesus needs a reaction.

The Dixie Chicks want listeners. Nora Jones wants listeners. Jimmy Buffet wants listeners. But they all want you to go out and buy their records, concert tickets and videos.

Jesus needs people to listen and pay attention to what He is saying. But his mission will fail if he has a lot of listeners to a radio program. Once the message is heard, he wants people to completely detach from material possessions and change the way they are living their lives. Listening without following is hollow. Jesus needs our reaction. Listening and doing something about the Word. THAT is what will please the Lord.

Piety alone is not the only answer. Yes. Jesus wants our prayers, our faith. But where will these prayers, this faith lead? Unless we remove from our midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech, it will lead no where. Unless we bestow our bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, it will lead no where.

As the Psalmist writes today, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.” We can just learn the ways unless we walk in its truth.

When we send up our prayers, we want Jesus to listen AND answer. He asks nothing less of us.

Action

In today’s column in The New York Times, Bob Herbert notes:

No one can figure out what to do about Iraq or Al Qaeda. A great American cultural center like New Orleans was all but washed away, and no one knows how to put it back together. The ice caps are melting and Al Gore is traveling the land like the town crier, raising the alarm about global warming.

But none of that has really gotten the public's attention. As a nation of spectators, we seem content to sit with a pizza and a brew in front of the high-def flat-screen TV, obsessing over Anna Nicole et al., and giving no thought to the possibility that the calamitous events unfolding in the world may someday reach our doorsteps.

Jesus does not want a church of spectators. He wants his followers to be do-ers. And one way we might start/continue is to look at alleviating domestic poverty. This week the Church issued a statement on eliminating poverty and working with other Christian churches. The statement can be found here: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2007/07-035.shtml

Get involved with projects like the Hypothermia Project which reaches out to the poor and addresses these issues.

NOTE: This is officially the 365th posting to Your Daily Tripod. Looking forward to number #730 next year. Would you like to join our band of bloggers? Look for a new message each Sunday during Lent 2007 that comes from the Arlington Diocese Peace and Justice Commission thanks to Fr. Gerry Creedon and Anne Murphy.