Lord, Turn Your Ear To Me

March 27 2012

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

By Beth DeCristofaro

(Jesus) said to them, "You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins." (John 8:23-24)

Piety

LORD, hear my prayer;

let my cry come to you.

Do not hide your face from me

in the day of my distress.

Turn your ear to me;

when I call, answer me quickly.

Let this be written for the next generation,

for a people not yet born,

that they may praise the LORD:

“The LORD looked down from the holy heights,

viewed the earth from heaven,

To attend to the groaning of the prisoners,

to release those doomed to die.” (Psalm 102:1-2, 19-21)

Study

Maybe this group of Pharisees didn’t listen very carefully in Psalms class. Earlier in the chapter they brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery. They hoped to trap Jesus while at the same time condemning her for her sinfulness. Jesus, of course, refused to play their games and refused to condemn. Rather he forgive the woman while giving her the freedom to choose “to sin no more.” In a following conversation they again challenged Jesus after he tells them that he is the light of the world: “You testify on your own behalf, so your testimony cannot be verified.” (John 8:13).

The psalmist challenges God but in awareness of his own frailty, mortality and sinfulness. The psalmist calls on God for comfort and mercy and his challenge is a plea, rooted in the belief that God is mightier than he is and, in fact, this mighty God is not only the source of life but the source of freedom from suffering. The psalmist’s challenge is rooted in praise, faith and conviction. The Pharisees’ challenges are rooted in the mistaken belief that they know the mind of God and are the purveyors of God’s purpose. They will die in their sins. The psalmist, one doomed to die, relies on God for freedom and life. The Psalmist’s words foreshadow the divine climax in Jesus’ words, uttered before his final “Yes”: “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”

Action

Do I challenge God for my own purposes? Has this journey of Lent led me to shed the role of master of my own universe in order to be released from what is below to which I cling? While God is not absent from this world of below, I can wall God off when I cling only to what I know like the Pharisees did. Pray this Psalm and give to God the cares of those things to which you cling and those hardships, sins, illnesses, calamities which beset you.