Word to the Wise
Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 3rd Week of Lent - Thurs
[Jer 7:23-28 and Luke 11:14-23]This is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the Lord, its God, or take correction. Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself is banished from their speech. [Jeremiah]
Jeremiah has a way of making things clear. If the People of God are faithful to the covenant they have with the Lord, they will prosper. If they are unfaithful, they will perish. In today's first scripture he sums up the situation and makes the comment that the very word, "faithfulness is banished from their speech." Is "faithfulness" in our own speech?
In the years that I was in campus ministry, it was common among campus ministers to hear about the difficulty that students experienced in making and keeping commitments. It seemed as if every day the least to the most important commitments had to be renegotiated according to the latest social or academic or athletic options offered for that day. There was little "tomorrow" in their covenantal behavior. This was not something particular to college students, but it was scary because if the student carried that way of looking at things into the world after graduation, who could rely on any promise they would make. The expression, "That was then. This is now." was popular. If one brings that way of thinking into such solemn commitments as marriage, the results are disastrous. And there are many other areas of life that could be equally impacted in a negative way by a lack of "faithfulness" to commitments.
Lent offers an important opportunity to look at our "covenantal" behavior. How faithful are we to our religious and personal commitments? Can God rely on us? Can our neighbor rely on us? Do we renegotiate our values by the day instead of being consistent for years? The "Babylonian Exile" was seen by the Jews as a punishment for their lack of faithfulness. But this was not something that God did to them. They did it to themselves. What are we doing to ourselves by being unfaithful to God and to our baptismal covenant? AMEN
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