Word to the Wise
Monday, March 9, 2009 - Monday in the Second Week of Lent
[Daniel 9:4a-10 and Luke 6:36-38]Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.
I love the image of a full bushel basket and the extra gesture of packing the contents down, shaking them to settle and then adding more. But I love it even more when the image is applied to what comes just before: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven." It is amazing to me that people can be generous with their time, treasure and talent (they are a pastor's joy) but they cannot be generous with their mercy and forgiveness! In fact, they can be very angry and bitter people. It is possible to see this occsionally in very active people - people who show up for meetings, demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns. It seems a shame that we can be so generous on the outside and so stingy on the inside! True holiness and wholeness before the Lord requires that we present ourselves as generous from within as well as generous on the outside. AMEN