February 27, 2017
Monday, Week Eight, Year I
Perspective Changes Everything
The fact is that, though blessed by
God’s light, we sometimes fail to walk in it. But for those with eyes to see,
even our faults reveal God’s goodness by giving us the experience of his mercy.
Sirach 17:19-27 assures us, “To the penitent he provides a way back, he
encourages those who are losing hope.”
Why? Why is God so willing to forgive,
to make it so easy to return to him? Why doesn’t he just give up on those who
give up on him? We do. It is because, even though we are in the image of God,
He is infinitely better.
How great is the mercy of the Lord, his forgiveness
to those who return to Him! The like cannot be found in humans, for not
immortal is any child of man.
Ben Sira is not denying the immortality
of the soul, although in his time the Jews may not have known much about it.
That is not his question or focus. What he is pointing out is that God relates
to people from a different perspective than ours.
People can threaten us. We perceive them
as able to diminish our happiness, take away what we think we need or want to
keep, restrict our activities, even cut short our lives. So when people injure
us or threaten to do us harm, we want to exclude them from our lives, ostracize
them, lock them away in cages, even execute or exterminate them. This is
because we recognize our existence as fragile, incomplete and tenuous. We are
fixated on protecting it.
Not so God. God doesn’t protect his life; he
shares it. He doesn’t have to defend his existence; he gives existence to all
that is. He sees everything from a different perspective:
Who in the nether world can glorify the Most High?
…They glorify the Lord who are alive and well.
God’s only concern is to give life,
enhance life, help every person to grow to the fullness of life. He is pure
giving because there is nothing he needs to receive or defend. He is not afraid
of losing anything, because he has everything.
Except our total surrender to his love.
God doesn’t “possess” our free will. He
wont force it. He wants to win it. But he knows the only way to win love freely
is to give love unconditionally.
So no matter what we do to him he
responds with love. “To the penitent he
provides a way back, he encourages those who are losing hope.” No matter
where we stand in relationship to him: near or far, whether we think we are in
favor or in disgrace, “Return to the Lord
and give up sin, pray to him and make your offenses few.”
Few. Diminish them. We don’t have to be
perfect overnight, wholehearted in our first response. “Turn again to the Most High and away from sin.” Turn. It’s a matter
of direction, of fundamental desire, of mind set. Just accept the goal and
start. Life is a journey. So is love
This is the first call of the Good News.
“In those days John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness of Judea,
proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’…. Jesus “left
Nazareth and… began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come
near.’” Metanoieite! Change your
minds and hearts. New life is at hand. Accept it.
Meditation:
Which
direction am I facing? Do I need to alter course at all?
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