Monday of the Second Week of Lent -- March 21, 2011
Luke 6:36 – 38
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Christian spirituality rejects the notion that you have to “look out for number one.” Self-serving egocentricity may have its place in business, social life and the political world, but it won’t serve you well in the spiritual life.
Jesus described a circular cycle which makes little sense rationally, but which makes wonderful sense spiritually.
In Jesus’ way of ordering life, the act of opening one’s hands to others – in mercy, non-judgment, non-condemnation, forgiveness, and giving – means that those same open hands can be filled by God. What one extends to others comes back.
There is a marvelous interaction, a continuous loop in the life of the Spirit. It is a kind of reciprocity that doesn’t end.
Really, it is a glorious working-out of the endless self-giving of God. It is characteristic of God to give God’s self away, to sow God-seeds in the world, on every kind of soil. And in the giving, God is never depleted.
Beatrice Bruteau maintains that this never-ending self-giving among the three persons of the Trinity is continuous and sends into the world a holy energy for love, peace and healing. When we give, resist judging, or forgive, we merely join an ordering of the universe that has been set in motion already among Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God invites us on the spiritual journey to spend our lives, to give our lives away. We are not hoarders. We are not storing up life for some future time. We spend ourselves on others and on the world, just as God is spent on the world.
Almost miraculously, we find that as we spend life, life returns to us. And so we spend again, and life returns again. We repeat the cycle over and over again. Before long, the spending and the returning are not sequential, but simultaneous. The spending and returning are wrapped up in the same acts, in the same expressions, in the same works of ministry.
It is a circular cycle, a never-ending spiritual loop.
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Christian spirituality rejects the notion that you have to “look out for number one.” Self-serving egocentricity may have its place in business, social life and the political world, but it won’t serve you well in the spiritual life.
Jesus described a circular cycle which makes little sense rationally, but which makes wonderful sense spiritually.
In Jesus’ way of ordering life, the act of opening one’s hands to others – in mercy, non-judgment, non-condemnation, forgiveness, and giving – means that those same open hands can be filled by God. What one extends to others comes back.
There is a marvelous interaction, a continuous loop in the life of the Spirit. It is a kind of reciprocity that doesn’t end.
Really, it is a glorious working-out of the endless self-giving of God. It is characteristic of God to give God’s self away, to sow God-seeds in the world, on every kind of soil. And in the giving, God is never depleted.
Beatrice Bruteau maintains that this never-ending self-giving among the three persons of the Trinity is continuous and sends into the world a holy energy for love, peace and healing. When we give, resist judging, or forgive, we merely join an ordering of the universe that has been set in motion already among Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God invites us on the spiritual journey to spend our lives, to give our lives away. We are not hoarders. We are not storing up life for some future time. We spend ourselves on others and on the world, just as God is spent on the world.
Almost miraculously, we find that as we spend life, life returns to us. And so we spend again, and life returns again. We repeat the cycle over and over again. Before long, the spending and the returning are not sequential, but simultaneous. The spending and returning are wrapped up in the same acts, in the same expressions, in the same works of ministry.
It is a circular cycle, a never-ending spiritual loop.
Comments
Post a Comment