Monday of the Third Week of Lent - March 12, 2012
Luke 4:24 - 30
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Jesus gave two examples from Israel's history of God extending mercy, generosity, and healing to foreigners -- the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. Those who heard him in the synagogue were furious that he included "outsiders" within the grace of God. The translations use words like "angry," "furious," "rage"," and "wrath" to describe the reactions of the synagogue worshipers.
The crowd was angry and furious, they flew into a rage and were full of wrath. They were convinced God cared for them, but they weren't ready to believe that God also cared for non-Israelites.
It's a pretty predictable response for any of us when our prized beliefs get threatened. When someone steps a little too close to something we hold dear, humans tend to react in anger. It is a preferred defense mechanism for many of us.
What is closer to any of us than how we feel about God? Or what we believe about God? We hold our God-belief among the most sacred and personal things we have.
And we feel like our view of God and how God works is the right one. I mean, really, think about it . . . Who says, "Yeah, I have these beliefs about God, but I know they are all wrong." No, our beliefs are what we hold to be true.
The problem is not that we have beliefs, but that we hold our beliefs to be inflexible. They become fixed points for us that are immovable. Once we've nailed down who we believe God is, we hold on. We don't budge. We act as if our minds have settled the issue, and we don't have to grow in our image of God at all.
Really, it's a juvenile spirituality that locks God into one place based on how we thought of God at one point in time. I think we are invited as the people to God to grow up.
God is not evolving, but my understanding and experience of God has to continually evolve.
For today . . . at the top of a page of paper, write: "I believe . . ."
Then on the page, spend a few minutes writing down your basic beliefs about God, a sort of credo. What do you believe? Write for a few minutes, or until you run out of things to put on the paper.
Finally, with a prayerful spirit, go back to the top of your list and one at a time, ask about each thing you have written, "If God shows me otherwise, am I willing to change my mind about this?" Ask yourself that question about each item on the list.
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Jesus gave two examples from Israel's history of God extending mercy, generosity, and healing to foreigners -- the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. Those who heard him in the synagogue were furious that he included "outsiders" within the grace of God. The translations use words like "angry," "furious," "rage"," and "wrath" to describe the reactions of the synagogue worshipers.
The crowd was angry and furious, they flew into a rage and were full of wrath. They were convinced God cared for them, but they weren't ready to believe that God also cared for non-Israelites.
It's a pretty predictable response for any of us when our prized beliefs get threatened. When someone steps a little too close to something we hold dear, humans tend to react in anger. It is a preferred defense mechanism for many of us.
What is closer to any of us than how we feel about God? Or what we believe about God? We hold our God-belief among the most sacred and personal things we have.
And we feel like our view of God and how God works is the right one. I mean, really, think about it . . . Who says, "Yeah, I have these beliefs about God, but I know they are all wrong." No, our beliefs are what we hold to be true.
The problem is not that we have beliefs, but that we hold our beliefs to be inflexible. They become fixed points for us that are immovable. Once we've nailed down who we believe God is, we hold on. We don't budge. We act as if our minds have settled the issue, and we don't have to grow in our image of God at all.
Really, it's a juvenile spirituality that locks God into one place based on how we thought of God at one point in time. I think we are invited as the people to God to grow up.
God is not evolving, but my understanding and experience of God has to continually evolve.
For today . . . at the top of a page of paper, write: "I believe . . ."
Then on the page, spend a few minutes writing down your basic beliefs about God, a sort of credo. What do you believe? Write for a few minutes, or until you run out of things to put on the paper.
Finally, with a prayerful spirit, go back to the top of your list and one at a time, ask about each thing you have written, "If God shows me otherwise, am I willing to change my mind about this?" Ask yourself that question about each item on the list.
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