Adjusting Life
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent
Daily Reading: Luke 11:29 – 32
Focus Passage:
“The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now one greater than Jonah is here.” (Lk. 11:32)
Don’t let yourself drown in analysis of the passage. Jesus used two sets of figures – Jonah in Nineveh and the Queen of the South listening to Solomon – which would have made a point with his original hearers about their willingness to adjust their lives.
We may not fully understand the images, but Jonah with the people of Nineveh and Solomon with the “Queen of the South” likely would have been recognizable to Jesus’ first-century hearers. We, therefore, can immediately get over our fixation with knowing the intricacies of the references. If the names had been unrecognizable or obscure to Jesus’ original audience, he would have provided an explanation.
Both references point to groups or persons who heeded the wisdom or message of a spokesperson from God. Jonah spoke and was heard. Solomon spoke and was heard. Now Jesus spoke but unlike Jonah and Solomon, he was being shunned and dismissed, not flashy enough or wondrous enough for his contemporaries.
Persons of every generation are intrigued by signs and wonders, the over-the-top illuminations that “wow!” crowds and say, “God is here!” Yet, persons of every generation also miss the mundane, everyday manifestations of God in their midst . . . the lone bird descending on a lake . . . the weeping of a friend in pain . . . the compassion of a teen caring for a bullied classmate . . . the owl perched quietly in the tree . . . the silence elicited from a scene more beautiful than words.
Jesus didn’t promise a sign. He invited hearers to receive his message and to adjust their lives accordingly. It is one thing to hear the message. It is another thing altogether to adjust our lives according to what we hear.
I can hear a message and affirm its goodness, its basic rightness. I also find that when a message is too challenging, when it invites me to deeper life-change, I may balk. I resist not because I disbelieve the message, but because I don’t want the difficulty, struggle, and messiness to which I am invited . . . and which is absolutely essential in life-change. There is no growth without struggle, you can count on that.
Further, I find that sometimes when I resist the life-change because it is too strenuous, I may then go back and question the message. “Well, I didn’t really believe those things anyway.” Because my will is weak, I’ll dismiss the validity of the message itself.
Jesus invites us to adjust life so that we live true to God and to ourselves. Then, in living true to God and ourselves, we offer the gift of liberation and transformation to others and to the entire created world. Jesus invites this transformation, not because we have seen a sign, but simply because of who he is and because he invites us by name to this journey of Love.
For Reflection:
Reflect today on one or two moments in life that seemed especially challenging and difficult . . . maybe the death of a loved one, a medical diagnosis, an unexpected life-change, or a difficult period in a relationship.
In your journal, write just a few sentences to summarize that time in your life. Don’t get lost into all the life-draining details. Just write enough to bring that season freshly back to your memory.
Then reflect on the season of life that followed the difficult period. How did that challenging season change you? Were there ways life shifted for you after the difficult period? What invitations from God to adjust your life did you sense after that time in your life?
Daily Reading: Luke 11:29 – 32
Focus Passage:
“The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now one greater than Jonah is here.” (Lk. 11:32)
Don’t let yourself drown in analysis of the passage. Jesus used two sets of figures – Jonah in Nineveh and the Queen of the South listening to Solomon – which would have made a point with his original hearers about their willingness to adjust their lives.
We may not fully understand the images, but Jonah with the people of Nineveh and Solomon with the “Queen of the South” likely would have been recognizable to Jesus’ first-century hearers. We, therefore, can immediately get over our fixation with knowing the intricacies of the references. If the names had been unrecognizable or obscure to Jesus’ original audience, he would have provided an explanation.
Both references point to groups or persons who heeded the wisdom or message of a spokesperson from God. Jonah spoke and was heard. Solomon spoke and was heard. Now Jesus spoke but unlike Jonah and Solomon, he was being shunned and dismissed, not flashy enough or wondrous enough for his contemporaries.
Persons of every generation are intrigued by signs and wonders, the over-the-top illuminations that “wow!” crowds and say, “God is here!” Yet, persons of every generation also miss the mundane, everyday manifestations of God in their midst . . . the lone bird descending on a lake . . . the weeping of a friend in pain . . . the compassion of a teen caring for a bullied classmate . . . the owl perched quietly in the tree . . . the silence elicited from a scene more beautiful than words.
Jesus didn’t promise a sign. He invited hearers to receive his message and to adjust their lives accordingly. It is one thing to hear the message. It is another thing altogether to adjust our lives according to what we hear.
I can hear a message and affirm its goodness, its basic rightness. I also find that when a message is too challenging, when it invites me to deeper life-change, I may balk. I resist not because I disbelieve the message, but because I don’t want the difficulty, struggle, and messiness to which I am invited . . . and which is absolutely essential in life-change. There is no growth without struggle, you can count on that.
Further, I find that sometimes when I resist the life-change because it is too strenuous, I may then go back and question the message. “Well, I didn’t really believe those things anyway.” Because my will is weak, I’ll dismiss the validity of the message itself.
Jesus invites us to adjust life so that we live true to God and to ourselves. Then, in living true to God and ourselves, we offer the gift of liberation and transformation to others and to the entire created world. Jesus invites this transformation, not because we have seen a sign, but simply because of who he is and because he invites us by name to this journey of Love.
For Reflection:
Reflect today on one or two moments in life that seemed especially challenging and difficult . . . maybe the death of a loved one, a medical diagnosis, an unexpected life-change, or a difficult period in a relationship.
In your journal, write just a few sentences to summarize that time in your life. Don’t get lost into all the life-draining details. Just write enough to bring that season freshly back to your memory.
Then reflect on the season of life that followed the difficult period. How did that challenging season change you? Were there ways life shifted for you after the difficult period? What invitations from God to adjust your life did you sense after that time in your life?
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