Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Reform your ways and your deeds, so that I may remain with you in this place. Put not your trust in the deceitful words: “This is the temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!” Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with his neighbor; if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow strange gods to your own harm, will I remain with you in this place, in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever. Jeremiah 7:3-7
Jeremiah tells the people that God wants to reform them in a very particular way. They are to be reshaped by justice, truthfulness, mercy, holy hospitality, non-violence, and faithful worship.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We examine our lives for where we need reformation. Don’t tell me you don’t need it. Everybody needs it. We get weary, distracted, hurt, stubborn, fooled, proud, and arrogant. These human conditions knock us out of spiritual shape. How great that God grants us the indulgence to reform and gladly assists us in the process!
Wisdom:
“In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, That dwells apart in a woodland, in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old; As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt, show us wonderful signs… Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance; Who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in mercy… Micah 7:14-15; 18
Micah prophesied about 700 years before Christ. His world was under siege by Sennacherib the Assyrian king. In the midst of this devastation, many abandoned the one true faith. But there was a small faithful portion of believers – the remnant – whom Micah sought to both warn and encourage by his prophecies.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We, too, live in a time of siege. Our faith is constantly challenged by our culture, our politics, religious institutionalization, and our self-serving economy.
But Micah reminds us that still God shepherds us tenderly. God awaits our recognition of God’s graces and call to be among the remnant who do not lose faith.
Poetry: Friday – Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) Jennings ranks among the finest British poets of the second half of the twentieth century. She is also England’s best Catholic poet since Gerard Manley Hopkins.
We nailed the hands long ago, Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain.
But one or two prayed, one or two Were silent, shocked, stood back And remembered remnants of words, a new vision, The cross is up with its crying victim, the clouds Cover the sun, we learn a new way to lose What we did not know we had Until this bleak and sacrificial day, Until we turned from our bad Past and knelt and cried out our dismay, The dice still clicking, the voices dying away.
Music: Arise and Shine – New Wine
Not a pleasing piece of music, but perhaps what Micah would sound like were he preaching today?
Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
It is not that Jesus’s listeners are unfamiliar with being “yoked” – irrevocably tied to burdens and labor. But the yoke Jesus offers is different. Choosing it, they will be tied to him in learning his way of peace and love. When these gifts fill one’s heart, life’s weight is lightened. When we abide in such proximity to Jesus, the journey is easy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We listen to Jesus’s invitation, “Come …”. What is it that we are trying to carry without the help of his grace? Let’s tie those burdens to Christ’s love and open our hearts to learn from him.
Poetry: spring song by Lucille Clifton
the green of Jesus is breaking the ground and the sweet smell of delicious Jesus is opening the house and the dance of Jesus music has hold of the air and the world is turning in the body of Jesus and the future is possible
Music: My Yoke is Easy – John Michael Talbot
All who are weary come unto Me All who find life a burden I will refresh you Your soul will find rest For My yoke is easy And My burden is light
Take my yoke on your shoulders and learn For I am gentle and humble I will refresh you Your soul will find rest I am gentle and humble of heart
My yoke is easy My burden is light Your soul will find rest Take My yoke on your shoulders and learn I am gentle and humble of heart
Come unto Me Your soul will find rest My yoke is easy My burden is light I am gentle and humble of heart
Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Matthew 11:20-21
Chorazin and Bethsaida were privileged. They had been blessed to see God’s power miraculously displayed in Jesus. And yet they failed to believe! How can that be? Hard-heartedness? Stupidity?
I think that, more likely, it was fear – the woeful condition that holds us back from giving ourselves to the truth. What would be required of them if they believed? What changes would they have to make in their lives? How would their comfortable world be turned upside-down?
Repentance: that would be the fruit of faith in Jesus. Many of them just couldn’t face it.
Today in God’s Lavish Mercy:
How committed is my faith? How is the Truth of Jesus alive in my life? What repentance, large or small, do I need to offer God?
Poetry: Savior – Maya Angelou
Petulant priests, greedy centurions, and one million incensed gestures stand between your love and me.
Your agape sacrifice is reduced to colored glass, vapid penance, and the tedium of ritual.
Your footprints yet mark the crest of billowing seas but your joy fades upon the tablets of ordained prophets.
Visit us again, Savior. Your children, burdened with disbelief, blinded by a patina of wisdom, carom down this vale of fear. We cry for you although we have lost your name.
Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words— go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Matthew 10: 11-14
Jesus gives his disciples a lesson on how to deal with disappointment and frustration as they spread the Gospel. Not every heart is going to be open to them. Jesus wants them to give their mission a heartfelt try. But if it meets a wall, they should not bang their head against it. Just turn around, let it go, and shake off their concern. Let it be like so much “dust in the wind”.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
All disciples of Jesus, all who sincerely live and preach the Gospel, are going to meet frustration at many points in their lives. We live in a world that is often diametrically opposed to the Beatitudes, the Magnificat, the Our Father. We live with people who cover classroom walls with the Ten Commandments while breaking every one of them in personal practice.
It can be frustrating, but Jesus says not to get caught in that frustration. Rather, he teaches, shake it off and move on to more receptive ground.
Jesus was serious about this and, in another passage, used some harsh words to make his point:
Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. Matthew 7:6-7
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Over the course of our lives, we will find ourselves somewhere in these passages – disciples or frustraters, pearl- givers or swine! Wherever we stand, God’s grace awaits us.
Poetry: Shake Thyself from the Dust – Mary Hoyt Loveland
Shake thyself from the dust, faint heart; Loose thyself from bands that bind. Thou art not Assyria’s thrall; Captive, rise and freedom find!
Captive, this is Love’s own realm! Lo! the very hills rejoice That oppression is cast down; Yea, the streams lift up their voice.
Yea, each dewy blossom glows, Freed from error’s withering blight. Loosed from tyranny and fear, Captive, turn ye to the light!
Turn ye to the light, and see That no evil can dismay, Gathering clouds of bitterness, Hiding harmony from day.
Turn ye to the light, faint one; In the truth is freedom won!
Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time July 10, 2024
Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” Matthew 10: 5-7
In this passage, Jesus is concerned with those who were offered faith in One God but have lost touch with it — “lost sheep of the house of Israel”. He wants these lost believers to be given the message, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
While the message conveys a sense of urgency (Hurry up and get your act together), it also offers a calming security. When something is “at hand”, we can touch it. We can hold on to it for balance. We can feel support and accompaniment as we we hold hands with a Loving Presence.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We may hear Jesus’s words either as a warning or an invitation to intimacy. Love is at hand for us, even if our faith has become distracted and our direction “lost”. We are invited to reach out to the God Who waits for us.
Poetry:
“The Beloved is with you in the midst of your seeking! God holds your hand wherever you wander.
Rumi
Music: Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand – Jennie Bain Wilson (1857) Sung here by Lynda Randle
Time is filled with swift transition, Naught of earth unmoved can stand, Build your hopes on things eternal, Hold to God’s unchanging hand. Refrain: Hold to God’s unchanging hand, Hold to God’s unchanging hand; Build your hopes on things eternal, Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Trust in Him who will not leave you, Whatsoever years may bring, If by earthly friends forsaken Still more closely to Him cling.
When your journey is completed, If to God you have been true, Fair and bright the home in glory Your enraptured soul will view.
I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD. Hosea 2:21-22
The prophet Hosea is a consummate poet. He uses the metaphor of espousal to convey the profound and merciful love of God for the people. Hosea contemplates his own life and his experience of marital infidelity to more deeply understand the relationship between a forgiving God and a false-hearted people. The language is beautiful, powerful, at times unsettling. It is intended to turn Israel’s heart – and ours – fully toward God’s love in repentance and fidelity.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy
God is the Lover and Spouse of our souls, of the whole Church, and of all Creation. In trust and openness, let us give ourselves to that Divine Mercy in every aspect of our lives.
Poetry: Hosea and Gomer by John Piper
This beautiful poem helps us more deeply understand the Book of Hosea.
The old man and his wife sat by The winter fire and looked out high Above the plains of Ephraim, And saw around the last regime Of Israel the shadows snake Their way from east to west and take Possession of Samaria. “How long until Assyria,’ They thought, “would break Hoshea’s rod, And violate the wife of God?”
But strange as it may seem, the doom They saw across the land left room For hope. And when they looked into Each other’s eyes, as they would do At night, they knew, as none could know But they, that God would bend his bow Against the charms of foreign men, And take his faithless wife again. They knew it could and would be done, As surely as the rising sun Drives darkness back unerringly, And drowns it in the western sea. They knew, because they had rehearsed The tragedy and played it first Themselves with passion and deceit.
“It’s true that life is far more sweet,” Hosea thought, “when it is lost, Then bought again at dreadful cost; And love grows strong when it must wait, And deep when it is almost hate.”
Such things as these he often said To Gomer as they watched the red And crimson echoes of the sky Descend Mount Tabor’s cliffs and die In darkness far below. And she Would say to him, “Your love for me Was like a mountain waterfall, And I the jagged stone. Of all The knives and hammers once applied None made me smooth or clean. They tried, But harlotry was in my blood, Until your love became a flood Cascading over my crude life And kept me as your only wife.”
They knew as none but they could know What it would mean that long ago The Lord allowed his love to swell, And married faithless Israel.
The passing of the years now found The children grown and gathered ’round This night: Jezreel and Loammi, Hosea’s sons, and at his knee Loruhamah. The room was sweet With memories, and each replete With pleasure and with ample pain. Among the memories one main Experience above the rest Embraced them all. It was the best; Indeed it was the mountain spring Of every happy stream from which The family ever drank, and rich With hope. It was Hosea’s love. The children stood in wonder of The way he loved, and Gomer too. But this had not always been true.
Hosea used to say, “It’s hard To be a seer, and prophet bard. The price is high when he must sing A song of ruin over everything In lyrics written with his life And lose his children and his wife.”
And so it was, Hosea heard The Lord. It was the strangest word A holy prophet ever got: And every pointed precept shot Like arrows at Hosea’s life: “Go take a harlot for your wife,” Thus says the Lord, “And feel with me The grief and pain of harlotry. Her father’s name is Diblaim; He makes fertility with cream And raisin cakes. He will not see Her go without a price, for she Has brought him profits from her trade. Now go, and let her price be paid; And bring her back and let her bear Your son. Call him Jezreel. For there Is coming soon a day when I Will strike and break the bloody thigh Of Jehu’s brutal house, and seal With blood the valley of Jezreel.
And after that, though she’s defiled. Go in, and get another child, And make your tender face like rock. Call her Loruahmah and lock Your heart against all sympathy: `Not pitied’ is her name. No plea From faithless Israel will wake My sympathy till I forsake My daughter in the wilderness.
Now multiply once more distress: Hosea, go beget a son, For there is yet one child to shun, And call him Loammi, in shame, For `Not My People’ is his name.”
Hosea used to walk along The Jordan rim and sing the song His father Beeri used to sing. Sometimes the tune and truth would bring Him peace, and he would pause and look At all the turns the Jordan took, To make its way down to the sea, And he would chant from memory:
Think not, my son, that God’s great river Of love flows simply to the sea, He aims not straight, but to deliver The wayward soul like you and me. Follow the current where it goes, With love and grace it ever flows. The years went by, the children grew, The river bent and Gomer knew A dozen men. And finally She left and traveled to the sea, And sold herself to foreign priests Who made the children serve at feasts Until they had no shame. And then The God of grace came down again, And said, “Hosea, go, embrace Your wife beside the sea. And place Your hand with blessing on the head Of Loammi, and raise the dead Loruhamah to life in me, And tell Jezreel that I will be For him a seed of hope to sow In righteousness. Hosea, go, The gracious river bends once more.”
And so the prophet loved these four Again, and sought them by the sea, And bought them with the equity Of everything he owned. That was The memory tonight, because Hosea loved beyond the way Of mortal man. What man would say, “Love grows more strong when it must wait, And deeper when it’s almost hate.”
Jezreel spoke softly for the rest, “Father, once more let us be blessed. What were the words from long ago That gave you strength to love us so? Would you please bless us with your rhyme, And sing it for us one more time?”
“Think not, my son, that God’s great river Of love flows simply to the sea, He aims not straight, but to deliver The wayward soul like you and me. Follow the current where it goes. With love and grace it ever flows.” “And children,” Gomer said with tears, “Mark this, the miracle of years.” She looked Hosea in the face And said, “Hosea, man of grace, Dark harlotry was in my blood, Until your love became a flood Cascading over my crude life And kept me as your only wife. I love the very ground you trod, And most of all I love your God.”
This is the lamp of candle four: A bride made ready at the door. A shabby slave waits her embrace, Blood-bought and beautified by grace.
That I, Paul, might not become too elated, because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 13:6-9
Two millennia of believers have speculated about Paul’s “thorn”. Was it a bad hip, sciatica, or maybe eczema? And why didn’t he just come right out and tell us what it was?
Such useless speculation may make us miss the point of this powerful passage. Paul was immensely graced by God to the point that he could easily have become proud. Although he begged for the “thorn” to leave him, he received it as a gift. That gift allowed Paul to give not only his strengths to God’s service, but also his weaknesses.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Do you have a little “thorn” somewhere that bothers and distracts you from full trust in God? Maybe an inability to forgive, an excessive need for control, an uncharitable judgment, a fear of change, an intolerance toward certain personalities, a fascination with personal achievements?
God invites us to transform these “thorns” into blessings by giving them to the Divine Energy Who calls us to love fiercely like Paul did.
Quote:
“The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.”
Maya Angelou
Music: A Thorn Tree – from Trinity UMC in Montpelier, VT
I came upon this lovely rendition by accident, and I thought it was beautiful in its simplicity.
… people brought to Jesus a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”
This passage describes a situation found in just a few of Jesus’s miracles. The miracle occurs because of the intervention of others, not the one in need. When Jesus sees the faith of those who carried this young man, his Infinite Mercy was moved.
It seems that perhaps the afflicted person had lost hope. It was his friends who hoped – his friends who carried him. What a gift it is to have friends who will stand by you in life’s sometimes crippling circumstances. What a blessing to have companions who see your salvation when you have lost the vision!
Acting on the faith of these steadfast friends, Jesus tells the paralytic to reach down into his soul and recover the courage that will make him whole.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray to be faithful friends like the ones described in this passage. We pray in gratitude for those who are such friends to us.
Thought:
There is nothing on earth more to be prized than true friendship.
A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” Matthew 8: 19-22
The scribe. What was Jesus driving home to this learned interpreter of the Law who now bursts with enthusiasm for discipleship? Perhaps Jesus looked up to a small nest in a nearby tree. Maybe he pointed to it and told the scribe, ” You have to spread your wings and fly with God if you follow me!”
Basically, I think Jesus is saying this:
Think about it. It’s a way very different from your present comfortable life.
We are itinerant preachers, going out to the whole world. We are not intrenched in the Law, commanding people to come to us.
Even the core responsibilities to which you are devoted will be secondary to your Gospel ministry.
The whole foundation of your life will be turned upside-down.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We want to serve God by living the Gospel with a steadfast and enthusiastic heart. We pray for the grace and courage to do so, understanding clearly where our first responsibilities lie as a committed Christian.
Prose from: The Wisdom of the Carpenter by Ron Miller
Jesus walked the earth as a homeless vagrant and identified his disciples by their concern for the most marginalized people in the community. It’s such a simple criterion and yet one so easily forgotten. Daily Prayer: Help me to be especially attentive to You today in those who have so little of the world’s wealth.
Music: He Had Not Where To Lay His Head Score: Alison Willis Text:Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825 – 1911)
Lavish Mercy 