This week I want to pick up on a statement I made last week regarding the Great Command and explore it a bit more. In Luke 10:25-28 an expert on the Law asks Jesus “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by asking him: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” He answered: “Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

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Speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all those abandoned by others.
[D]efend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9)

We continue our conversation this week on the question, “Why Jesus was crucified?” We discovered one clue to the puzzle, which lay with what Jesus was teaching. Jesus lived in an oppressive and violent time. It was the time of the Roman Empire. We who grew up in the West have an idealized view of the Roman Empire and civilization. I can still remember learning in high school about the Pax Romana – Rome bringing peace and prosperity to the world. Fabulous slogan, but in essence just propaganda.

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Someone once asked me at a Spiritual Retreat: Why was it necessary for Jesus to die? And why such a violent death? If God is God, why can’t God just forgive us? That is a good question. Maybe we should look at it again as we prepare for Easter. This is a question many have tried to answer through the ages. Each of the Gospel writers answers this question differently in an effort to make sense of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the implications for us as Jesus’ followers. In the Letter to the Romans the apostle Paul even supplies us with not one, but six different possible theories of how it is that Christ’s death saves us.

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One way to approach the season of Lent is to reflect prayerfully on our lives lived with God. God accompanies us through all the different seasons of our lives. Part of our journey through Lent is taking a moment to gaze back over the lives we have lived and look for traces of God’s presence in our journey of faith, in the various seasons of our life. One way to do this is to ponder the words of a Scripture text to open ourselves up to the awareness of the presence of God’s Spirit in our pilgrimage through a life of faith. For this purpose I chose for us a text from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

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God humbled you with hunger, and then fed you manna, which was unknown to you and your ancestors, to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that flows from the mouth of God. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

It is that time of the year; the “Season of Self-Denial.” For the next six weeks the chances are big that someone is going to ask you: “What are you giving up for Lent?” When I opened up my Facebook account last Thursday, the morning after Ash Wednesday, countless postings popped up proclaiming everything that’s being given up for Lent. “I’m giving up chocolate,” “I’m giving up coffee,” or my favorite one “I’m giving up Facebook.” The list of things being given up seems to be endless.

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Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but on the contrary, repay with a blessing. (1 Peter 3:8-9)

I subscribe to Sojourner’s Verse and Voice, which means that every morning when I open my e-mail a Scripture reference awaits me, a compelling quote and profound prayer to set the tone of my day. Maybe because it was Valentine’s Day last week, one quote stayed with me. It was by Ruth Bell Graham, and it read: A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers.

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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The list of the “Fruits of the Spirit” is well known to all who grew up in the church. Chances are good that you were expected to recite the list by heart in Sunday school. They are all wonderful qualities that are supposed to embody the Christian life. Yet, when I hear the words “patience” or “patient endurance,” feelings of resistance bubble up in me. It seems to me that we spend so much of our life waiting – waiting for something to happen over which we apparently have no control.

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Faith is a word we throw around a lot. But what does it mean when we say “I have faith,” or I’m faithful”? For me the definition of the writer of Hebrews still makes the most sense. “Faith,” s/he says, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is to believe in things we cannot see, faith is believing that an invisible God exists and is ever present in our lives. Some refer to this verse as proof that to have faith in God means to blindly and unconditionally trust in God, to blindly and unconditionally believe in God’s existence, to blindly and unconditionally trust God will rescue and provide for us. Yes and No!

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Here is my Servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one, in whom I delight… He will not break a bruised reed, or quench a dimly burning wick. (Isaiah 42:1-3)

We live in a “throw-away” society. If something breaks, we tend to throw it away rather than fix it. Buying a new item is much easier than spending the time and effort it takes to repair damaged goods. Even if we decide to repair it, we soon discover that the cost of repairing it is more than it would cost to buy a new one. So frivolous have we become that we even sometimes do away with things that are slightly damaged or outdated or not in style anymore. Why repair if you can just buy a new one? No wonder our landfills are overflowing.

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Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion
is to look out to the earth,
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless humankind now.

(Teresa of Avila)

As the horror and devastation unfolded in Haiti last week one cannot but ponder once again an age old question: If God is all good, all-powerful, and all-knowing, how can God allow a disaster such as the horrific tragedy in Haiti to occur? As bodies were piled up in the streets one could not but wonder where God is in this suffering? If God is a benevolent God, why all the suffering? It’s a question countless theologians, pastors, philosophers and Biblical scholars have tried to answer through the centuries but with no real satisfying answer.

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