We humans have been given free choice. Sometimes we use it wisely – other times we cause harm and can hurt people.
The latter is is not the kind of life God wants for, and from, us.
God is always looking to call us back to living the way of love. God always offers a 2nd chance if we fail.
Lent is a time when we are called to look at how we are living – is it the example Jesus showed us?
What we most long for is what we most fear to find. What if we did, indeed, see the face of God?
The season of Lent calls us to confront our frailty, fallibility and fallenness and yearn for God.
The one we have longed for and feared to seek has already and always been seeking us.
May we be willing to be found.
The wilderness is a space where we unearth our innate potential and begin to transform into the individuals we are destined to become.
Lent offers a transformative space that encouraged deep reflection, growth, and connection to a broader spiritual reality.
In this time may we emerge from our wilderness stronger, wiser and ever closer to the heart of God.
As Jesus wandered the dusty roads connecting with people he showed his true humanness.
Then an another event happens and and Christ’s Divinity and his path to Jerusalem looms before everyone.
Fully human and fully divine as required in all its depth, for what the cross and tomb will demand.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hurt you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
Love is big enough to serve us all, to be present to us all , to fill us all and to consume us all.
There is enough of God for each of us and we don’t need to ‘draw lines’ between us and someone else.
Today’s reading is a wake up call! Seeking the wrong things in life will do you no good!
Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is challenging us to live a life against the grain of our society and to see things differently.
The Kingdom of God is the reverse of the earthly kingdom we live in. It seeks to level the playing field.
Peter must have felt strange when he had been a fisherman all his life and Jesus a carpenter , tells him how to catch fish!
Go out deeper!
When we feel discouraged and in need of ‘catching fish’ Jesus calls us to listen to him and he will take us into deeper waters, to form honest Christ centered relationships when people will encounter God – and Grace – in a safe place. Jesus will teach us how to ‘fish with people’.
The ‘real world’ is not kind to underdogs!
Mary was a young Jewish woman in a Roman empire and pregnant out of wedlock – an underdog!
In her lonely situation she still sings praise for the God who extends mercy.
A God who has good news to the poor and oppressed.
Hugh Mackay notes that the level of social connection in society is declining.
People are happier when they have meaning and purpose and also deep and significant connections.
The Church is a place that still provides this, where our differences and different gifts are valued, and community and connection is enabled through Christ’s living presence and mission.
In John’s Gospel Jesus’ public ministry begins at a wedding…where he turns water into wine.
Is wine a metaphor for grace…abundant and wondrously good? Jesus was after all, full of grace.
Signs point to God’s abundant provision, all that we need, more than we need, GRACE.
