[Propertalk] 4 Lent b 2018 - part 2 a

[Robert P Morrison]

I tried to send the second part but it was rejected.
Here's part 2 a
Bob

	 Take whatever is causing you most grief, said God. Raise up in front
of you the image or the picture of the person or situation who most
torments you and tries to damage you and destroy you. See that it has
not the power it or the people imagine it has. 

	 Just as the people of the Old and New Testament periods seemed to
find their lives threatened and diminished so often, so God reminded
them that wounds and death were not to be the so-called
be-all-and-end-all of existence. First, healing CAN and DOES come. Not
every time, we know that, at least in the sense that illness can
continue to eat away at our bodies. But the second part of the
equation is that even when this part of our lives comes to a close, so
the fullness of life becomes apparent beyond all that tries to pretend
that death IS the end. 

	 Just as medical professionals’ working under the sign of a snake
or snakes can bring comfort and reassurance in the midst of pain and
confusion by helping us to look at and address what’s going on in
our lives, so Moses, Jesus and Paul all call us to confront what is
evil and what is destructive. Our faith teaches us that ignoring
what’s going on WON’T bring relief. The snakes will ALWAYS be
there until we deal with them in the Name of God, and call them out
for what they are. 

	 Both in terms of religion and of life in general, we’re living in
a time when it can be so easy to give in to the darkness, to think
that darkness all around us will win, to think that goodness, and
justice, and mercy, and love will be overwhelmed. Even in this point
in Lent, it can be tempting to think that the “Alleluias” of life
and hope will not return. So the church, in the wisdom of its
tradition, inserted into the liturgies for this day the call to
rejoice, to be confident. “Lighten up!” is our expression that may
be overused and less than helpful often. Yet THAT’S what we’re
about on this “Fourth Sunday in Lent”, called Rose Sunday. 

	 The somberness, the bleakness of Lent, if so we feel it, is
disrupted. We rediscover the power of looking at the snakes. We claim
the belief that, no matter who or what is pressing on our ears, and
our eyes, and our hearts, and our minds, God’s grace IS, and always
WILL be, sufficient to help us address and overcome everything that
can be so poisonous to our lives, our congregations, our societies.


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