Thursday of the Third Week of Lent
The first reading ends with Jeremiah speaking of the Israelites and saying, “This is the nation that does not listen to the voice of the LORD, its God, or take correction. Faithfulness has disappeared; the word itself is banished from their speech.” When I hear these words I can’t help but think of our own nation. We may say one nation under God as part of our pledge, but do we, as a nation live it?
I am not someone who believes that our country has totally fallen apart – I still see the good that many of our citizens do, but I do think that our nation has developed and perpetuated a culture that does not listen to the voice of the Lord. When you look at abortion, consumerism, our justice system, rampant poverty and the lack of value placed on the family, I start to think that these words may be for our nation.
May we hear these words as a wake-up call. We are called to change the culture. And we do this by listening to the voice of the Lord. May it be God’s voice, not the media’s, who guides the values we teach our children, the things we hold dear, our decisions at the polls, and the issues we stand up and fight for. It is the culture we create in our own home and around our dinner table that will determine the culture of our nation in the future.
And we are called to take this culture of our family out of our home, to create communities of support, that spread the Gospel. In Luke’s gospel we Christ tells us, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” May we be with the Lord, not with our consumeristic culture. May we gather others for Christ. It is our mission, on this earth, to be with God, not against Him.
Our psalm tells us, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” What has hardened your heart to hearing God’s voice? This lent, what can you be doing to hear God’s voice more clearly. When each of us makes a change to not only hear God’s voice, but to live the message God has told us, we start to change our nation and in turn our whole world. May our ears and our hearts be open to hearing God’s voice.
- A J Grimm