“Turn to the Lord in Your Need, and You Will Live"

Today's Mass Readings

The people of Israel finally end up becoming slaves to the Egyptians. They were slaves for almost four hundred years. But certain events must occur before they can be redeemed. Once again, as in the past, if God wanted God could free them with merely his words. But we must remember that God wants to build a Covenantal relationship with Israel. Thus God takes the first step (Moses is called into Midian). He then waits for human beings to make a free choice, so that God can redeem them. The Exodus is a great interplay of God’s free offer of grace and the human struggle to either accept or reject that free offer. Human beings will be constantly confronted with choices – the choice to reject immediate gratification of desires and look at the big picture, or to gratify their immediate desires and lose sight of the long-term vision. Moses will be the first person in the exodus story to whom God will offer that choice.

Sometimes God coaxes, sometimes God challenges. If he coaxed Moses in Exodus, in Jesus he challenges the people of Chorazin and Bethsida. They refused to accept God’s presence in their midst. We can sense the frustration in Jesus’ response to them. On judgement day the people will judge themselves.

Our Christian calling is a free gift from God. We did not choose God first; God chose us and consecrated us in Baptism. Every day from then on is a response to that grace – either a good response or a weak response. God is not doing anything different from what he did in the days of the Exodus. Our response to his free grace will determine how powerfully he can work among us. He speaks to us in the scriptures, feeds us in the Eucharist, walks the entire journey of life in the Sacraments, confronts us in the events of our lives, challenges us through people and bring us together in and through the church.