Deliver Us and Pardon our Sins
for Your Name’s Sake"
Today's Mass readings
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we find Jesus condemning various cities. They have seen Jesus’ mighty deeds, and yet they do not recognize Him, in fact, in some instances, He is accused of being in league with the devil. Jesus uses the example of two cities Tyre and Sidon that, like Sodom and Gomorrah, were destroyed for their lack of repentance. Punishments or violent consequences of sin such as what befell Tyre and Sidon, are not intended to “punish.” They are rather remedial, and intended to prevent the deadly power of sin from spreading, or in some instances they are therapeutic and are brought about, or allowed to occur, to help bring about the conditions necessary for true repentance. Either way, they stand as a sign to others to help future generations avoid their downfall.
In the Old Testament, including today’s first reading from the Book of Baruch, we see this interpretation given for Israel’s exile, both the Assyrian exile and in this case the later Babylonian exile. Ancient Israel, through its prophets, understood its misfortunes, namely exile, in light of the Book of Deuteronomy, as responses to their infidelity. They broke the covenant, and these are the responses to covenant-breaking. In other words, they wanted to be like the other nations and not like God’s chosen people, so they became like the other nations. The other nations like Assyria and Babylon, who had previously taken no notice of them, finally saw a rival nation they saw as both a threat and an opportunity. So, from both the spiritual level of the prophetic interpretations, as well as the level of natural political consequences, Israel’s infidelity caused its exiles.
Ancient Israel only had the words of the prophets to point them in the right direction, and of the Torah. Jesus’ contemporaries, on the other hand, had te prophets and in addition, the witness of what happened in the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. They had one more thing. They had the witness of Jesus Himself, God in human form. They had even less of an excuse than their predecessors.
How much less of an excuse do we have who have the New Testament witness, and the Church’s teaching and sacramental life? We must constantly turn back to the Lord. It’s not that God will punish us if we don’t follow Him. It’s that not following God is punishment itself. Not following God, cutting ourselves off from God’s love, is destruction itself. Let us chose life and joy instead. Let us constantly turn back to God and find our lives once again. We pray with the Psalmist: “Help us, O God our savior, because of the glory of your name; Deliver us and pardon our sins for your name’s sake” (Ps 79:9).