4 March 2016 - he makes us the change we want to be in the world

[ Today's Readings ]

Thus says the LORD:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.

Help us to return to you LORD. We have collapsed due to our guilt. We're so distant that we really don't even know what to say. We need forgiveness but we don't even know how to ask. We try to make it up to you by what we do. We keep trying to just get things right. But we can't get any of the doing right until you fix our being. Teach us the words we need in order to return to you. 

Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,
and receive what is good, that we may render
as offerings the bullocks from our stalls.

You are calling us to a relationship of love. This takes precedence over all the "burnt offerings and sacrifices". It is your own love that makes us pleasing to you.

I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.

In your love you call us to first return to love of you.

Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 
with all your soul, 
with all your mind, 
and with all your strength.

This is love must then flow out from us. It is only in this way that we are healed. It is only from the basis of this relationship that we can act in a way which is pleasing to you.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.”

When we let your love transform us it is so worth it. Where we had once collapsed we now stand firm in your ways.

“If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
I would feed them with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them.”