13 February 2023 - willing and Abel?

Today's Readings

(Audio)

In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD

from the fruit of the soil,

while Abel, for his part,

brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.

Abel, for his part, brought one of the best of what he had as an offering to the Lord. Cain while not necessarily giving his worst, didn't give his first or his best. His sacrifice was, therefore, something he wouldn't really miss, something relatively easy to give. At this point we might think, and correctly, 'At least he gave something.' But his lack of commitment meant that he was not blessed (and could not be) by his offering in the same way as Abel. And when his own deficiency was made evident by its contrast with what he saw in his younger brother he was moved, not to learning and growth in the Lord, but to jealousy and vengeance.

The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,

but on Cain and his offering he did not.

Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.

When we are content to live mediocre and lukewarm Christian lives do we become jealous of those in our lives that seem closer to the Lord? Sometimes we forget how we got this way. We imagine that we were never favored by the Lord and that others always received more tangible blessings that kept them in step with God. But is it not more likely the case that we have just never sought him with the best of ourselves as these others have perhaps done? After all, God does not desire an indifferent curiosity, or a lukewarm interest in drawing near to him. He blesses offerings that are wholeheartedly given because he desires our whole heart for himself, and not just a portion.

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart (see Jeremiah 29:13).

The coldly intellectual approach of the Pharisees would not reveal the truth about Jesus because their hearts were closed to him. There had been enough signs for someone who desired to have faith. But the Pharisees did not desire this. Rather, they had a jealousy of Jesus and those whom he blessed, like the jealousy of Cain at seeing Abel blessed by God. Their jealously did not immediately issue forth into violence, although it would culminate in the cross. At this stage they sought only to control him by forcing him to prove himself on their terms, as if by some unfalsifiable sign over which they themselves would sit in judgment.

He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said,

“Why does this generation seek a sign?

Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

It was a sigh, no doubt, that began with Cain, the exhaling of which contained throughout history. It expressed a frustrated compassion for the hard heartedness of man, the compassion that made him try to encourage Cain after his unsatisfactory sacrifice, and give Cain a mark of protection even after his grievous sin. It was a sigh which received all of the abuse heaped upon God, first upon Abel who was a proxy because of his fidelity, then upon the faithful through the ages, especially the prophets, culminating finally on Jesus himself. It was a sigh that contained so much patience, but also so much sadness. As Jesus said elsewhere, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" (see Matthew 23:37).

Then he left them, got into the boat again,

and went off to the other shore.

Sometimes withdrawing his presence was an act of mercy. In their hardness of heart he was only provoking them into further recalcitrance. But perhaps, he may have hoped, away from him, they might at last come to recognize their longing that Jesus was indeed all he claimed to be. 

Are we a part of "this generation" that is always grumbling and seeking to force God to relate to us on our terms? Are we the brother who gives only what is easy, who does the minimum, and fixating jealously on the blessings given to others to ignore the state of our own soul? The Lord will be found by us when we seek him on his terms, with all our hearts. But even if we remain in our present subpar state, even if we prolong this long sigh of Jesus, he does not give up. His compassion for us compels him to keep trying, to again and again attempt to draw us into his mercy.

I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.

John Foley, S.J. - Take Lord Receive

12 February 2023 - you have heard / but I say to you

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

Jesus did not come to lessen the law. Even the sacrificial system which has obviously ceased was not abolished so much as it was fulfilled in the one perfect sacrifice of the lamb of God. The liturgies of priest and temple therefore find their fulfillment in the representation of that sacrifice every mass. Jesus did set us free from the need to fulfill the ceremonial works of the law, but did so not because they had been deficient, but rather because their purpose had been served. They had served to separate Israel from the surrounding nations so that God could prepare her in a special way to receive the Messiah. But the Messiah had now come and he would tear down the barriers separating the nations, uniting everyone in his Kingdom. He removed the temporary safeguards of protection in order to bring to completion his promise to Abraham that in his offspring "all the nations of the earth" (see Genesis 22:18) would be blessed.

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors

Before Jesus began his transformation of the law with his "But I say to you" he wanted to be clear that he was not abolishing the commandments. It was rather that he was deepening them to include the internal and subjective realm of the heart as well as the merely external. He was clear that the Kingdom required more than a merely external conformity with the law such as that for which the scribes and the Pharisees were known. It was evident that mere external observance to the law could be used to mask deep hypocrisy within, and that, without the deeper organizing principles provided by Jesus, the law could be fragmented, and the fragments could be weaponized to tear others down. This was how the Pharisees condemned by Jesus used the law, which was good, but made of it a weapon to build themselves up at the expense of others.

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,

You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you,

whoever is angry with his brother

will be liable to judgment;

"I've never killed anyone", we sometimes tell ourselves when we want to reassure ourselves that our morality quality, if not exemplary, is at least not drastically below average. And yet, we, who have never killed anyone, have we cherished thoughts of violence about others? And by this we don't even mean the obvious violence of entertaining fantasies of it in the imagination. Rather, we also mean all those thoughts that make less of others, that regard them as less than human, such as wishes to dominate others or to silence them. We are nonviolent in our acts. But don't our thoughts tell another story? To be non-violent in our hearts toward everyone from bad drivers to perpetrators of grave injustice, to love broadly and without exception as God loves, this is something which only Jesus can bring about in us.

You have heard that it was said,

You shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you,

everyone who looks at a woman with lust

has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Sin has such a hold on us that once we learn the rules of action we often like to know just how close we can come to a sin and remain safe. In short, while not actually sinning we still cherish the idea of sin. We are like the man whose doctor told him to stop eating melons because if he had even one more it would certainly kill him, and who stopped eating melons as a consequence, but postered his room with pictures of melons and filled his browser history with sites describing them. Jesus knows that if we continue to cherish sin external obedience won't amount to much. When we do so we become like those Israelites who were free from slavery in Egypt but over whose hearts Egypt still held sway.

We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic (see Numbers 11:5).

Divorce was never something intended by God. He put up with it by regulating it, but in Jesus Christ the true intention of permanent union between husband and wife was reestablished because finally, in him, grace was given to make it possible. After all, a merely external relationship between husband and wife was obviously insufficient, and just going through the motions was obviously lacking. Only Jesus could bring about the healing of hearts needed to make a truly wholistic bond possible.

Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.'

Anything more is from the evil one."

Jesus called his listeners to stop abusing oaths to promise what they ought not promise because either it was entirely dishonest or because it was beyond their control. For his followers, animated by the Spirit of Truth, a simply 'Yes' or 'No' was meant to carry more weight than these cheap oaths Jesus condemned. Those who made such oaths devalued regular speech, and even the oaths they took for evasive and designed, they imagined, to help them avoid consequences for breaking them.

We should remember that Jesus gave these commandments because they would be for our good, fulfilling not only the law, but also his intentions for us as creatures, making us to thrive. After all, if we are dishonest, and cherish violence and lust in our hearts, how can we ever expect to be happy? To live up to what Jesus commands sounds arduous, perhaps even beyond our control. And humanly speaking this is certainly so. But we are not meant to rely on our strength alone, because God gives us the grace for what he himself commands. Therefore what Sirach wrote applies also to us:

he has set before you fire and water

to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.

Before man are life and death, good and evil,

whichever he chooses shall be given him.

When we stretch forth our hand toward life we become the mature who begins to understand the inner logic of a wisdom that is hidden from the world at large. When we do so we already begin to taste the promise about which Paul wrote:

What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,

and what has not entered the human heart,

what God has prepared for those who love him,

this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

Mark Schultz - Give Us Clean Hands

Maranatha! Singers - I Will Delight

11 February 2023 - mea culpa

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The LORD God called to Adam and asked him, "Where are you?"

Not that God did not know, but so that Adam could come forward and confess. God humored Adam in his imagining himself to be hidden so as to draw him out into his mercy. But Adam, because of shame, felt this need to be hidden so deeply that he was afraid, suspicious that he deserved only to be despised and condemned.

He answered, "I heard you in the garden;

but I was afraid, because I was naked,

so I hid myself."

Adam was suddenly aware of nakedness as a liability. He had previously lived with that vulnerability without concern, knowing that neither Eve nor God would see anything in him that they would use to exploit, abuse, manipulate, or despise. He had the comfort that though he would be seen, he would be seen and loved. He now lacked that confidence. He could no longer trust God with his whole heart and so he feared that even God himself could not love him completely and entirely, and that he would therefore inevitably regard Adam on the basis of what was fallen in him. And if God would not relate to Adam in love, the other options Adam was able to imagine were only manipulation and domination. This was now his temptation toward Eve, and he projected it onto God himself.

Then he asked, "Who told you that you were naked?

You have eaten, then,

from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!"

God does not draw us out in order to despise or to degrade us, but in order to show mercy and set us free. He does not want our excuses ("The woman whom you put here"!) but rather our admission, our owning our mistakes. Yet when we sin we too experience shame that makes us want to hide. It really does make us feel exposed, naked, and fallible. We implicitly internalize the idea that we have made ourselves unlovable, that we can now only approach God if we have something to barter, but can find nothing worth enough for the trade. 

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

He will strike at your head,

while you strike at his heel.

Because God fulfilled his promise to crush the head of the serpent, and because of the way by which he fulfilled it, we, unlike Adam and Eve, have a still greater assurance of God's intention to show us mercy, one that pierces through to the depths of the hearts of even hardened sinners. This is the assurance given to us by the fact that Jesus himself came and born all the curses we had earned (see Galatians 3:13), arduous work, thorns, pain, death, and burial in the dirt, in order to restore our wounded and fearful hearts. If we truly surrender ourselves to his intentions and allow him to do so he himself will give to us what was prohibited to Adam and Eve. We may by grace pass the fiery revolving sword, pass the cherubim guards, and come into the fullness of the divine presence in the true paradisical sanctuary in heaven.

They ate and were satisfied.

They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.

There were about four thousand people.

Adam wickedly stretched out his hand for the forbidden fruit and was left hungry, left with disordered desires impossible to satisfy. But the crowds who waited on Jesus, who sought thereby his Kingdom first, received all else besides, and were satisfied. They were the hungry that were filled with good things about whom Mary sang in her Magnificat. They were those who hungered and thirsted for the righteousness that Jesus along could provide, and were therefore satisfied. But they were only an image of the satisfaction that would be found by those who received the true bread from heaven, Jesus himself in the Eucharist. 

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst (see John 6:35).

The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is fully negated and canceled by the fruit of the tree of life, the cross. This Eucharistic fruit need not be seized, as though against God's will, but rather offers itself to us, and thereby invites us into its own dynamic outpouring of generous love.

Tom Booth - The Jesus Song

10 February 2023 - guardin' of Eden?

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The serpent asked the woman,

"Did God really tell you not to eat

from any of the trees in the garden?"

This was the voice of the Devil at the beginning and it is still a voice with which we must contend in our lives today. We still face attempts to make us unsure about what God said, and still hear this "Did God really tell you" repeated. 

"We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;

it is only about the fruit of the tree

in the middle of the garden that God said,

'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'"

Hopefully we can remember that the negative commandments of the law are present to preserve a much more expansive freedom, just as the single commandment not to eat from that tree was meant to preserve a vast array of other viable options. When we don't succumb to the idea that morality is a constraint we will become less likely to take offense at it, or even to mistrust it in favor of our emotions. Curious, then, that Eve seemed to add "or even touch it" to the original command given by the Lord. Was she already beginning, just a bit, to succumb to the serpent even by adding this small amount of extra negativity? Would she then feel just a little more oppressed, a little more entitled to indulge? Would she then be a little more open to believing the lies of the enemy?

But the serpent said to the woman:

"You certainly will not die!

No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it

your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods

who know what is good and what is evil."

Now when Eve looked at the tree she saw something good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. Why, she might wonder, would God hold this back from her? Was he, as the serpent suggested, trying to maintain an advantage of domination over his creatures? As these words of the enemy worked on her mind she came to a point where she no longer considered the good things of the garden with reference to the one from whom they were given. She could then think only of how they seemed to her. The very act of taking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an act by which she decided to decide for herself apart from God what good and evil would be for her. And in this sense she did become like God. But evil did not suddenly become good because she willed it. Nor could the word of God's command be annulled by wishing it were otherwise.

So she took some of its fruit and ate it;

and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her,

and he ate it.

Although Eve was deceived Adam did not therefore get a free pass. He was sitting at her side, watching the events unfold as they dad, and yet kept his mouth shut. He who was supposed to guard the garden, above all to guard has wife, utterly failed to do so, and completely abdicated his duty. In our analysis it seemed like Eve did better, at least trying to present the word of God in her defense. Adam seemed simply to crumble, to pressure from his wife, through fear of the serpent, but again, like his wife, attempting to decide for himself in what good and evil would consist.

When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden

at the breezy time of the day,

the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God

among the trees of the garden.

The Lord was still so close at hand. Perhaps repentance at this early stage could have saved the entire project. But the hearts of Adam and Eve had already fallen, and the trust the once expressed so readily could now no longer be found. It would not be until Jesus came as the new Adam that this fallen heart of man could be healed, not until a new and more terrible tree would give us a more perfect fruit that we could be renewed in the life that we were always meant to have.

And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment

and begged him to lay his hand on him.

In one sense we, tainted by sin, are this deaf man. We mean this metaphorically and do not suggest his condition was a result of sin. Rather we know all too well that we are so slow to hear the word of God as to be deaf to it, so slow to speak it as the answer our worlds needs (and so quick to say just about anything else) as to seem to have a speech impediment. We need ears to hear, ears that only Jesus himself can give us. We need freedom to speak, but it is a freedom which only comes from close, intimate contact with Jesus. Let us hear the word to this deaf man as a word that delivers us, one which surmounts every obstacle to penetrate our inner worlds and sets us free.

"Ephphatha!" (that is, "Be opened!")

And immediately the man's ears were opened,

his speech impediment was removed,

and he spoke plainly.

As he heals us of our hardened hearts, brings us back from death to spiritual life, may we share the astonishment of the crowds, and with them, give thanks.

They were exceedingly astonished and they said,

"He has done all things well.

He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

Myron Butler - All Things Well

9 February 2023 - it is (not) good

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The LORD God said:

"It is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a suitable partner for him."

Surprisingly, something was "not good" even before any sin had been committed. After having heard the Lord calling so much of creation good we are surprised to encounter this assessment. Unlike other things in creation the man was not meant to be alone, was incomplete without community. 

The man gave names to all the cattle,

all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals;

but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

Man was able in some measure to grow and use his rational nature in relation to the animals. But with all due respect to those who dearly love their pets and treat them as family there is something that animals cannot give to man. He is not able to be fully himself, to truly know himself, or to fully embrace living in God's own image without someone more like himself, equal to him, yet different.

The LORD God then built up into a woman

the rib that he had taken from the man.

Only once woman was created was the image of God fully revealed in man. God himself was not a solitude but a Trinity. There was in him lover, beloved, and love. So too in, then, in the man and the woman made in his image. The situation of Adam alone was "not good" but with both together it leapfrogged past good to "very good".

"This one, at last, is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

this one shall be called 'woman,'

for out of 'her man' this one has been taken."

The man recognized himself in the woman, but not as in a mirror that caused him to focus inward. He discovered in her his own intrinsic orientation outward toward love. She too, no doubt, discovered who she was and was meant to be by interacting with this man for whom she was a perfect match.

That is why a man leaves his father and mother

and clings to his wife,

and the two of them become one flesh.

Marriage is therefore no second class vocation, not something merely permitted because not all are strong enough to become clergy or religious. It is rather the primary and normative vocation for the sake of which the clergy exists, without which there would be no others. This ability of marriages to reveal the image of God to the world is one reason that the Church defends marriage so vociferously. She refuses to compromise because she perceives how great a good marriage is meant to be. The world may desire contractual arrangements of relationships, promises that can be given and then abandoned if circumstances dictate. But the Church sees how such arrangements miss the mark, obscuring not only God's steadfast fidelity, but also the full meaning of self-gift inherent in being made male or female in the image of God.

The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.

They felt no shame because they were not at risk of exploitation by the gaze of the other. It was only after the fall that creatures would begin to use one another selfishly. Here we see what was always meant to be normal, the man and his wife loving one another fully and completely, regarding the other as other without the need to compromise to satisfy fallen cravings. We can only image how free it would feel to gaze with this gaze, and how affirming it would feel to have this gaze upon us. Even now, however, even when no human can reliably and consistently gaze upon us this way, with complete and uncompromised love, God himself never ceases to look at us in this way. May we discover and become convicted that he does so, for it can give us a sense of self-worth that we will never find on our own or in creatures.

He said to her, "Let the children be fed first.

For it is not right to take the food of the children

and throw it to the dogs."

What was Jesus doing here?  He seemed to imply that this Greek woman was something less than fully woman, something more like the creatures that could not serve as partner for Adam. He was in some sense affirming the belief of Jews about Gentiles, affirming the negative self-image which the woman had perhaps long since absorbed and held about herself. But he did this not because he himself believed it about her, but rather that so by confronting it she could be free of it.

She replied and said to him,

"Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps."

Then he said to her, "For saying this, you may go.

The demon has gone out of your daughter."

She believed more in the abundance of the one to whom she came than in any barriers between nationalities, than any limitations inherent in herself. She could recast herself in the light of the generosity of Jesus and find that his love was so superabundant as to satisfy even her. Her faith reached beyond what anyone might say about her and raised her up as an exemplar of faith who could no longer be reckoned as anything less than fully human. 

When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed

and the demon gone.

To Love You And To Make You Loved

Matt Maher - It Is Good

8 February 2023 - the breath of life

Today's Readings

(Audio)

but a stream was welling up out of the earth

and was watering all the surface of the ground

This stream reminds us the one which the psalmist wrote, the one which makes glad the city of God (see Psalm 46:4). Both the stream in Genesis and in the Psalm were indeed preludes to the one which flowed through the heavenly city in the book of Revelation, in which heaven itself was revealed to be a new Eden:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month (see Revelation 22:1-2).

Why mention this similarity? Is it just a curious piece of trivia? We would rather suggest that this consistency on God's part, from creation, to earthly city, to heavenly one has a purpose and things which we can learn from it. We may begin simply with the consistency of God's intention for his creation. Much goes awry along the way, thanks in no small part to we his creatures. Yet his original plan is never invalidated and he continues to reestablish things according to his blueprint. If this stream later comes to symbolize grace and the Holy Spirit we may rightly infer that this was the main stream from which we were always meant to drink.

the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground

and blew into his nostrils the breath of life,

and so man became a living being.

The ground was watered by the stream. But it was in a still more direct fashion that God would give life to Adam. Creation was marked by the superabundance of God's goodness. But only into Adam did God himself breath the breath of life, his Spirit. Adam was formed not only of the good but impermanent materials of the created world. He was also given an immaterial soul with which to know and to love. And this was always meant to be animated by God's own Spirit living within him.

with the tree of life in the middle of the garden

and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

One tree was meant to be a source of everlasting life, a gift that was not natural but supernatural, and one which required relying on God and trusting his word. The other tree existed in virtue of human freedom. Free creatures could by nature of that freedom allow their trust in their creator to die in their hearts and to prefer their own interpretation of good and evil over his. There was indeed something appealing about the fruit of that tree, and perhaps there was a good use for its fruit. But it was never meant to be something that Adam and Eve seized for themselves in an act of defiant disobedience.

The LORD God then took the man

and settled him in the garden of Eden,

to cultivate and care for it.

We note briefly that work was not a consequence of the fall. Adam already had this assignment before any sin had been committed. Rather, it was the painful and arduous nature of work, the lack of fulfillment and enjoyment from undertaking it, that was a consequence of sin. 

These words "to cultivate and care" have several aspects. One of which is that Adam was meant to 'guard' the garden, something which takes on significance given what comes next in the narrative. Another is that these words together are commonly found later in Scriptures in the context of the liturgical activities of Levitical priests. We suggest that by using them here Adam is established as the first priest over Eden, the first temple. Already God's desire for creation itself to be a chorus of right praise of which Adam is intended to be the leader.

And so it might have been. But Adam failed in the one job he had been given, and from the vast array of legitimate choices he had to exercise his freedom, chose the only thing forbidden.

From that tree you shall not eat;

the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.

It was not indeed so much the fruit of that tree that defiled Adam as the intention by which he allowed himself to partake of it. And from that moment on evils would flow as if uncontrollably from "within the man, from his heart". The original order was shattered and what was meant to give rise to praise instead produced "evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly".

But as we have seen, the original intention of creation, though shattered, was not beyond repair. The damaged human heart, no longer animated by the supernatural breath of the Spirit, could again be restored and reanimated. This would only happen when the side of Christ was pierced and the true river of gladness flowed. It would only happen when his own body was given back to earth so that his bride, the Church could be formed from his wounded side. Then finally he himself could once again breathe this life into creatures and restore them.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (see John 20:22).

Newsboys - Breathe (Benediction)

Michael W. Smith - Breathe

7 February 2023 - image and likeness

Today's Readings

(Audio)

"Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures,

and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky."

God's creative output as he filled his creation with living things was wildly diverse, like an artist who could not be contained. Indeed when we look at the scale of the universe we find such an array of created things as no one could have guessed but which all have an undeniable if mysterious beauty. Creation was by no means tame, no mere petting zoo, but a place where immense forces were in play, from the birth and death of stars, to the interactions of predators and pray on earth. There were both gentle, beautiful flowers as well as the fearsome lion and the tiger with his burning eye. All of this was in some way God expressing himself. 

Then God said:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

Unlike the rest of the created order described in Genesis God discussed or consulted himself in the creation of humanity. For early steps he said "Let the earth", and "Let the water", but here he said, "Let us". And to what purpose? Because mankind alone, of the creatures on the earth were to be made in the image of the Trinity. We were to be made after the pattern of Word of God himself because the Word alone was perfectly and exhaustively the image of the Father.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (see Colossians 1:15).

There is too much contained in this idea of "image" to even make a good start of describing it here. But it is nevertheless on the basis of this image that we find our true dignity as creatures, capable of rational thought, and able to choose or reject the good. We are designed to pursue likeness with God, not by seizing the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but by choosing freely to love, thus imitating our creator.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,

the birds of the air, and the cattle,

and over all the wild animals

and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.

When we understand the reason why we were made we can also better understand our "dominion" over creation as one of stewardship. We have not been given charge of these good things to use them wastefully and selfishly. We are given use over them, but we are also and at the same time their caretakers. They can even be our food, but they are never meant to be collateral damage to our carelessness.

Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing,

he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken.

God rested, not because he himself needed rest, but rather so that we must rest together with him and be renewed in relationship with him and one another. It is chiefly our refusal to come to God and rest that makes us bad stewards of creation, makes us fail to live up to the image in which we were made. When we choose our own pursuits over and against this gift of rest from God we risk upending everything else. It is then that our human traditions become dangerous to ourselves and others, as we continue to insist that they are for God's sake, but as we ourselves are no longer sure what that would entail.

You nullify the word of God

in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.

And you do many such things.

So let us learn to be the people God always intended us to be, made in his image, growing day by day in his likeness. Sunday is the special source of rest and renewal that causes this likeness to grow in us. It was the Sabbath that introduced the word "holy" in the Scriptures. And it is still by our celebration of the Lord's day that we receive the grace we need to grow in holiness ourselves.

What is man that you should be mindful of him,

or the son of man that you should care for him?

Third Day - God Of Wonders