February 26, 2013

Psalm 62; Jer2:1-13; Rom 1:16-25; John 4:43-54

The readings for this day call us to compare our relationship with God and our relationship with our experience of the mortal world. Jeremiah the prophet is dealing with people who have, literally, begun to worship other gods in the form of Baal and others. He is desperate to turn them back to the Lord who has given them all they should ever need. “…for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

What are the “cracked cisterns” in our lives? Where do we go to draw water to give us life? For me, and perhaps for many, it may be our modern, and perhaps very American, quest to be independent, self-determinative, competent, self-sustaining. We are told to “just do it,” and given all manner of self-help books. We are entitled to have it all, we just have to work for it. We teach our children to study hard, practice more and they will succeed. But do we take time each day to recognize that without God, we are empty and powerless? Yes, God wants us to do our best, be productive, live well, but He also wants us to recognize that He is the source of all that we are.

Psalm 62 tells us “...if riches increase, do not set your heart in them.” That water from our cisterns may taste good for now, but do we take time each day to see our many riches as manifestations of God’s love for us? Perhaps we could begin this Lent a practice of opening our eyes and thanking God for whatever is ahead for us that day and offering our achievements as well as our concerns to Him.

In Romans we hear more about worship of idols. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.”

There are those cracked cisterns again. The lies we tell ourselves and that we hear all around us from our friends, our coworkers, our parents, our teachers, the media. But the passage from John tells us a redeeming story. The story is of the official whose son is near death who implores Jesus to heal him. Jesus tells the man his son will live and the man believes him without hesitation. He does not rely on his own authority, status in the world, or his achievements. He knows this belongs to God. But being human, he double-checks the time his son was healed and confirmed what he already knew…

Let us pray that we can more freely accept God’s living water.