March 2, 2013

“Declare this in the house of Jacob,

   proclaim it in Judah:

21 Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,

   who have eyes, but do not see,

   who have ears, but do not hear.

22 Do you not fear me? says the Lord;

   Do you not tremble before me?

I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea,

   a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;

though the waves toss, they cannot prevail,

   though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

23 But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;

   they have turned aside and gone away.

24 They do not say in their hearts,

   ‘Let us fear the Lord our God,

who gives the rain in its season,

   the autumn rain and the spring rain,

and keeps for us

   the weeks appointed for the harvest.’” (Jeremiah 5:20-24)

I normally don’t go in for passages like these. It feels too much like scolding, and who wants to listen to that? Besides, passages like these just illustrate that people have been lamenting the moral decay of popular culture for 2,000+ years, and yet, hey, we’re still here, so what’s the big deal? But a little reflection on this can be helpful from time to time. The fact is, the society we live in exerts numerous conscious and subconscious influences on each one of us. While many of those influences are healthy and reinforce our relationship with God (e.g., church communities like St. Francis), there are many influences and pressures from our culture that lead us to “turn aside” from God. We are all familiar with how advertising and popular media continually glamorize wealth, fame, power, consumption, physical beauty, etc. And none of these things are intrinsically bad when kept in perspective and consumed in moderation. But it is all too easy to become so used to this diet of spiritual junk food that one doesn’t recognize the need for the healthy staples of prayer, family, and community. I hope that Lent can serve as a time when we can all be reminded of the need to turn back to the basics. Like the “rain in its season,” may Lent nurture for us the subsequent “harvest” of God’s great love and forgiveness.

Tom Miller