Lent is a time to remember who we are and, in the light of the Biblical revelation, responsibility is one essential ingredient of our human identity. Responsibility is something human beings consider important. In the context of the Christian faith, what am I really saying when I say, “I am responsible?”
To say that one is responsible is to assume a given condition of human life.
To be fully human is to be able to respond. When we unable to respond, our humanity is diminished. With the exception of those who are mentally or physically handicapped, responsibility is something humans have in common.
Who am I in the eyes of my Creator?
I am formed of the dust – a part of the material universe.
I am washed and cleansed – by water from living springs flowing from the Source of all life.
I am chosen – to play a special role in the life of creation.
I am responsible – for how I deal with all this information about myself.
Our Creator asks for a response from creatures like us. In expecting a response, God is expecting something that is a reasonable and universal expectation in the set of human expectations.
Whereas the Law implies that it is the duty of God’s people to respond, the Gospel proclaims it is a joy!
The contemporary meaning of the Ten Commandments is more than moralism; their meaning in any age helps to define God’s call to us.
For example, the commandment to serve no other gods needs to be seen in a world where our other gods are no longer Baal or Astarte, but political ideologies, socioeconomic status, physical appearance, race or ethnicity, culture, or class consciousness. The commandment to honor our fathers and mothers is not a call to fulfill the obligations of the extended family in a patriarchal agrarian society, but it has some profound implications for living with our parents who are always a part of us. The admonition against adultery today exists neither for the purpose of protecting our property nor for guaranteeing our immortality in our children. It relates to a profound sense of mutual fidelity only recently identified in the Christian theology of marriage.
The God revealed in Christ, who is the same God who both spoke and fulfilled the Ten Commandments, calls us into a covenant that is not prescribed by laws written on stone or in a book. This is the God, as Jeremiah tells us, who writes a covenant on our hearts. In any age, the ethical norms for our behavior do not exist for their own ends. They are efforts to describe action that is most human, the best response to what God has expressed to us.
It is the believer’s joy to respond to God!
This is at the heart of Jesus’ outburst at the Temple. He recognized a forced, oppressive response and literally overturned it. He was not seeking to destroy the worship in the Temple but to transform it. God reaches out to us in an expression of love. Christ is the clearest expression of that love. God yearns for a response of love answering love. And, remember, God's covenant includes the promise to respond to us when we call.
Viewed in this way, our response to everything becomes a response to God. We learn that responding is the way we experience a relationship with God. Exercising our freedom to respond to God is an attitude of remaining open to the power of God as manifest in the profound mystery of the cross. This Lenten pilgrimage is an opportunity to more completely embrace and rejoice in our God-given ability to respond!
I’ll see you in Church,
The Rev’d Ron Pogue, Interim Rector