In today’s first reading, Jos 24:
1-13, Joshua gathers all of the tribes of Israel and reviews for them all that the Lord has done
on their behalf, tracing God’s presence in their lives all the way back to
Abraham’s father Terah. He shows them how God stopped the Egyptians in their
pursuit of them, delivered them from nations far more powerful than
they,and thwarted a curse against them.
“It was not your sword or your bow”; it was not your military might,
Joshua reminds them. “I [the Lord, Yahweh] gave you a land which you had not
tilled and cities which you had not built, to dwell in; you have eaten of
vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”
The same is true for us. As with the Israelites, we are on our way to
the Promised Land. As our inheritance as adopted children of God, God has given us a new
Jerusalem, a city we did not build, vineyards we did not plant. On our journey
here in the wilderness of this earth, God goes before us, leveling “cities,”
overcoming powers that lure us into worshiping
false gods: narcissism, atheistic
materialism, consumerism, hedonism, wealth for its own sake, the glorification of the body as something to
be worshiped, absolute freedom to do whatever we so choose even to assuming
that it is okay to violate the rights of the unborn, of the poor and oppressed,
of women and children, of immigrants, of persons viewed as minorities, of the earth itself and all that lives on it.
If you and I gathered our families around us, going back
several generations, what would the list of blessings look like, I ask myself. What false gods are we following? From what powerful
“nations ”-- snares of the devil--has/ is God rescuing us?
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