Rejecting God's Covenant and the Consequences

Our salvation history begins in the Old Testament and is culminated in the New Testament with the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, who, unlike Israel, was obedience to and trusting the Father unto death.  The pattern of sin, of disobedience and lack of trust ,  which dominates the Old Testament stories continues to this very day: silence (not passing one’s faith on to one’s children),  sin (choosing one’s own will over God’s will), punishment (suffering the consequences of sin, of abandoning God’s ways), supplication (begging for help to be freed from one’s slavery to sin, to worshipping one’s own will, the will of other people when that will is opposed to God’s ways),  God’s mercy and forgiveness, and a return to the Lord.  The cycle repeats itself over and over and over again.  We read in today’s first reading, 2 Kings 17: 5-8, 13-15a, 18, that the Northern Kingdom, the ten tribes of the Israelites “rejected …[God’s| statues, the covenant which he had made with their…[ancestors], and the warnings which he had given them ,[through the prophets], till, in his great anger against Israel, the Lord put them away out of his sight. Only the tribe of Judah (the  two tribes known as the Southern Kingdom) was left.

Will we heed the prophets in our day, prophets like Pope Francis, our pastors, those in our midst who do heed God’s laws, who do  listen to God’s voice? Or will we, like the 10 Northern tribes, reject God’s ways> Will we  risk being “put…away out of…[God’s] sight”  forever? With the psalmist in today’s liturgy’s responsorial psalm , Ps. 60, we pray:  “O God, …rally us! You have rocked the country and split it open; repair the cracks in it, for…[our world, our country, society as a whole] is tottering. You have made your people feel hardships; you have given us stupefying wine. Have not you, O God, rejected us, so that you go not forth, O God, with our armies [of destructive weapons or with our idolatry of money and economic security that is used to crush poorer nations and poorer people]? Give us aid against the foe [of materialism, capitalism, individualism, selfishness, and greed], for worthless is the help of [other human beings, other nations].”

God's Faithfulness in our Fickleness

In today’s first reading, 2 Chronicles 24: 17-25,  we learn of King Joash’s abandonment of Yahweh’s covenant with the Chosen People.  He led the Chosen People in forsaking the temple of the Lord and in beginning to serve idols.  Because of their crimes, wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem.  Through Zachariah, the prophet, God confronted Joash, asking him: “Why are you transgressing the Lord’s commands, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have abandoned the Lord, he has abandoned you.”   

The cycle of sin and redemption repeats itself over and over again with the Chosen People and with us.  We choose to go our own way at times, abandoning the ways of God. Sin always leads to suffering of some kind. When things get bad enough, we beg God for help: save us, O God, from the misery  that surrounds and invades us, even into our very being as we feel depressed, empty and lost. That plea for help may seem to fall on deaf ears; silence can become oppressive.  In sincerely repenting, God shows his mercy and love for His wayward children. No matter how far we might have strayed, God brings us back to righteousness and right ways.  For a time, we remain faithful and then fall again.

O,  the mercy and the love of God, who,  in today’s responsorial psalm, says to us: “Forever I will maintain my love for [you,]  my servant….Forever I will maintain my kindness toward…[you]….my mercy I will not take from…[you], nor will I belie my faithfulness” (Psalm 89).