God Partnering with Us and We with God

In today's first reading,  Exodus 3: 1-8a,  13-15, Moses sees a bush burning but not being consumed. he approaches the bush and from it  God calls him: "Moses, Moses!"  He replies: "Here I am!"  "Come no nearer," God says to him. "Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground."   God then proceeds to tell him that he is aware of the suffering of his people as slaves to the Egyptians. "I have...heard their cry of complaints against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.  Therefore, I have come down to rescue them...and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey."  The catch: God needs Moses to work with Him in leading the Israelites, Moses' people, out of slavery into freedom!

God does not work alone. He partners with us and equips us to partner with Him! Are you ready? Am I?

We know from more of the story, that Moses argued with God, indicated that he was not equipped to do what God was asking of him. God did not accept his refusal and assured him that He would be with him and, in fact, that his brother Aaron would also assist!  Furthermore, God gave Moses detailed instructions of how to proceed!

God does the same with us: He reassures us, sends us help from other people and from Himself, and directs us on how to proceed! He takes us by the right hand, walks beside us, ahead of us and behind us, doing whatever needs to be done for us to accomplish His will!

We are free, of course, to co-operate  and bear fruit, freeing ourselves and others from slavery; or we can choose to walk away and "dry up," as did the fig tree in today's Gospel, (Luke 13: 1-9).  In the Gospel story, a person checks on a fig tree for three years and finds no fruit and instructs the gardener to chop it down. "Why should it exhaust the soil?"  The gardener intercedes and ask that it be spared another year while he cultivates and fertilizes it to see whether it will produce. And so the fig tree is given a second chance to bear fruit, for which it exists.

What are you and I doing with the second and third and fourth chances that God gives us to turn our lives around, to make choices that bear fruit that will last?  What are we doing to walk away from apathy, selfishness, barrenness, sloth, and other behaviors and attitudes that block grace that would empower us to cooperate with God's call to partner with Him?

God, Our Refuge in the Day of Distress

Today's first reading, Jeremiah 15: 10, 16-21, the prophet expresses his despair.  He is deeply depressed and expresses anger at his mother for giving him birth. He describes himself as "a man of strife and contention to all the land! I neither borrow nor lend, yet all curse me."  He can't figure out how this can be! "When I found your words," Jeremiah reminds God, "I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts. I did not sit  celebrating in the circle of merrymakers; under the weight of your hand I sat alone because you filled me with indignation." God does not let Jeremiah off the hook.  "If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand. If you bring forth the precious without the vile, you shall be my mouthpiece. Then it shall be they who turn to you and you shall no turn to them.  And I shall make you toward this people a solid wall of  brass. Though they fight against you, they shall not prevail, for I am with you, to deliver and rescue you...I will free you from the hand of the wicked, and rescue you from the grasp of the violent."

What is true for Jeremiah is also true for us.  As God's mouthpiece, we need to stand up to evil. Doing so will not win us brownie points among others. In fact, as with Jeremiah, we may be cursed by others.  Devouring God's words, however, is not enough. We need to live a pure, holy life as well as stand up to evil, knowing that God is with us "to deliver and rescue" us!  God will free us, as He did Jeremiah, "from the hand of the wicked, and rescue [us] from the grasp of the violent," including the violence of Satan prowling the world, seeking someone to devour.

Remember, as we pray in today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 59, that "God is [our] refuge on the day of distress."