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?

Consecrated to the Lord from Baptism

Both readings of today's liturgy, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a and Luke 1: 5-25, tell the story of two women who were barren and were about to become fertile.  The stories also reveal that both Samson and John the Baptist will be consecrated in the womb and chosen as key persons in salvation history. Concerning Samson, the messenger of God said that he is the one "who will begin the deliverance of Israel from the power of the Philistines." John the Baptist, Zachariah, his father, is told "will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God."

Every child that God brings into the world,  including you and me, though not consecrated in the womb but first at our baptisms, has a key role in the salvation of the world.  We, too, are called to turn to the Lord ourselves and thereby turn other people to the Lord.  We are also to cooperate with God in our deliverance from that which overpowers and distracts us from the one thing necessary: the Lord our God and His Spirit at work in our lives!

As we pray in today's responsorial psalm, Ps. 71,  God is our refuge, "a stronghold," the One who "rescues [us] from the hand of the wicked".  On God we depended "from birth; from [our] mother's womb [God had been our] strength."  It is God who makes it possible for us to carry out the purpose for which He created us. It is God who consecrates us to be a significant person in the salvation of the world in which we live! It is God who transforms our barrenness into fertility for the good all!

God's Plan of Salvation and Our Part in It

In today's readings, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a and Luke 1: 5-25, we meet two barren women,  a person who doubts God's plan to transform that barrenness into fertility, and two little boys taking shape in their mother's wombs who are destined  to be very important persons in our salvation history.  We also encounter two angels, both of whom open their conversation with : "Do not be afraid".  Zachary, who doubts God's power to transform Elizabeth's barrenness into fertility consequently loses his ability to speak for nine months.

You and I may identify with the barren women in this story or with Zachary who scoffs at the angel's announcement that his elderly wife will bear a child.  Are we experiencing a barrenness in our faith life, in our relationship with our loved ones, in our work environment, in the giving of our best selves in all that we do?   For sure, we are,like John the Baptist and Samson in that, we, too,  have an important part to play in salvation history now in the 21st century.  Do we know what that part is?  Perhaps we identify with Zachary in his doubting of God's plan of salvation, in His promises of great things to happen for a family member or for ourselves.

Lord, give us the knowledge of who we are in this Scripture passage and the courage to address the issues that we need to address for the plan of God to bear fruit in our life and the lives of those we love and in the lives of those to whom You send us to proclaim the good News in word by the way we live the Gospel message.

Barrenness Transformed into Fertility

Today’s first reading, Genesis 16: 10-12, relates the story of Sarai’s treatment of Hagar, her servant whom she gave to her husband Abram to bear her some sons, as she herself  was barren.  Recall that God has promised Abram that he would have descendants too numerous to count.  He makes the same promise to pregnant Hagar when she flees out into the wilderness to get away from Sarai’s abusive, jealous behavior.  God’s messenger intervenes, meets Hagar in the wilderness, comforts her, promises her an abundance, listens to her groans/complaints, instructs her on naming her unborn child and sends her back to being a servant to Sarai for the time being. God takes charge. God will bring His promises to fulfillment. That is not ours to do.  In God’s time, good will prevail, His promises will come to be. Likewise, both “Israelites” and “Ishmaelites” will be blessed.  All nations will be blessed. Yet, how often do we forget the fact that God has no favorites, as Paul tells us in Romans 2:11. 

Who am I in this Scripture passage? Sarai who ingeniously, following the law, gives Hagar, her servant to Abram, to bear the fruit that she was incapable of bearing? Like Sarai, do I look for ways to transform a barren situation into a fertile one? When I become the “fruitful” one, do I, like Hagar, look down on others less fortunate than I and, like Sarai, become jealous of those who are successful in ways that I am not?  Do I, like Hagar, flee into the wilderness  in an attempt to escape God’s plan for me when the going gets rougher than I thought it would? Who do I meet in my wildernesses? Do I recognize God’s messengers in my difficult moments or do I keep fleeing? Do I, like Hagar, brings my pain to the Lord, trusting that God will be listening?

Barrenness Transformed into Fruitfulness

In both readings of today's liturgy, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a and Lk 1: 5-25, an angel appears to announce that two couple will bear a child: Manoah and his barren wife and Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth, also barren and way beyond child-bearing age.  Both children, Samson and John, will be prepared to play a significant role in salvation history. Samson will deliver the Israelites from the military power of the Philistines. John the Baptist will prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah.  The Spirit of the Lord "stirred" Samson, who was consecrated in the womb. John was "filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother's womb".

Both the barrenness and the fruitfulness are gifts from the Lord and will reveal God's power at work in those who believe and in those who do not believe.  The wife of Manoah and her husband and Elizabeth believe in the angel's announcement. Zachariah does not. "How am I to know what you are talking about when my wife is barren and unable, at this point in her life, to conceive a child?"  Neither our barrenness nor our lack of faith stop God from accomplishing our salvation or the work He plans to accomplish through us. Without divine intervention, we remain barren.  With divine intervention we bear fruit. All is through the Holy Spirit, either stirring us or filling us!  Blessed be the name of our God!

What in me is barren and in need of being "stirred" up or "filled up"with God's Spirit? What in me, through the Spirit, is bearing fruit?