Monday of the Second Week of Lent

posted in: Homilies, Lent | 0

Today’s readings

Aren’t the Lenten readings challenging?  But this is what it means to be a disciple.  We have to be willing to have our whole world turned upside-down; to do something completely against our nature; to let God take control of the life we want so much to control.

“For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  I don’t know about you, but that scares the heck out of me.  Because there are plenty of times when it just about kills me to give someone a break.  The measure I sometimes use ends up being a bar set pretty high, and I would sure hate to have to leap over that bar myself.  But that’s what Jesus is saying will be our measure.

Because the measure of compassion is the compassion of God himself.  That is our model, that’s what we’re to strive for, that’s how we are to treat each other.  But when we do that, it means we can’t judge others.  It means that we have to see them as God does, which is to say that we have to see the Jesus in them and to see the goodness in them.  And that’s hard to do when that person has just cut you off in traffic, or has gossiped about you to your neighbors, or has crossed you in some other way.  But even then, we are called to stop judging others and show them the compassion of God.

Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.  That is the prayer of the Psalmist today.  We are given the promise of forgiveness, but we are also warned that if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven either.  The measure with which we measure will in turn be measured out to us.  I don’t know about you, but I’m going to look really hard for a small ruler today.