Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Today in Deuteronomy we have the details of a festival day. Everything you are supposed to do, when it will take place, and what you say to the priest and lastly who you share it with. This is being given to the Hebrew people out in the wilderness, before they even settled into the land of promise, the land of abundance. We read them today and wonder what on earth they have to do with Lent. It is exactly why this scripture is here though.
The people are still in the wilderness. The manna is still being provided by God. They still have to keep finding water in this desert place, so to be told you will have more than enough, an abundance to share with the stranger, the widow, and the orphan must have seemed like a pointless promise. This is Lent.
Remember where you've been, where you are, the tough times you have or are having. See these times mark us, it is why it is so important for the story to be told to the priest. We have wandered, we have been enslaved, we have been set free, we have been given a home. Last night on 48 Hours they did a spotlight story on human trafficking from the point of view of a young girl who was only 15 when her nightmare happened. Part of healing is telling her story. At one point she even told how she lost faith in God and now she speaks of God. This is only possible through her story.
The reason the Hebrew people were to remember their story was so they could have a connection to all those who were struggling. The stranger, the widow, the orphan had no one to turn to in the ancient world and it seems as if we are coming to that even today. Blame is how we are assigning undeserving people, or at least they are when we make up their stories instead of hear their stories. Yet even here today we are supposed to remember where we came from. If it hadn't been for my mom and a small inheritance my children and I would have probably ended up on the streets, that is if the resolve to leave had stuck. With no address and no contact you can't get a job to get off the streets and you end up caught in a cycle of being lost.
The thing is we proclaim we have been found, redeemed, loved as children of God because of what Jesus has done for us. It all starts in this wilderness, it all starts in these words we were wanderers, we were enslaved, we were lost and yet we were led to another life. To an abundant life, full of forgiveness and love. We owe it to our own identity to hear the stories of the lost. To know what they have gone through, to create the places of oasis which are needed for them to heal and be whole. We were once in their wilderness.
Today in Deuteronomy we have the details of a festival day. Everything you are supposed to do, when it will take place, and what you say to the priest and lastly who you share it with. This is being given to the Hebrew people out in the wilderness, before they even settled into the land of promise, the land of abundance. We read them today and wonder what on earth they have to do with Lent. It is exactly why this scripture is here though.
The people are still in the wilderness. The manna is still being provided by God. They still have to keep finding water in this desert place, so to be told you will have more than enough, an abundance to share with the stranger, the widow, and the orphan must have seemed like a pointless promise. This is Lent.
Remember where you've been, where you are, the tough times you have or are having. See these times mark us, it is why it is so important for the story to be told to the priest. We have wandered, we have been enslaved, we have been set free, we have been given a home. Last night on 48 Hours they did a spotlight story on human trafficking from the point of view of a young girl who was only 15 when her nightmare happened. Part of healing is telling her story. At one point she even told how she lost faith in God and now she speaks of God. This is only possible through her story.
The reason the Hebrew people were to remember their story was so they could have a connection to all those who were struggling. The stranger, the widow, the orphan had no one to turn to in the ancient world and it seems as if we are coming to that even today. Blame is how we are assigning undeserving people, or at least they are when we make up their stories instead of hear their stories. Yet even here today we are supposed to remember where we came from. If it hadn't been for my mom and a small inheritance my children and I would have probably ended up on the streets, that is if the resolve to leave had stuck. With no address and no contact you can't get a job to get off the streets and you end up caught in a cycle of being lost.
The thing is we proclaim we have been found, redeemed, loved as children of God because of what Jesus has done for us. It all starts in this wilderness, it all starts in these words we were wanderers, we were enslaved, we were lost and yet we were led to another life. To an abundant life, full of forgiveness and love. We owe it to our own identity to hear the stories of the lost. To know what they have gone through, to create the places of oasis which are needed for them to heal and be whole. We were once in their wilderness.
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