The Grace to Accept
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Psalm 143
New International Version
Psalm 143
A psalm of David.
1 Lord, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.
2 Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.
3 The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.
4 So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.
5 I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
6 I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.
7 Answer me quickly, Lord;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.
9 Rescue me from my enemies, Lord,
for I hide myself in you.
10 Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.
11 For your name’s sake, Lord, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
12 In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant.
Jeremiah 32:1-9
New International Version
Jeremiah Buys a Field
32 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. 2 The army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah.
3 Now Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him there, saying, “Why do you prophesy as you do? You say, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it. 4 Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape the Babylonians but will certainly be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him face to face and see him with his own eyes. 5 He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, where he will remain until I deal with him, declares the Lord. If you fight against the Babylonians, you will not succeed.’”
6 Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: 7 Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’
8 “Then, just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’
“I knew that this was the word of the Lord; 9 so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver.
Jeremiah 32:36-41
New International Version
36 “You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 37 I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. 38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
Matthew 22:23-33
New International Version
Marriage at the Resurrection
23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died. 28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.
Like many others have expressed in their reflections, the Lenten season has a special place in my being. It coincides nicely with the darkest time of the year, during which I often find myself heavily stressed and depressed. Every year, old wounds and new wounds find themselves out in the open, and God invites me on another journey towards healing.
This past December, I said goodbye to a five-year relationship with my now-ex-partner. The breakup was anything but amicable. I lost a good portion of my community, financial stability, and quality of life, but it had to be done, and I realized later that God had been forming me all year to be able to make that decision. With the miraculous provision and help of friends, I moved into a new space, a space that was, for the first time in nearly ten years, entirely my own. What kind of growth was to come? I was excited.
It's been four months since, and while I can generally say that things have been good, they’ve also been really hard. The adjustment to living without a vehicle in the suburbs has been difficult—small grocery runs take 3x longer than they should, friends need to go out of their way to pick me up if we want to do something together, and I have not been able to be with my climbing community (the little I have left) because I have to leave right after work if I want to get home at a reasonable hour. I have found myself feeling increasingly isolated, burdensome, and frustrated. What am I supposed to do, God? You’ve brought me out of the wilderness into this new home, but now what? Who am I becoming with a rhythm like this? Is growth possible when I’m just trying to stay afloat?
So my spirit grows faint within me,
my heart within me is dismayed.
I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.
The answer, begrudgingly, is yes. Begrudgingly because I want out of my situation now. A car now would make my life easier. It is hard to wait and remain hopeful, especially when you don’t know what the path forward might look like.
But the liturgy today (and the whole Lenten season, really) asks me to recall and to trust in God’s faithfulness to his creation: “They will be my people, and I will be their God.” Jeremiah writes, “I will make an everlasting covenant with them; I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.” With the coming of Christ, the Kin/dom of God has broken into our realities, as dark, inescapable, and hopeless as they might seem. At a wedding in Cana, in the company of tax collectors, in a boat, by a well with a woman (gasp!), in the house of his friends—Jesus’ ministry and life on Earth embody God’s heart to be with us in the dust of our ordinary and everyday life. It is precisely God’s steadfast love for all his creation that enables us to hope and have faith in the Spirit’s slow but present work in and through us, here and now.
This Lent, like many of the other Lenten seasons of my past, I’m slowly coming to accept that despite God’s providence and guidance to me not too long ago, I might not receive direction or an answer or know what I’m to do (or become) next. So I’ll just have to wait for relief, whatever that might look like, and remain faithful to “this next step, this next breath, this next choice.” And in the meanwhile, I will pray with the Psalmist: “Answer me quickly, Lord… do not hide your face from me… let the morning bring word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life… Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
And whatever it may be, may it be as you say… and may you give me (and perhaps, us) the grace to accept it.
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