Lenten Devotions in Hard Economic Times

THIRD DAY OF LENT 
      FEBRUARY 19

 
 Deuteronomy 26: 1a, 11 
 Romans 10: 12-13
 
 
Wherever the sense of entitlement lingers,
Like the smoky cooking odor of an over-rich meal,
Whenever we have worked hard and endured hardship
And feel the urge to isolate ourselves,
Within the closed circle of our
Self-selected
Self-congratulatory
Company,
God intrudes.
 
This is no time for snugness and smugness,
There is,
On God’s clock,
No time for all that,
At all. 
 
When you have come into the land
That the Holy One your God is giving you
As an inheritance to possess…..
Then you, together with the foreigners who reside among you,
Shall celebrate with all the bounty
That the Holy One your God
Has given to you and to your house.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek;
The same Sovereign is Sovereign of all…
Everyone who calls on the name of the Most High shall be saved.
 
Shoved beyond our fascination with our own experience,
We spin and tumble,
Into a future more grand and compelling
Than anything we’d pictured
With our squinty and suspicious imaginations,
While huddled, narrow-hearted,
By the narrow hearth of the habitual.
 
Celebrate!
With the foreigners who abide among you,
With the outsiders and the outcasts,
All the bounty.
 
 
 
New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
"fascination with our own experience," from Walter Brueggemann,
 The Word that Redescribes the World"
commentary in italic