February 26, 2012: First Sunday in Lent
God calling Jesus God’s beloved son is a sign of the covenant relationship between God and Jesus. When we are in covenantal relationship with another, we are bound to be faithful to that person. Our faithfulness can take a variety of forms, sometimes taking us to places we never dreamed we’d go (like Jesus going in the desert for 40 days). A covenantal relationship means that we trust another to the point where we allow ourselves to be stretched; we give of ourselves, we compromise, we sometimes even do those things we thought were impossible.
It is God who gives us the grace to follow God, God who invites us and beckons us forth. Just as God called Jesus God’s beloved son, so too are we God’s beloved children, and this implies that we do what God asks us to do. We go where we have never been before.
Being in a covenantal relationship so imbues us with love for the one with whom we are bound that we are able to give of ourselves in a variety of ways: we sit up all night rocking a sick child, we clean up the kitchen even though we are dead tired because we know our partner is even more tired than we are, we give of our time, energy and talents to a worthy cause we believe in. Being in a covenantal relationship means we are willing to work out compromises with those whom we love, even if it might mean giving up something we value for the good of our relationship, for the good of the one with whom we have a covenant.
Lent is a time of remembering who we are: God’s beloved children who are bound by love to the One who created us. Our turning to God, our fasting, our attempts to give up ways of life that block us from God’s love are our attempts to be faithful to the God with whom we are in a covenantal relationship. As we grow in faithfulness to God’s ways of living, so too do we grow in love for God and for one another