Who would actually go shopping with no resources and no money? Who would risk the embarrassment, disdain, and humiliation associated with being found lacking? Yet this passage asks us to be vulnerable in trusting our well-founded relationship with God.
Who among us likes to ask for help? The core of this passage pushes us to do exactly this: become uniquely vulnerable, open, and transparent. Imagine the angst and fear that must have surrounded those who trusted in this new manner of living relationally with God. I often wonder if they were angry at God or resentful that—after all they had been through—they would have to trust God’s word and covenant again.
That is what God asks of us. Just like the people in the scriptures, we must forsake material things to trust Almighty God. Then and only then can we refocus on God and God’s power and ask for God’s unwavering help. This trust in God, this repentance, this new birth requires beginning again.
In fact, that is what the Lenten season is all about: desiring God so much that we are willing to let go of all things comfortable and familiar to turn our very souls and bodies to God’s will.
In beginning again, we trust God to will and act in our favor. This is the vulnerability that makes the core Christian principles of unconditional love and exceptional forgiveness possible. It is a willingness to turn away from a past that is often riddled with thoughts of If only and I should have to refocus on right now. Lent teaches us to live in the now with God.
Eternal God, make us vulnerable and willing to begin again, trusting you to love and forgive unconditionally. Amen.
In the midst of Lent, when many might be giving up a certain food that they love, we read about feasting. The focus is not on physical feasting, but on feasting as a metaphor for communing with God. Isaiah describes food and drink that one cannot buy with money, for it comes freely from the Lord. The psalmist describes the state of his soul as being hungry and thirsty. Only meditating on God’s faithfulness nourishes his soul at the deepest level. Physical food is momentary, but spiritual nourishment endures. In First Corinthians, Paul appeals to this imagery. Although the ancients experience this spiritual nourishment, some pursue physical pleasure and stray into idolatry and immorality. Partaking in this nourishment should cause us in turn to produce spiritual fruit, as Jesus admonishes his listeners.
Read Isaiah 55:1-9. When has God’s grace inverted your expectations?
Read Psalm 63:1-8. As you mature in faith, what new questions about God do you ask?
Read 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Think of a time you have faced great temptation. How did God help you endure it?
Read Luke 13:1-9. For what do you need to repent?
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