Saturday of the fifth week of lent

Date: Saturday, April 1
Contributor: Elizabeth Stoltz
Lectionary Link  

God speaks to his people in the time of David. He says that He will bring his people home from wherever they may be, and He will make the two nations one. But He will bring them together with these admonitions: I will cleanse you, He says. But there will be no transgressions, no defilements, no false gods among you. I will make a covenant of peace with my people, and I shall dwell among you.

We know that many of the stories in the Bible are told as metaphor. We are left to make sense of the stories, often in our own way. What exactly is God telling his people in this reading as He calls them all together? And as I read this, I can think God is calling me, I am the “two nations”--one is the dark side of human nature and the other is walking in the light. God calls me to let go of the faults in my character: my wanderings from His Will, the distractions of gossip or jealousy or greed. What may I be doing that is contrary to being a good person, a person whose heart is open to the Spirit, and who sees the relative, neighbor or the stranger with the eyes of the heart. Am I, we may ask ourselves, kind, compassionate and loving as I am meant to be? To be called home, as the reading says, can mean am I conscious of the things I do and the way I am meant to be. Do I look as objectively as I can at myself, at my behavior? And then: I ask for help, ask God, and He will help me “cleanse myself.” I then can be at peace and find my home with God.