“Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.” Isaiah 55:3a
Have you ever driven or seen someone drive a misaligned vehicle? Driving a misaligned car causes undue wear and tear on the tires or ‘puling’ in the steering to one side, which can cause misjudgment in seeing where we are on the road as we journey. Not dissimilar to vehicles, when our personal and congregational lives are constantly lived out of alignment, we share similar experiences of wear and tear and friction. We are pulled in directions that distort our capacity to see our way forward.
This week, the lectionary scriptures seemed to understand that our lives are too often misaligned, and we need correction, so we are invited into God’s liturgical call and response. Undergirding the lections this week, we are confronted with the faithful invitation of God. The Lord is awaiting our response to change our ways, outlooks, and perspectives. Repentance is a word that frequently seems to offend our sensitivities. The problem is that repentance is often misunderstood as a call to feel bad. Biblically speaking, though, repentance is not simply about feeling remorse or groveling before God. Those feelings are a surface-level response. Instead, through acts of repentance, we are invited to grow deeper in our discipleship by going deeper. Repentance entails internalizing an honest exploration of self with courageous truthfulness that can require us to face the painful realities that our lives are often misaligned with God’s purposes. Why is this invitation to acknowledge, confront, and invite holy change so important? Well, if we are honest, misalignment is not spiritually healthy. A person or even a spiritually misaligned church with God’s purposes realizes decreased engagement, increased frustration, and a lack of momentum for the things that God most desires, justice, loving-kindness, and humility as the ground of our Christian character.
The beauty of God’s faithful invitation is shown when Jesus, instead of just permitting the cutting down of the misaligned tree in Luke’s gospel, instead exemplifies grace with patient opportunity for realignment. This Lenten season offers a grace-filled opportunity for realignment.
Practical Implication: Are you and your church aligned with God’s purposes as understood through the five-conference emphasis of being a people who serve Christ by cultivating effective leaders, striving to be healthy congregations, tending to children some of our most vulnerable human beings, embracing the hard work of anti-racism as one foundational aspect to a justice-seeking God, and striving for unity through the power of the Holy Spirit?
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