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Isaiah 42. 1-7

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I
have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will
not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he
will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully
bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has
established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people
upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord, I have called you in
righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as
a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in
darkness.

I see this passage as a message of hope and encouragement. It strikes me that the Lord is introducing us, His servants, as His proud creation. He has created us and given us strength and ability to work to accomplish His will on earth. He describes the humility overlying the power and the sensitivity we have to work to accomplish justice. He has confidence that his creation will continually work to establish justice. He then tells us that he will support us in this important effort. He wants us to strive to establish justice for all, following his teachings. He especially encourages us to be confident in this course and to strive to educate our fellow humans while working for the downtrodden. As was most passages, it contains solid general principles as well as timely encouragement in light of our current omnipresent inequalities and undercurrent of inexplicable hatred. Once again, overall the message to me is: hope and encouragement.

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Ezekiel 37.21-28

then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land.

I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.

They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever.

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore.

When I first read this passage, my mind went directly to considering the leadership of the last four years and how it nurtured a great sense of divisiveness. This, in a sense, created two nations. Upon further meditation, I was led to a theme of unity and reconciliation. In times of crisis, like our current global pandemic, it is generally easy to put aside differences as we connect over a common purpose. Once the pandemic is over, how do we find that common purpose again and heal a very broken nation? This is a huge question, one that I cannot answer.

What I do know is that the practice of forgiveness and reconciliation starts in one’s heart. This changed heart sometimes leads to an individual act that may lead to a group act. A single act of forgiveness can mend a broken heart or spirit and empower that person to “pay it forward.” The possibility of cascading forgiveness—with everyone paying it forward—warms my heart with the hope I need to make it through another day.
Now let’s couple that single act of forgiveness with the lenten reading from two weeks ago where we were tasked with forgiving an infinite number of times until we get it right (Matthew 18:21-35). Forgiving until we can do it without the bitterness of a grudge, so that we can forgive and forget, so that we can be left only with love. I aspire to that type of forgiveness and all too often I fall short, but that does not stop me from trying again and again.

What would this world look like if our common purpose was that one individual act of reconciliation? And if that reconciliation leads to empathy and learning, wouldn’t that be even better? I pray for an everlasting covenant of peace born from one single act of forgiveness. Imagine the possibilities of all that forgiveness breathing life and love into the world!

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Jeremiah 20.10-13

For I hear many whispering: “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.

As a Harry Potter fan, I’ve always loved the line that the wand chooses the wizard. Perhaps in this time of Lent, the passage chooses the Lenten Reflector, as this passage from Jeremiah seemed to call out directly to me.

Growing up as a gay Christian in the time of the Westboro Baptist church, I learned early to tune out the all too frequent recitations of Leviticus in favor of passages such as Matthew 7:2 “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” We learn to tune out the denouncements with the fervent belief that God knows what is in our hearts and minds and that our persecutors will stumble. We remain committed to singing God’s praise and walking the path of righteousness knowing that God will settle the score on our behalf in the end.

Jeremiah also whisks me back to the halcyon days of summer 2016 when Michelle Obama reminded us all that “when they go low, we go high.” The test of that faith surely landed hard upon many of us in November 2016, a mere few months later, when we had to channel Jeremiah in recognition of a new administration bent on terror and denouncement. I’ve spent a lot of days since then listening to some gospel music to remind myself that “God’s gonna set this world on fire one of these days, hallelujah and I’m gonna sit at the welcome table.”

Truth be told, I feel like Jeremiah has spent many years whispering in my ears reminding me that few people look back over a lifetime and regret the respect and the kindness they gave even when it was not always reciprocated or even deserved. I just know at the end of the day that God has my back just as He had Jeremiah’s so very long ago.