Monday, January 13, 2013
Deuteronomy 9: Unmerited Success
![God's_Grace_2[1]](https://thenoontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gods_grace_21.jpg?w=300&h=220)
In today’s Noontime we examine when and where we see God. We take time to reflect on how and why we praise God. We consider our perception of who and what God is. We have the opportunity to thank God for our unmerited success.
If we take these verses in a literal, one-dimensional way God comes off as a sometimes petulant, occasionally petty and sulking God. If we put them in the context of the New Testament – and if we can refrain from the temptation to moralize – we allow ourselves to accept God’s gifts of faith, hope, and unconditional love. We will find ourselves rooted and flourishing in God’s grace.
An excerpt from Richard Rohr’s Saturday meditation gives us a compass to use on our pilgrimage. He writes:
God always entices us through love.
Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change, is the experience of love and acceptance itself. This is the engine of change. If the mystics say that one way, they say it a thousand ways. But because most of our common religion has not been at the mystical level, we’ve been given an inferior message—that God loves you when you change (moralism). It puts it all back on you, which is the opposite of being “saved.” Moralism leads you back to “navel-gazing,” and you can never succeed at that level. You are never holy enough, pure enough, refined enough, or loving enough. Whereas, when you fall into God’s mercy, when you fall into God’s great generosity, you find, seemingly from nowhere, this capacity to change. No one is more surprised than you are. You know it is a total gift.
Adapted from Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate
. . . Seeing God in All Things (CD, DVD, MP3)
If we read the Noontime selection today and complement ourselves for having behaved well, for having turned our eyes away from the golden calf, if we love the chant three times over, It is because of my merits that the Lord has brought me to possess the land, then we have lost our way. If we delight in believing that these verses show us a strict set of rules to follow so that we will never suffer, we have misunderstood all of scripture. If we believe that God loves only those who obey his rules and join his club, we do not know God at all.
God abides with us when we follow and when we stray. It is when we lose our way that God comes after us persistently to bring us back to the fold.
God protects us when we take risks in Kingdom-building. It is when we teeter on the edge of safety that God patiently strengthens the bonds we have forged in relationship with God.
God guides us as we wade into the world to engage fully in discipleship. It is when we are most lured and confused by the material world that God speaks steadily to us.
And so we pray:
Generous and loving God, Remind us that you are so immense that your love encompasses all, even those of us who stray.
Giving and powerful God, Tell us again that you will never abandon us, never reject us, always love us. Tell us that we have nothing to fear as we follow you.
Great and gentle God, Clarify for us each day your message of inclusion, universality, and transformation. Remind us that we must not exclude anyone from your message.
Gracious and singular God, Continue to send us your amazing, incalculable, and precious gift of unmerited success. And help us to remember to thank you. Amen.
This week . . . more on Deuteronomy.
Image from: http://prayitoff.blogspot.com/2011/03/pray-it-off-31711-actual-grace-just-ask.html
For more information on this fourth book of the Torah, see the Deuteronomy – Laws page on this blog at: https://thenoontimes.com/the-book-of-our-life/the-old-testament/the-torah/deuteronomy-laws/
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