Gospel Reading:
John 6:35-40
No one who comes to me will I ever reject. v.37
The world is a place of hurt, filled with rejection from parents, friends, co-workers and others. Their sin is not the issue, our response to their rejection is the issue.
Rejection causes pain that leads to anger and death. Today's reading gives us a way back from death to life, from anger to love, and from rejection to acceptance. Jesus never rejects anyone who sincerely seeks him.
GOD NEVER MOVES AWAY FROM US
You may have heard, "If God seems far away, who moved?" God never moves away from us, He is always close by. If he seems far away, it is usually because we have moved away from him through sin.
James wrote: "Draw close to God and he will draw close to you." Sin, even habitual small sins left unchecked, take the edge off spiritual life and eventually break full communion with God. He offers us a way back through repentance and forgiveness if we are sincere.
Sirach warned about presuming on forgiveness through insincere repentance, giving ourselves license to sin for a season because we know that forgiveness will be given later. Keep in mind that forgiveness is not given unless repentance is real. Sin must be renounced with the intention of never sinning again. If we do sin, forgiveness is again given if repentance is sincere.
The same is true when we sin in our relationships with people: Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx is said to have never asked any professed monk to leave his monastery. He always gave an offender a choice to repent and worked with him toward repentance. If the offender left, it was because he chose to.
DRAW CLOSE IN SINCERE REPENTANCE
Do we draw close to him with sincere repentance and let him heal us of our sin and our feelings of rejection or do we toy with God’s forgiveness? In our communities, do we reject each other or do we offer God’s forgiveness?
Jesus stands before us today as an open door. All we need do is turn around and walk through if we want to be accepted by God, the church, and the community again.
John Michael Talbot
Photo by sandravahtel
2 comments:
John -
If ou only knew how much I needed to read this today you would laugh. Long story, but thanks for this post. is it possible to email you sometime? my email address is kathepoo@tmo.blackberry.net. I read your article in the conversations journal as well. Thanks again. Kathryn
Hi, JMT. So happy to find your blog today! :-)
Post a Comment