Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

saying, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’ Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?

The call to listen and to choose is at the heart of Lent. The Book
of Deuteronomy speaks of obedience, which means a deep listening to a voice other than our own, since if we hear only our own voice we are imprisoned in a hall of mirrors which becomes a tomb. But if we listen to the voice of God, we find not death but life.

This life comes in strange ways, because the deep listening of obedience involves death of a kind – death to the world in which the only voice we hear is our own. Jesus speaks of his resurrection, but it will come only after a journey through the violence of the Cross.

Obedience also requires that we not only listen to the voice of Jesus but also, like him, choose to act on what we hear. The Father calls us, as he called Jesus. But he leaves the choice to us, as he did to Jesus, because God is a great respecter of human freedom, since freedom is the greatest gift he has given us. He doesn’t force us to do anything.

That’s why the Book of Deuteronomy says: “Choose life”! Once we do choose the life that comes from listening, then we are taking the path of liberating obedience which is at the heart of biblical religion and the heart, therefore, of Lent.

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