Saturday Lent Four

“He loves righteousness and justice; *

the loving-kindness of the LORD fills the whole earth.”

Psalm 33, Saturday Lent Four, Evening Prayer, the Daily Office Book, Year One

We who claim Christ also claim to be in Christ and Christ in us. Then we are in the peculiar position to claim his attributes, righteousness, justice born of loving kindness. The claim to Christ is also a claim to be in relationship, where relationships are the beginning and end of our intention. This is a bold claim which I’m not always feeling up to and at times were I doubt myself and even despair, but I have a community to help me up, I have a parish to lift me up, by their example and by their concern for me. I have too scripture and prayer to remind me of nature of life. There will be times when I will experience the desert, and times when again I will feel the cool relief of restoring waters. My sense of abundance will give way to a sense of emptiness, but again I will know abundance, like a vineyard heavy with grapes. This is life.  I must remember its cycles and during the dry times and empty times, I need to not cede my living life, but with persistence, instead continue to pursue the loving-kindness of the Spirit which fills the whole earth, as the Spirit remains and love remains there in my communities. These are the times when I must put the relationship first, and get out of my worries if nothing else, for a while. There are times when all I can do is show up. Sometimes that is enough; sometimes just being present is relief. Fortunately, the claim to Christ is not, and cannot be, a solitary thing, as the claim to Christ is a claim to be in fellowship, in abundant seasons and in lean season, to be there for others in their lean time and to let them be there for me in mine.