Lent offers us frequent and repeated challenges us to get rid of our unholy attachments and the bad habits that keep us lazy, enslaved, or idolatrous. Lent is the time to learn from our mistakes of over-indulgence in food, drink, drugs, gambling, promiscuity, or any other things that may keep us from coming to the “living waters” of a right relationship with God. We all have our short list, don’t we? And we all know, honest to God, what it is we need to leave behind (on this long Lenten road) before we come to the joy of Easter. Let us be sure to continue cooperating with God’s grace during the remaining weeks of the Lenten season.
Let us also take the prophets of the Old Testament as our inspiration. Nearly without exception, when they tried to turn back to God and get God’s people to do the same, they were attacked, vilified, and scorned. Centuries later, Jesus was treated the same. If we take our “discipleship” seriously, we will likely meet with ridicule and rejection. Take heart: the world is not always ready to hear words of truth and justice. It does not like the true prophet who has the tendency to draw people’s attention to the things they don’t want to hear. Jesus calls us to perseverance and faithfulness, not “success.”
