During this season of Lent, I will occasionally share select thoughts from Walter Brueggemann's short devotional readings for Lent, A Way Other than Our Own.
Today's reading (1st Friday of Lent) looks at Matthew 6:27 and challenges us to rethink our general approach to this season, that rather than giving our primary focus to our sin and suffering and self-denial, "we ask in fresh ways what the people clustered around Jesus make of the world they are in...Jesus affirmed that it's possible to be in the world in a new way, to be present to the people and problems around us with newness and freshness. The usual way of being in the world is anxiety..."
In Matt.6:27 Jesus asks, "Which of you, by being anxious, has ever added an inch to your lives?"
"Being defensive and frightened and coveting has never resulted in any gains...(Jesus) suggests another way: Seek the kingdom and his righteousness...
"The invitation is to get so involved in the emergence of humanness...that we don't have to be defending how it was, worried about what will happen to the things to which we have given our lives."
Brueggemann closes with this prayer:
"Free us, Lord, from our obsession with ourselves long enough to care for others; to be so concerned about the well-being of the human community that we don't have to worry about our place, our church, our class, our values, our vested interests. Help us to know the joy and freedom of putting all our trust in you. Amen."
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