I.
As this post is sent out today, it is the day after the Third Sunday in Lent. The Gospel reading for yesterday was Luke 13:1-9. In verses 1-5 of that reading twice Jesus addresses the question of the relation of sin and suffering. It seemed in Jesus’ day (and for that matter in ours also) people often found it easy to connect any suffering that comes one’s way to be the result of some sin(s) they had engaged in.

Many can come to this week’s Scripture focus (and similar passages) and find support for the claim that “your suffering is the result of your sin.” Jesus suggested any connection was not that simple and told his hearers, ““Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you …” (Luke 13:2-3)

This week let’s take our time reading our focus passage and explore them for what they might tell us about God’s intent for the “commandments” he imparts to us.

II.

Deuteronomy 8:1-11 (New Revised Standard Version)

This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.

III.
So what good are God’s commandments?

What do you think God hopes for us as we hear and follow his commandments?

What (and who) do the commandments lead us to recall?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}