God's action and ours
For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Hannan's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.
For those who are uncomfortable with any suggestion that our future is in our own hands, this might be one of those weeks to abandon the assigned texts on theological grounds. (It is extra tempting given the occasion of “Rally Sunday.”) In Deuteronomy we hear that if we obey we shall live and be blessed, but if our heart turns away we shall perish. And then very directly, “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
Really? Our mortality, our survival, is up to us? This irritates my lifelong conditioning that we are fully dependent on God and not ourselves. The alternative first reading from Jeremiah is no more helpful:
