Perhaps, God’s anger, words are designed to pull out a response in us
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Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.
By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor
A reflection on the daily readings, for Wednesday of the First Week of Lent, by Father Perry.
+ The number 40 is mentioned 146 times in scripture.
It is not the number most mentioned, but it is very noticed and noteworthy.
It relates to Moses and wandering in the desert and threat of punishment to Nineveh, and time of fasting for Jesus before being tempted by the devil.
Forty is a significant time for trial and punishment, and testing and probation.
If one made it through the 40 days or the 40 years, there was a good chance that they would survive and even thrive.
+ Everything in God’s word today is fine except, in my opinion, the depiction of the angry God who has to be pleased in order for him to change his mind.
Threat and fear of punishment seem to be the ruling pattern of how God acts and how man responds.
Perhaps that is like the stage, and its stage sets and props, on which the play takes place.
If the stage were simply empty, it might be boring just to hear all of the lines and words of the play.
We need a stage. We need the props. We need the backdrop, and then the written words come to life on that stage.
Perhaps that picture of God, angry and threatening, is what opens up to us the drama and the effective words which are all designed to pull out a response in us.
And that response is extremely important and difficult to arouse most of the time.
Change your mind and hearts and attitudes and responses, and actions and behaviors and habits and ways of thinking; and even believing — turn away from sin, and believe in the Gospel.
That is what we are told in the beginning of Lent in the distribution of ashes; that is what Nineveh was told by Jonah. That is what Jesus was preaching: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
It’s here! It’s now!
The stories carry the truth. The stage sets up for that truth to be proclaimed.
The number 40 makes significant time for all to be realized – for change to become possible and maybe even probable.
+ But, does God really get angry? Does God’s mind need to be changed? Can we really get God to think and act differently?
Or is all of that language a very, very, very dramatic and spiritual, and religious and behavioral way of attracting, and catching and stimulating and inviting us to first see the need to change, hear the call to become more and even our best, feel the love that sets all of this in motion, and experience the grace and goodness and “God”-ness in it all.
Maybe 40 days is just enough time for us if we really chew on all of this, play with it, seek through it, allow ourselves to be touched deeply by these stories, and then to discover God and God’s love through it all.
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
