Today, we hear
a psalm that is a lament about the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in
586 BCE. We hear the psalmist asking the
Lord not to remember the iniquities of the past, but to have his compassion
come quickly for his people. In
addition, the psalmist asks the Lord to deliver his people and to pardon their
sins for the sake of his name. We think
of our past sins and transgressions, we think of the Lord of compassion and
love, and we place our hope in the Lord for our future. When I was hiking up the largest peak on the
pilgrimage route to Spain on my way to Santiago this past April, one young man
from New York told me that he saw this trek as penance for all of his past
sins, and also penance for any sins he might commit in the future. Many of us probably feel the same way.
Today, we also
celebrate St Irenaeus, the second bishop of Lyons, France. Irenaeus is considered to be one of the most
important theologians of the 2nd century, a time before our faith
was a recognized religion in the Roman empire, a time when the theologians
were still debating and hammering out a lot of the basics about what we believe
about Jesus and about our faith. Much of what Irenaeus wrote was against
Gnosticism, a popular philosophy in the ancient world that saw different levels
of divinity as being present instead of one, unified God, a philosophy that
separated the created world into the superior spirit and the inferior material
objects. Irenaeus of Lyons did a great
deal to develop orthodox teachings within our faith, to develop those
fundamental beliefs that we so often take for granted today. As we ponder the
transgressions of the past and how we and the community of faith may have
strayed from God’s will and God’s purpose for us in life, may we think about
the mercy and compassion of God, just as the psalmist called upon that same
divine love and compassion. May God’s love and compassion give us strength and
encouragement as we travel along our own journeys.
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