Ordinary Time 
Pause
What does it take to tell the truth about ourselves? To admit we don’t know everything. To let go of distorted images. To refuse to pretend to feel things we don’t.
What does it take to tell the truth about God? To admit we don’t know everything. To let go of distorted images. To refuse to pretend to feel things we don’t.
Humble and honest prayers begin with telling the truth to ourselves and to God — about ourselves and about God.
Let us pray.
Listen
We acknowledge our sin, Lord, the wrongdoing of our ancestors, because we have sinned against you. For your name’s sake, don’t reject us, don’t scorn your glorious throne. Remember your covenant with us; don’t break it. Can any of the false gods of the nations make it rain? Can the sky by itself bring showers? Aren’t you the Lord, our God? You are our hope, since only you can do such things.
Jeremiah 14:20-22
Think
The covenant between God and the people was an agreement based on relationship. God and the people made promises to each other. God would lead the people to an abundant homeland and take care of them, and the people would follow God’s rules.
It is no surprise that the people failed to live up to their part of the agreement. It is human nature to mess up, sometimes badly, and our mistakes can have consequences that last for generations. To come back into covenant with God, the people have to be honest about how they failed. They even have to be honest about how their ancestors failed. They cannot romanticize their history or their choices. They can’t say “We didn’t know better,” or “We didn’t really mean to,” or “We shouldn’t have to pay for our grandparents’ mistakes.”
Only if they are honest about what they have done will they experience all that God can do.
Nikki Finkelstein-Blair
Pray
God, I want to be in relationship with you, so please help me to see clearly how I have gone wrong.
Help me to see clearly how I can help repair the wrongs of the people who came before me.
Help me to see clearly how you are at work, making all things right.
You are my hope.
Amen.
Go
When we say “Amen,” we are saying, “Yes, truly.” We are saying, “Let it be so.”
In our silences — in our unspoken requests and questions — we hold the “Amen.”
In our stops and starts — in all the ways we move through life — we act out the “Amen.”
In our hesitations — in our uncertain ideas about ourselves and God — we remember the “Amen.”
In every silence, in every stop and every start, in every hesitant thought, God goes with you.
Yes, truly. Let it be so.
Amen.
