This world is a market where everything is bought and sold. Advertisements continuously inform us how and where to get everything we need at good prices. And we hear such messages so many times that we end up believing them. Throughout the human history the idea that everything, including God, could be bought has always been present in people’s minds in one form or another.
People prefer to believe that God has something to offer us provided we give him something in return. The Jews had ended up turning their temple into a marketplace as the Gospel of John tells us. Not only because there were many moneychangers and people who sold sacrificial animals and birds. Common people were taught or catechised that making these offering was the price to be paid to obtain God’s favour, to appease his anger or obtain forgiveness of sins.
In the face of this distorted image of God, this Sunday’s readings send out a powerful message: our God is not for sale and you cannot purchase the peace of conscience or tranquility or good health by bribing God. Our God does not sell or buy anything. Our God is the one who brought his people out of Egypt, the one who freed them from slavery. “I want mercy, not sacrifice,” says the Word of God.
God is the one who gives freedom, life and salvation to those who live in slavery and death. Without asking anything in return, without paying a price he offered his life and love.
His only condition: that we do not let ourselves be enslaved by anything or anyone, but we share life. We can re-read all the rules given in the first reading and we will see how all of them are liberating, all of them invite people to live in solidarity and fraternity, in freedom and respecting the freedom of others.
In Lent, God shows himself to us as the one who frees us from all slavery, even from death, which is the last of the slaveries. We will experience this when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in the days of Easter. And God does this out of pure grace, out of pure love for us. There is no price to pay, no preconditions. God loves us and that’s it. It is up to us to be grateful for what he gives us and to share it with those around us. It is in us to love him as he loves us and recognise him as the Father who loves us so much.
For your reflection
When I come to Mass or when I say a prayer, I think it is something I owe to God. How should I “pay” God back for all the love and freedom he has given me in his son Jesus? How could I share those gifts with my brothers and sisters?
Father Fernando Torres CMF
www.ciudadredonda.org
Translated by Father Alberto Rossa CMF
