Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Spiritual Hiccups - Never Content

We humans seem to have a contentment problem.  No matter what we have, no matter what we achieve, it is not quite enough.  As with some other human traits, this difficulty finding contentment is part blessing and part curse.  It can drive people to better themselves, to cure illnesses, or fight hunger and poverty.  But it also can drive people to cut corners in order to make a bit more profit, to accumulate more and more possessions, to cast off a spouse for someone "better."

In today's reading from Jeremiah, God is portrayed as perplexed at such behavior on the part of Israel. "What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?..  I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things.  But when you entered you defiled my land,and made my heritage an abomination... for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water."

I find that I engage in this sort of foolishness all too often.  Despite those times when my relationship with God has filled me to overflowing, leading me at various stages of my life to become more involved in my congregation, to serve in mission projects, and to uproot my family and go to seminary, it is still easy to become disenchanted with God, to go after other sources of fulfillment and meaning.  

I follow a Twitter account that goes by the name "Unvirtuous Abbey" and posts silly prayers.  I remember one from last Fall when the news came out that NBA star Tony Parker had cheated on his wife, Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria.  It read, "Lord, you who cured the blind, we pray for anyone who would cheat on Eva Longoria. Amen."  I chuckled, but Tony Parker's problem has nothing to do with his eyesight.  

But despite our foolishness, God is faithful.  Our inability to be content has its consequences, but one of them is not God abandoning us.  In fact, God's response to our foolishness is Jesus, what the Apostle Paul calls God's foolishness for us.  And I think that a big part of growing in faith, of a deepening spirituality, is allowing God's foolishness to transform ours.

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