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March 5, 2021Our Scriptures today match any TV, Play or Film telling the story of human hate, jealousy, resentment, crime and murder. As Carl Jung would say, we all have within us the dark side of life, the murderer, the rapist, the criminal and other personas deep within our unconscious, that sometimes emerge in our dreams and fantasies and actual behavior. It horrifies and embarrasses us to discover these parts of ourselves and to own them. 'Certainly, not I,' we think, 'that hateful, murderous thing, maybe someone else would, but not me.'
The Scriptures today tell real stories about the evil we all share. Joseph was his father's favorite. His brothers were jealous, hated him, plotted to kill him. but relented, because two of the brothers persuaded the others to spare him and sell him to traders. Like this story, Jesus tells a story of jealousy and murder of the landowner's tenants and finally his Son.
We get it! Joseph’s story leads to Jesus' story, his rejection, betrayal for thirty pieces of silver and brutal death. Can we take these two stories inside? In Lenten self-knowledge and repentance, can we own our behavior that is sometimes jealous, complete with murder of a person's reputation or imagined destruction? If we cannot, we may be blind, but most of us can. Then we beg for mercy, forgiveness for anything we have thought or done that hurts us and another person's life. Always we praise God for making the stone rejected the cornerstone of the new Temple who is Jesus and His Risen Body. 'Oh, Lord, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.'
