Modern farming practices suggest that land be given a rest every once in a while. Its purpose is to restore the land and let it rest. This with crop rotation is a way to restore and rejuvenate the land. We in America learned the hazards of not doing this in the Dust Bowl era of the 1920’s. Farmers today especially on family farms consider themselves stewards of the land and have the best interests of the land and it’s future at heart. In today’s reading in Leviticus 25 the Lord says “Seven weeks of years shall you count – seven times seven years – so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years. Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound; on the day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo throughout the land. This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you” Atonement has many synonyms which include penance, expiation and reconciliation. In Monday’s scripture readings from Exodus 32 the Jewish people made atonement for worshiping the golden calf they had crafted from their own hands. Moses was up on the mountain and had been gone for 40 days. These people were lost and left to their own devices went astray. There are so many lost people today that need the process of atonement or reconciliation with God.
The Gospel for today ties into someone who had an opportunity to repent and did not. In Matthew 14 “Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why the powers are at work in him.” Herod meant that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. This was not God’s plan but Herod could have pardoned Jesus later in the Gospel but he did not. Guilt from sin makes us turn a blind eye to penance, expiation and reconciliation with God. Herod was indeed blind to sin. Yes, so am I sometimes.
In Leviticus 25: 23-25 reads” The land shall not be sold irrevocably; for the land is mine, and you are but resident aliens and under my authority. Therefore, in every part of the country that you occupy, you must permit the land to be redeemed.When one of your kindred is reduced to poverty and has to sell some property, that person’s closest relative, who has the duty to redeem it, shall come and redeem what the relative has sold.”
I recently donated a filing cabinet to another church member who had taken over a volunteer job that I had for six years. The job needed a younger man and I would still be around to assist and help when necessary. In cleaning out the cabinet I ran across many memories when I lived in North Dakota in the 1970’s and it just so happens that I lived in that state for six years before I moved back to Florida in the seventh year. Cleaning out that filing cabinet and the above scripture reminds me that everything we have or call possessions is really not ours. Our family, friends, jobs, houses, apartments or cars are not ours but God’s. We are but resident aliens of this world. Guilt and sin can give us similar excess baggage. We need to be freed and reconciled with God every day.
From another of my favorite scriptures from Sirach 17:24-25 “But to the penitent he provides a way back and encourages those who are losing hope! Turn back to the Lord and give up your sins, pray before him and make your offenses few.”
This is important but all of us should examine our consciences every day. We don’t have to wait seven days or months or years. We must permit the land to be redeemed . We must permit ourselves to be redeemed and reconciled to God everyday. I am not perfect so I am speaking as a sinner that needs that redemption and reconciliation everyday. I pray for it as I read the daily scripture and the wonderful reflections that come to me in A Catholic Moment.
The Jewish people who worshiped the golden calf did take advantage of atonement and Herod did not.
What about you?
I pray we all celebrate in this day of atonement and our reconciliation with God today and everyday. Psalm 67: 7-8 “The earth has yielded its harvest; God, our God, blesses us. May God bless us still; that the ends of the earth may revere him.”
God Bless
Bob Burford
Readings: Leviticus 25: 1, 8-17; Psalm 67: 2-3, 5, 7-8; Matthew 14: 1-12
