Optional Memorial of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, religious

 Lectionary: 417

Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem:
By origin and birth you are of the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. As for your birth, the day you were born your navel cord was not cut; you were neither washed with water nor anointed....

Many second generation immigrants in the United States did not learn the language of their ancestors or their cultural ways, nor did they practice their hereditary religion. If their parents spoke the old tongue with other family members, they spoke only an accented English to their children. They wanted the second generation to learn the ways and spirit of their new geographical location. Only later would some of them discover that few Americans know the spirit, ethos, or religion endemic to North American soil. Nearly everyone they meet are also children of immigrants, and the dominant culture is not Native American.

In today's first reading from Ezekiel, the Word of God describes the Jews in Babylon as exiled natives of Canaan who apparently never learned their Jewish religion. They had adopted the abominable religion of their new neighbors. Ezekiel compares the descendants of escaped Hebrew slaves to abandoned newborns in a hostile, uncaring land. (We should remember there is nothing unusual about abandoned newborns. It happens often.) 

The Jews were orphaned and adopted by the LORD, according to Ezekiel. They were given all the beauty of royalty with splendid clothes and sparkling gems, not to mention the miraculous, providential care and nurturing an infant needs. This privileged people lacked nothing!  

The story continues: the vain girl, adopted but no longer abandoned, was enamored of her beauty and obedient only to her adolescent lust. She attracted and pursued lovers who abused and mistreated her. Apparently unaware of the God who loved her, she was driven only by her passion. The Bible often condemns the pagan practices of the native Canaanites and Philistines, which included ritual prostitution and infant sacrifice. Some Jews and Jewish kings practiced these abominations despite the loud protests of the prophets. 

HOWEVER, to make a long story short, the Lord will forgive and restore his people again: 

Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you when you were a girl,

and I will set up an everlasting covenant with you,

that you may remember and be covered with confusion,

and that you may be utterly silenced for shame

when I pardon you for all you have done, says the Lord GOD.

We dare not take God's mercy for granted, and we must be skeptical of local customs and culture. Being born in America or Europe does not make one faithful. We were set apart by our Baptism; and few our neighbors love the Eucharist. But, immersed in an alien society, speaking their language, wearing their clothes and eating their food, we inevitably assume some alien values as our own. Many Christians see no harm in abortion; some do not expect marriage to last until death. 

But we can rely on our good God to forgive us when we pause long enough to consider the enormity of our sins. Ezekiel's graphic metaphor helps us see and appreciate our depravity. The saints often record shock and horror as they see their personal sins in the light of God's mercy. "What was I thinking?" they cry in their agony. "O God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Because we we routinely deny, ignore, and cover up our sinful, guilty ways, this blessing of clarity comes only with God's grace to those willing to see how intensely they are loved.