God’s Story

A Reflection on the First Reading for March 6th, 2022:
​First Sunday of Lent

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Deuteronomy
26.4-10

Moses spoke to the people, saying: “When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God:

“‘A wandering Aramean was my father; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’”

And Moses continued, “You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God.”
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Reading Moses’s narrative of the story of the Israelites reminded me of times in the Old Testament when the Israelite people offered their own perspective of the same events. Being freed from a life of slavery and servitude was not always uplifting. It was confusing, and filled with uncertainty (Exodus 14:11). They felt the peril and discomfort of change as they learned to become completely reliant on God (Exodus 17:2). They struggled with temptations and the allure of idols (Exodus 32:1). They faced doubts within their own body (Numbers 14:2-3). Sometimes, their ingratitude provoked God (Numbers 21:5-6).
 


I am sympathetic. Isn’t this everyone’s story? God, in His mercy, has given us the privilege to follow Him through the wilderness to a land flowing with milk and honey. But how often do I remember that? It is so much easier to spend my time and energy focusing on all the worries, cares and concerns of this life — on my own version of my life’s journey. 
 


Moses’s narrative of the Israelites’ story is a reminder to them and to us of the right story to believe in — a re-orientation, of sorts, when we’re feeling a little disoriented. 
 


But the narrative doesn’t stop there. This isn’t a story about us just being imperfect beings doing our best to follow a perfect God. There is more nuance to it: not only are we imperfect and apt to fall astray and believe in lies, there is also a deceiver. A force, an entity, actively working to trip us up. To feed us lies. To deliberately keep us apart from God.
 


Too often, I forget this part of the story. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of being hated because I’m loved by God. Yet it is there: in the tragedy of Cain and Abel, in the selling of Joseph into slavery by his brothers, and even in the narrative of the Lord. Not only is it present in His story, He even warns His followers about it (John 15:18), not to mark other people as our enemy, but to identify the sin lurking beneath that is driving it all.
 


Saint Paul tells us how to deal with this element of the story (Ephesians 6:10-18). It is a battle, but it definitely doesn’t look or feel like what I envision a battle ought to look and feel like. We aren’t going to be victorious because we defeated a great enemy; we will be victorious because we never let go of God. 
 


There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. We all sit in the palm of His hand. And so, the real story, the one that God is telling us, is the great romance of all those who are able to withstand the deceptions and lies that would make them stand up and walk out of His grasp, and the tragedy of all those who actually stand up and leave.




​Laura Dysart

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