Friday; March 21, 2014
Don’t Be Too Afraid of Being Thrown Into the Pit!
I am not fond of being defeated, rejected of humiliated. Not many people are. Yet as Rohr points out, the Bible is full of stories of such things. In the Genesis text, Joseph gets thrown into the cistern only to emerge later as a great ruler. The ultimate example is Jesus and the cross. The message in the Bible is clear—“there is no going up until you go down.”
The Matthew text has to do with rejection and what Rohr calls oppositional energy. "Oppositional energy never knows what it is for, it just knows what it is against. It is sort of a sad substitute for vision, yet negative people feed on it.” According to the passage from Psalm 118 that Jesus quotes in the parable, this spirit of rejection or oppositional energy is what led to his death.
I need to check my natural negative thoughts and be willing to go down so I can go up.
Quote from Rohr, Richard (2010-12-27). Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (p. 56). St. Anthony Messenger Press. Kindle Edition.
