Some time ago I read a newspaper article on food storage at home. I was interested in that because a) my Mum had trained me very well not to waste food and b) I like fresh food made from fresh ingredients. I was bamboozled by the article\u2019s take on potatoes. It was suggested that potatoes should be kept unwashed, with some soil on them and not in the fridge. Well, unless you do your shopping in a farm shop you get pre-washed potatoes only. Secondly – as my experience shows me – potatoes kept in a cupboard instead of the fridge start sprouting within a couple of days. Inedible pale warts pop up and grow into sickly pale, twisted stalks while the potatoes soften and wrinkle. It only happens after having brought potatoes home. I wish I knew how farmers and supermarkets prevent those changes for months after the harvest.<\/p>\n
Last Sunday I was talking about perfect love<\/a> – unconditional, unlimited, unrestricted – the one which is nowhere to be found in this world. One reason for such perfect love being elusive is that we are conditioned to see love as a reward for the right attitudes and behaviour; that\u2019s how it works among us. The sole exception is God\u2019s love for you; it\u2019s personal, fatherly, unconditional and wishing for your happiness. However, the main challenge is that we rarely feel God\u2019s love as such. More often than not we don\u2019t. Sometimes, affected by troubles, problems, suffering or tragedy we even question God\u2019s love. Should He not prevent me from all misfortune if He loves me?<\/p>\n The humble potato in the cupboard comes back to help us understand that. Having been exposed to warmer temperatures it starts sprouting. Due to the lack of light, the sprouts grow sickly pale but they cannot develop their potential. To make it worse, \u2018when a potato begins to sprout, the starch inside the potato converts to sugars enabling the sprout to grow. If the sprouts are long and the potato has shrunk and wrinkled, then it is best to throw it out.\u2019<\/em><\/a> The sprouts need light and there\u2019s plenty of it; unfortunately – from the potato\u2019s point of view – the light is behind the closed door. God\u2019s love for each one of us is like that light. But we are closed in a dark cupboard, unable to feel God\u2019s love in spite of its unlimited supply.<\/p>\n \u2018Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner from my mother\u2019s womb.\u2019 (Psalm 51:5)<\/em> This short confession of King David\u2019s perfectly describes the dark cupboard we are locked in. The well-known story of Adam and Eve\u2019s fall is an elaborate figurative meditation on the same theme – our baffling inclination to evil. St Paul was puzzled by it too: \u2018I don\u2019t understand my own actions. I don\u2019t do the good I want, but the evil I don\u2019t want is what I do. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me?\u2019 (Romans 7:15.19.24)<\/em> We are inherently vulnerable to evil. St Paul calls it \u2018sin that dwells within me\u2019 (Romans 7:20).<\/em> Before you switch off at the sound of the word \u2018sin\u2019<\/em> please bear with me for a moment. We are not talking here about the guilt-inducing insistence that everyone commits sins and thus is a sinner. It\u2019s not the evil acts I have committed that make me a sinner. It\u2019s exactly the opposite. Because I am a sinner, I commit evil acts. My broken spiritual DNA cannot produce anything else, like the potato cannot produce apples. We yearn for love, but we cannot satisfy this yearning; sometimes we hurt ourselves or others while trying to. What can we do in this hopeless situation? Nothing. That\u2019s really bad news.<\/p>\n However, God in His love for you doesn\u2019t want you to sink into hopelessness. Remember, He wants you to be happy and fulfilled. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of that in a very moving, poetic way in today\u2019s first reading: Console my people, console them\u2019 says your God. […] \u2018Go up on a high mountain, shout with a loud voice, shout without fear, \u2018Here is your God.\u2019 Here is the Lord coming with power, his arm subduing all things to him. He is like a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering lambs in his arms, holding them against his breast and leading to their rest the mother ewes.\u2019<\/em> Help is on the way! \u2018\u2018Prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord […] then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it.\u2019<\/em> This prophecy from the Old Testament was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. He is the one who can throw open the door of your dark cupboard and let the light of God\u2019s love in.<\/p>\n How do we prepare the way for the Lord? \u2018I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.\u2019 (Mark 2:17)<\/em> You must recognise and accept the unpalatable truth that you are a sinner, consequently prone to evil. That\u2019s the way made for Jesus to set you free from darkness. You can make your own prayer or follow mine in your heart:<\/p>\n My Father in heaven, today I want to repeat King David\u2019s words that \u2018indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner from my mother\u2019s womb.\u2019 <\/em>I admit that like St Paul \u2018I don\u2019t understand my own actions. I don\u2019t do the good I want, but the evil I don\u2019t want is what I do.\u2019<\/em> I accept that I am a sinner and that\u2019s why I fall into sin. I recognise that I cannot change this hopeless state of mine and I need your help. Father, I believe that you never stop loving me and that out of your love for me you will heal my soul corrupted by sin and restore me to my intended holiness. Thank you for your love. Amen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Image by Pexels<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some time ago I read a newspaper article on food storage at home. I was interested in that because a) my Mum had trained me very well not to waste food and b) I like fresh food made from fresh ingredients. I was bamboozled by the article\u2019s take on potatoes. It was suggested that potatoes should be kept unwashed, with some soil on them and not in the fridge. Well, unless you do your shopping in a farm shop you get pre-washed potatoes only. Secondly – as my experience shows me – potatoes kept in a cupboard instead of the fridge start sprouting within a couple of days. Inedible pale warts pop up and grow into sickly pale, twisted stalks while the potatoes soften and wrinkle. It only happens after having brought potatoes home. I wish I knew how farmers and supermarkets prevent those changes for months after the harvest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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