Romans 9:1-5

Pentecost +12 – Year A

Romans 9:1-5

Going to a deserted place has some hope within it of finding something new or being prepared to return to some same-old same-old.

Here we have an image of going to a deserted place as a result of giving up something already deemed precious. Imagine what it would take for you to be voluntarily cut off from Christ/Allah/Buddha/G*D/What(Who)ever/Food/Energy/Money/etc.

Going to a deserted place also has some loss within it of leaving something behind, never to pick it up again.

As you consider again the need and/or opportunity you have to go to a deserted place, are you looking to find something or to lose something? to break beyond a current barrier or to return, fortified, to encounter it again?

Are you ready to depart for your deserted place? If not now, when?

Is there a way to engage your busy place with your deserted place? A pastoral counselor for a state-wide Council of Churches suggested taking one's vacation (deserting a current idolatry) at one's busiest time. How might this put into regular, daily, practice and not just once or twice a year? For those of us who are work-aholics, giving up our work for the sake of another is heretical, yet crucial to a holistic life. For alcoholics, it is giving up alcohol. For Paul and other Jesusics, it is giving up Jesus. And for you?