Lent 2020 - Week 2

Midweek Lenten Devotion

Forgotten

 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:42-43 

A Most Peculiar Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhT97UIOaUs

He was a most peculiar man
That's what Mrs. Riordan says and she should know
She lived upstairs from him
She said he was a most peculiar man

He was a most peculiar man
He lived all alone within a house,
Within a room, within himself
A most peculiar man

He had no friends, he seldom spoke
And no one in turn ever spoke to him,
Cause he wasn't friendly and he didn't care
And he wasn't like them
Oh, no, he was a most peculiar man

He died last Saturday
He turned on the gas and he went to sleep
With the windows closed, so he'd never wake up
To a silent world and his tiny room
And Mrs. Riordan says he has a brother somewhere
Who should be notified soon
And all the people said: "What a shame that he's dead,
But wasn't he a most peculiar man?"

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Paul Simon

“A Most Peculiar Man” - lyrics © Paul Simon Music

Grace and peace to you from Jesus the Christ.

This Lenten series will explore the human condition through the lyrics of Paul Simon and address the malady suggested by the song with the Gospel. 

Food insecurity/health care deserts/

environmental injustice/zip-code poverty…

These are the most peculiar men among us whom we in white privilege pass by day after day, month after month, and year after year.

Jesus is about being neighbor.  Christ enters these neighborhoods of inequity and calls the Church to join him there.

The peculiar faces of poverty and hunger will be etched in our minds and hearts when we follow Christ.  No one escapes his notice as he feed the hungry, heals the sick, reaches out to the peculiar of his time.

Christ is the great community organizer who with 12 motley disciples changed the direction of the Empire and Western Society:

Slave and free, Jew and Gentile, male and female are looked upon as equals.  Identity is centered in all being made in the image of the Divine – all are God’s offspring. 

A Most Peculiar Man dies of benign neglect.  Who is dying of benign neglect among us?  Will we identify and confess our sins of omission: 

§  --omitting champion legislation that creates systemic changes like a $15 minimum wage,

§  --overlooking the history of inequities to immigrants, brown, black, indigenous peoples,

§  --will we remain in our safe cathedrals and echo the words: 

“But wasn’t he a most peculiar man?’

Christ was a most peculiar man.  He went to the cross for identifying with the most peculiar people, for his welcome, for his compassion, for his community organizing against the oppression of the Empire.

Christ took the cross, the symbol of ultimate execution and oppression and turned it into a symbol of ultimate love and self-sacrifice.  Now Christ calls us, the Church, to this cruciform way of life and give ourselves away for the sake of others.

Silence in the face of benign neglect can kill.  Christ remembers.  His word from the cross to that most peculiar forgotten Persian thief has broken the silence: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Amen