These words stood out from the responsorial psalm, Psalm 16, in this morning’s liturgy of the Word: “O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.”
It’s one of those lines that I’d normally just read and fly past without much thought, but today it fairly jumped off the page and demanded that I reflect on it.
“…[M]y allotted portion and my cup….” Is God telling me that I am entitled to him? I think maybe he is. I think maybe that is the exact message of Easter: that salvation, redemption, our relationship with God, everything that Jesus earned for us on through the Cross, all of it is our entitlement and the generous gift of a loving Trinity.
After all, once someone makes a gift of something, we are entitled to receive and accept it, aren’t we? We’ve made “entitlement” sort of a four-letter word, but in its purest form it is a wonderful thing. In its purest form, it is not something that we claim or earn in our own right; it is what comes with a gift.
God’s gift to us in the resurrection of his Son is all-encompassing: faith, the Cross, salvation, redemption, and our ability to live a life rooted in all of these–that is the gift freely given, to which we are by God’s very will fully entitled.
The only shame in this kind of entitlement is a failure to fully receive, embrace, and use the gift.
Lord, in this time of Easter please give me grace to claim and use to the fullest all those gifts you have given me. Please give grace to all your people to claim and use your gifts, so that in using them we witness and praise your name. In these difficult times of pandemic and quarantine, allow us to shine with your gifts so that in gratitude we share them with all. Let us be where you call us to be, giving what you desire that we give, and let us walk with you through this time of Easter in praise and holiness. Amen.
How Does Your (Spiritual) Garden Grow? 
Leave a Reply