We know how we have been delivered

The texts today in the Roman Catholic Lectionary invite us to explore more deeply our relationship with the Divine through the grace of God, in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit. Paul reminds us that we are not slaves to the Law but we need to be slaves of the grace which has called us into relationship with God. That relationship compels us to fight against our selfish passions causing us to be servants of sin. The psalmist recalls for Israel and us the life events in which we already know that the Lord has kept us from disaster. We echo the proclamation that "our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth". In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells the story of two slaves who behave badly when their master is absent. The slave who knew his master and understood the directions he was supposed to follow is treated more harshly than the slave who had not completely understood how he was supposed to behave. The intimate relationship with the Divine informs more of the nature of God than the "knowing of"contact. The experience of living in grace requires deeper awareness of the offense possible to that Grace.