Imagino que a muchos les resultará extraño que un pastor protestante se presente como un eremita urbano, pero no hay nada extraño. Lutero siempre resaltó la importancia de la vida de oración, es más, él siempre decía que lo primero que debemos hacer al comenzar el día es orar, y si nos sentimos tentados debemos orar más fuertemente, orar con los salmos, orar el padre nuestro, recitar el credo y los diez mandamientos. Para Lutero esa era una piedra angular de nuestra espiritualidad. La fe es un don divino, pero la fe nos lleva a desear más y más estar en la presencia de Dios.
Un eremita urbano es un cristiano que ha sentido intensamente la llamada de Dios a una vida de oración, estudio de las escrituras, contemplación y servicio a Dios. El eremita urbano no depende de otros, sólo depende de Dios. Dios es su todo, es su proveedor, es su camino y es su destino último. Ese Dios lo llama a descubrir su presencia en sus hijos, en el pueblo de Dios, en los hermanos y hermanas de Jesús. El eremita urbano vive en la ciudad o en su pueblo, trabaja, estudia, come, duerme, hace ejercicio. Es en casi todo semejante a cualquier otro hijo de Dios. Pero hay algo peculiar y único en su vida, es ese llamado incesante a la oración constante, a la liturgia de las horas, al oficio divino diario. La oración de la mañana, la tarde, la noche y la lectura espiritual de la Biblia con el leccionario diario y los comentarios de los escritores de espiritualidad marcan su rutina. El eremita urbano organiza su tiempo en torno a la oración litúrgica de la iglesia. Su trabajo manual o intelectual se ubica circunscrito a su tiempo entre una hora litúrgica y otra. El eremita gana su pan con su trabajo, ve en su trabajo una extensión de su vida de oración y de su vocación de amar a Dios intercediendo por el mundo. El mundo recibe la bendición de sus oraciones, y solamente Dios conoce la pasión del eremita en su intercesión por las necesidades del mundo y de la gente. En la soledad de su recinto, a puertas cerradas, eleva su plegaria al Padre Celestial en el nombre de Cristo y en la fuerza del Espíritu Santo. La ermita es el templo donde se elevan las oraciones por los necesitados, la soledad y el silencio se llenan entonces de la presencia de la gloria divina. El corazón se eleva y la mente se ilumina, los ojos de la fe contemplan el cielo abierto y al Hijo de Dios a la diestra del Padre. El eremita ve con los ojos de la fe, no ve las cosas que se ven solamente, sino que ve también las cosas que no se ven, aquellas que solamente el Espíritu de Dios nos revela. En un mundo roto, fracturado por las guerras, experimentando la insuperable polarización y el odio, el ministerio del eremita urbano es urgente. Se necesita una presencia del amor de Dios y del obrar del Espíritu Santo en medio de la ciudad. Se necesita una presencia de serenidad y perdón, de bienvenida y unión, una voz de paz y no de conflicto. El eremita ha sido llamado a eso. A orar y a servir. Sirve con su trabajo, ora con temor y temblor. No conoce el futuro, pero sabe que el final del camino es la unión eterna con Dios, la visión beatifica de nuestro creador. El eremita camina inspirado por esa visión. El eremita vive aquí y ahora la presencia del reino de Dios y su justicia y descansa en la palabra de Jesús que le dice: no temas, en el mundo tendrás aflicción, pero confía, yo he vencido al mundo (Juan 16,33). Amen. Pastor José Luis. For God: the creation, the land, the people, and the whole world need to have a time for rest, a time to pause, to stop, to renew, to enjoy and to refresh. The world and the creatures need to have a time for renewal. Deuteronomy 5:12-14 says:
Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. This commandment was given in a time where the world never stopped, the slaves had to work for life 24/7, exploitation was the rule, and the rule of the strong over the weak was the norm. Imagine how revolutionary and countercultural was to have a divine commandment that prescribes that after six days, on the seven day: you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. God said everybody has to rest the seventh day, the free person and the slave, the land and the animals, everything should stop because only when we stop we can understand the real meaning of freedom, life and the meaning of life. It is very interesting that God highlights this with these words: 15Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. If God liberated Israel from the Egyptian slavery, Israel needs to appreciate that freedom and not allow the people to be enslaved again by the pressure and stress of an unstoppable oppressive routine that never stops. Israel should not enslave itself with a workaholism. People must work six days, but they need to stop on the seventh day to enjoy the presence of God and enjoy the freedom that God gives them. God renews his creation through sabbath, God renews his children through sabbath. This is the time that God uses to renew us, refresh us, and allow us to enjoy communion with him. Sabbath is a great time to know God better, because we don’t have to be worried about meetings, schedules, traffic time, duties, projects, visits, etc. We are invited by God to be renewed and the way that God uses to renew the world and his children is the sabbath. Our Lord clearly expressed the importance of how to enjoy the sabbath when he declared that: “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” The sabbath is not to cause stress or overwhelm people with rules and pressure like the Pharisees were doing. The sabbath is to allow people to rest and enjoy life and creation and the love of the living God. When Jesus healed the sick on sabbath, he showed that God sees the sabbath as the time to save lives and do good things for his children. The sabbath is when God comes and heals the sick, the sabbath is the time for God´s intervention to refresh, renew and restore. The sabbath is the time when God blesses the world with refreshment and regeneration. Our broken world was forced by the Covid 19 Pandemic to take a forced sabbatical. If you check documentaries and videos about how the planet renewed when we were forced to stay home for the pandemic, you will notice that in the middle of the suffering, grief, and pain of millions of lives and our loss as result of the Covid 19 Pandemic, the planet, the creation, the air, the waters, and, we, the survivors experienced a new perspective of how the regeneration of the planet can take place when we just stop. The planet was forced to have a dramatic sabbatical by the pandemic, and we as a civilization should ask ourselves how dangerous our industrialized way of living was that we needed to experience a catastrophe like the pandemic to allow the planet and ourselves to breathe clean air again, to rest again and to be renewed again in the middle of a global crisis. The pandemic forced us to rethink our way of living. Now in the post pandemic world, in our new normality, we need to evaluate if we learned from the tragedy of the pandemic, or if we will repeat the tragedy again. We live in a world that never stops, when we are not working, we are absorbed by social media, computers, the news, noise, and the images in front of us never stop. That is why we are living in a world where humanity as a collective is experiencing burnout. The words of Jesus are an urgent countercultural reminder that we need to repeat: The sabbath was made for humankind. Yes, human beings need to rest, to pause, to enjoy life, to celebrate friendship, to disconnect from the internet and just relax and enjoy the company of the people that are important in life and reconnect with God and our soul. We need to enjoy the sabbath because we all need the sabbath. The sabbath was made for humankind. Thanks be to God for this precious gift; thanks Lord for giving us the sabbath. |
AuthorPastor Jose Luis´reflexions. Archives
June 2024
Categories |