(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
Deuteronomy has the people of Israel poised to enter their land. The scene is set as if Israel were coming into the land for the first time, under Moses, but the intended audience is those Israelites poised to return to the land after exile.
The situations were similar. After forty years in the desert with Moses, the people were ready to say, “at last”. After some seventy years of exile, the people were again ready to say, “At last.” The author, however, wanted to say, “wait a minute.”
The author then taught them the law of God. After the harshness of the exile, where they lived in the company of pagan gods and the observed the behavior of the people who worshipped these gods, the people should have learned the wisdom of the true God.
It was the Lord, the God of their fathers, not some made-up statue or figment of one’s imagination, who led them through the desert, was with them in their exile, and who was giving them the land. This Lord was also giving the statutes and decrees that would guide them and make them wise in the eyes of all the other nations. The Lord also gave them warning, that they take care and not forget, that they should remember and teach their children and grandchildren.
We are here, perched at this point ready to continue our journey. Do we see the wisdom in the law of the Lord? Do we live it and pass it on to the next generation? Or do we let the way of the bully, the way of the wealthy, the standards of the world guide our doings?
If God’s word is wisdom, we would be wise to follow it. The author of Deuteronomy has the people on the edge of the desert, ready to move on and into the Promised Land. We are that people on the edge of Lent or on the edge of the rest of our lived. We are wise to enter since only the wise can enter and only God’s word gives true wisdom. We follow the Israelites under Moses entering the Promised Land for the first time. We follow the Israelites coming home from exile. We are follow Christ who has made today and all time holy by his coming among us.