Remember your love and your faithfulness, O Lord.
Remember your people and have mercy on us, Lord.

Ezekiel, in today’s first reading,
invites us to remember God’s love and God’s faithfulness.
We, like the people Ezekiel addresses
sometimes forget.
Sometimes, we think that “The Lord’s way in not fair.”
We judge others, and sometimes we judge ourselves
by very different standards.
We label someone, maybe even ourselves, as “someone virtuous”
or even as someone who is “wicked.”
Either way, the Lord is not concerned with such labels.
The Lord’s only concern is our behavior,
not so much what we have done in the past,
but what we are doing here and now.

Is it fair to hold a grudge forever?
Is it fair to overlook present wrongdoing
because one has been kind to us in the past?
Isn’t it more fair to respond to another
based on how they are behaving right now?
Remember your love and your faithfulness, O Lord.
Remember your people and have mercy on us, Lord.

The Psalmist today asks God to remember mercy.
to make known God’s ways,
to guide us and teach us,
to remember compassion and love,
and to forget “the sins of [our] youth
and [our] frailties.”

Remember your love and your faithfulness, O Lord.
Remember your people and have mercy on us, Lord.

Paul, in his letter to the Philippians,
encourages them and us
to be “of the same mind,
with the same love,
united in heart, thinking one thing,”
to humbly regard others as more important than [our]selves.”
He invites us to have “the same attitude
that is also in Christ Jesus.”
He wants us to follow the example of Christ,
who “emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,”
who “humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death.”
Paul urges us to be united with one another
and with Christ Jesus.

Remember your love and your faithfulness, O Lord.
Remember your people and have mercy on us, Lord.

Jesus challenges “the chief priest and the elders of the people,”
and he also challenges us today,
just as Ezekiel did so long ago,
to see as God sees,
to see not just what we say,
but what we do.
Like the chief priests and elders long ago,
we may be tempted to think of ourselves
as holy and righteous,
just because we profess our faith
when we are gathered here around the table of the Lord.
We may be tempted to look at others
who we consider to be sinners
as unfaithful, undeserving of God’s love and mercy.
But the truth, Jesus says,
is that some of those very people we consider evil,
wicked sinners,
may be entering the kingdom of God before us.

Remember your love and your faithfulness, O Lord.
Remember your people and have mercy on us, Lord.

It is too easy today to look at those with whom we disagree
as evil, wicked sinners.
Too often, in our world today,
we do the very thing Jesus accused
the chief priests and elders of doing.
We, like the people Ezekiel addresses,
know how to label others and hold a grudge.
We, like the Philippians that Paul write to,
let ourselves to torn apart by conflict and divisions.
As we gather around this table
that should unite us,
we sometimes hold those with whom we disagree in contempt.
We’ve allowed ourselves to forget
the very thing we ask of God.
We forget love, faithfulness and mercy.
We allow ourselves to be divided over political views,
religious perspectives,
cultural, ethnic and racial distinctions,
citizenship or immigration status.

Today, Ezekiel, Paul and Jesus call us all to a change of heart.
They all call us to turn away from pride and arrogance,
to humility and obedience,
to a oneness that sees all people as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Today, as we gather at this one table,
we are called to remember God’s love and faithfulness
to remember God’s people, all God’s people,
and to seek God’s mercy on us all.

Remember your love and your faithfulness, O Lord.
Remember your people and have mercy on us, Lord.