Loincloth

The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;

wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.

I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.

A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:

Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,

and go now to the Parath;

there hide it in a cleft of the rock.

Obedient to the LORD's command, I went to the Parath

and buried the loincloth.

After a long interval, the LORD said to me:

Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth

which I told you to hide there.

Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth

from the place where I had hid it.

But it was rotted, good for nothing!

Then the message came to me from the LORD:

Thus says the LORD:

So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,

the great pride of Jerusalem.

This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,

who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,

and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,

shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.

For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man's loins,

so had I made the whole house of Israel

and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;

to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.

But they did not listen.

             (Jeremiah 13:1-11)

 Today's first reading captured my attention…it was the parable of the loincloth. It emphasized the fact that I need to listen to God and obey His words.  A rotten loincloth is good for nothing.  It doesn’t take a genius to interpret this parable.  So I’m clinging to Jesus like a cheap pair of shorts.

Amen.