In both the reading from Exodus and the Gospel of John, we see that people are looking for God in the wrong places. In the first reading, the people turn to their human-made God in the molten calf. In the Gospel reading, Jesus responds to people who have refused to believe God can show up in the ways he is teaching and in his actions. It can be easy to dismiss the groups these messages are directed at as just not getting it ― we are thousands of years removed and therefore have a better grasp and don’t make the same mistakes. But the reality is that we are still doing the same things. We too can turn towards false gods and fail to see how God shows up in our daily lives.

We can create false gods out of our money, status, politics, and sometimes even our religious beliefs. We might put our trust in these items because it helps us feel more in control. If we get this amount of money or career, everything will be okay. A politician or leader believes what we believe, therefore, we believe they are the ones who will improve things. When we do this, we may miss the invitations from God to grow or to see things in new ways.

Also, like the audience Jesus speaks to, we can fail to see God right in front of us. The situation isn’t ideal or what we would like it to be, therefore, we believe God must be absent. Or a hard truth is presented to us, and instead of going deeper to see what it has to teach us, we may reject it and perhaps even diminish its source, because we can’t believe God would condone this.

As we near the end of the fourth week of Lent, we are invited to continue reflecting on those barriers that prevent us from encountering God. The hard truth is that sometimes, we're the barriers. It’s our attitudes, our beliefs, and our resistances that can be the primary barriers. We are called to be a discerning people who go deep within―sometimes to uncomfortable spaces―to distinguish what comes from our false notions of how things should be and where the invitations to see things anew surface.

As you dive deeper into this Lenten season, perhaps a good practice to ask yourself is what barriers are you being invited to remove so that you can be present to a God who cares deeply for you or others.