Marked on the forehead. That is what we see Ash Wednesday on fellow parishioners – and some people on the street. They are marked with a cross, made of ashes, drawn with a thumb, by a priest or minister. As they were marked they heard words like these:
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The imposition of ashes serves as a reminder of mortality – and a reminder of eternal life, for at death, to God’s faithful people, life is changed, not ended.
How can this be?
In Baptism you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever.
You are marked as Christ’s own forever. You are no longer your own; you are bought with a price. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)
The life we live now we live no longer for our selves or of our selves, but we live in Christ, for Christ, as Christ’s own people, as the ones of his own fold whom he protects – and whom he guides – and whom he calls.
And he calls us not only into safety and refuge but also into a life that is fully alive – with threats, joys, sorrows, sheer boredom, hard days and soft hours, excitement and pain, and ultimate delight. For ultimately we delight in him and we are his own, brought into his company and welcomed home.
This home is ours – not at the end of time but now, ours from the moment of our baptism. At baptism we are welcomed into the home of faith, received into the household of God.
This household is God’s domain, the Kingdom of Christ. How to see it? How to live it? How to carry it out among ourselves? How to carry it out and make it real in our lives – and the lives of our neighbors?
Who is my neighbor? (Just checking.)
Hmm… maybe a demographic profile of my community will help. Maybe… a parable? (Substitute some stereotype unsavory and challenging for “Samaritan.”)
Or it may be that we encounter our neighbor when we find ourselves helping someone in need, or rejoice with someone in celebration, or simply share a meal.
And it may be that in encountering our neighbors we encounter something of ourselves. It may be something familiar and comfortable – or something familiar and uncomfortable!
And yet somehow Jesus welcomes us all – so that, at the last, and in the first instance, Jesus is able to say to us, with conviction, you are my own, singled out, marked for life.
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For the Gospel Grapevine (February 2012), newsletter of Saint Alban's Parish, Edmonds, Wash. http://stalbansedmonds.org
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Showing posts with label Galatians 2:15-21. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Galatians 2:15-21. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Saturday, June 12, 2010
an alabaster jar
Last week was Legacy Sunday at St Albans. We addressed these questions: What is it that we have that we wish to pass on to future generations? What is of most value and meaning to us? What have we received that we must also pass on?
Next week we celebrate the Feast of Saint Alban, our patron saint. He left us a legacy of hospitality, courage, and faith, and of honesty and integrity.
This week, we look at how God’s reign means that everyone is of value and justice and mercy apply to all. The love of God is for everybody.
We celebrate the last day of the program year in the Sunday School and adult education. Sunday School and the adult Education Hour resume in the fall on the first Sunday after Labor Day. We celebrate the students and we celebrate the teachers and the director of our Sunday School program. We celebrate with graduating seniors.
All of this is about what we celebrate every week – the faith that we have received from others that we also pass on to those coming along after us, both those among us now and those we are yet to, or may never, meet, who will come after this time.
A penitent woman, a sinner of Christ’s own redeeming, the woman who anoints his feet: this is the person who recognizes the gift of grace in today’s gospel reading.
Simon, a Pharisee, curious, invites Jesus to dine at his home. Jesus comes and in the fashion of the time reclines at table, a horseshoe shaped low table, in the atrium (or open courtyard) of Simon’s house.
Then a woman comes in; not invited, she is expected to wait patiently in the shadows until the meal is over and then, perhaps, to gather up left over food or ask a favor of one of the invited guests. That is the custom. She breaks it.
She comes right up to Jesus. Apparently she intends to do what the host of the dinner has forgotten to do. She means to anoint his head – she has brought oil for the purpose, in a jar of alabaster no less – and to wash his feet. This is her intent. But she breaks down.
Instead of anointing his head with the oil, and washing his feet with water and drying them with a towel, her tears fall upon his feet and she then wipes his feet with her own hair, and, finally, anoints his feet with the perfumed oil. This is extraordinary, sensuous and remarkable.
What she has done is in sharp contrast to what Simon has done. Her attitude toward Jesus and how she behaves toward him are those of grateful love, of someone showing in action the release from a burden that they feel inside.
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise, said the Psalmist (51.17). Jesus responds to the woman with compassion and grace.
Simon the Pharisee, perhaps embarrassed that he has failed as host or just amused by this woman’s action, remarks (in his own mind) on the contrast between the man of God, the prophet Jesus is presumed to be, and the sinner, the woman of notorious reputation.
If he were a prophet, Simon says to himself, he would keep far away from her, for he would want to preserve his righteousness untainted by her sin. But Jesus breaks the rules.
He is a prophet and more than a prophet, more than Elijah or the baptizer John. What he does is to speak and to embody – to proclaim and to bring into reality – the good news of the kingdom of heaven.
It is present here in this place, in this time, in his action and his word; it is present in him.
By contrast to the attitude of Simon toward the woman, Jesus speaks and acts with compassion. He offers to her a word of grace. He defends her before the eyes of the worldly watchers at the table. And he tells her that her faith has made her right with God – her sins are forgiven. Go in peace, he says.
“Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus’ fellow guests are asking the right question. Who is this?
It is the one who does not try to preserve his status intact, who does not try to preserve the status quo out of fear of scarcity, but the one who responds out of the abundance of grace to the grateful heart of the repentant sinner, the one who gives away that all might live, the one who said, in the Gospel according to Luke,
"Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." (Luke 6:38, The Message)
Who is this? It is the one who brings life, and brings it abundantly. It is the Lord.
"Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." (Luke 6:38, The Message)
Simon sought to preserve intact a status, a static state he called righteousness. Jesus by contrast called on him to move forward into a dynamic future, a future with hope, in a faith in God's abundant grace.
The woman with the alabaster jar - she did incredible things, inexplicable things, extravagant things. Extravagant, incredible, inexplicable - unless you take into account who Jesus is. Who she knew he was.
Who is this? It is the one who brings life, and brings it abundantly. It is the Lord.
Blessed one, bless us, in the breaking of the bread, in the pouring of the wine, in the water that washes us in baptism. Bless us in the fellowship of faith, bless us with your ongoing presence in the Spirit. Bless us in the Word and in the deeds that show our grateful hearts in praise and love respond to you.
Give us this day the bread we need, the grace we have least to expect, and the power to move forward together in the name of Christ. Amen.
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The Third Sunday after Pentecost 2010
1 Kings 21:1-21a, Psalm 5:1-8, Galatians 2:15-21, Luke 7:36-8:3
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Next week we celebrate the Feast of Saint Alban, our patron saint. He left us a legacy of hospitality, courage, and faith, and of honesty and integrity.
This week, we look at how God’s reign means that everyone is of value and justice and mercy apply to all. The love of God is for everybody.
We celebrate the last day of the program year in the Sunday School and adult education. Sunday School and the adult Education Hour resume in the fall on the first Sunday after Labor Day. We celebrate the students and we celebrate the teachers and the director of our Sunday School program. We celebrate with graduating seniors.
All of this is about what we celebrate every week – the faith that we have received from others that we also pass on to those coming along after us, both those among us now and those we are yet to, or may never, meet, who will come after this time.
A penitent woman, a sinner of Christ’s own redeeming, the woman who anoints his feet: this is the person who recognizes the gift of grace in today’s gospel reading.
Simon, a Pharisee, curious, invites Jesus to dine at his home. Jesus comes and in the fashion of the time reclines at table, a horseshoe shaped low table, in the atrium (or open courtyard) of Simon’s house.
Then a woman comes in; not invited, she is expected to wait patiently in the shadows until the meal is over and then, perhaps, to gather up left over food or ask a favor of one of the invited guests. That is the custom. She breaks it.
She comes right up to Jesus. Apparently she intends to do what the host of the dinner has forgotten to do. She means to anoint his head – she has brought oil for the purpose, in a jar of alabaster no less – and to wash his feet. This is her intent. But she breaks down.
Instead of anointing his head with the oil, and washing his feet with water and drying them with a towel, her tears fall upon his feet and she then wipes his feet with her own hair, and, finally, anoints his feet with the perfumed oil. This is extraordinary, sensuous and remarkable.
What she has done is in sharp contrast to what Simon has done. Her attitude toward Jesus and how she behaves toward him are those of grateful love, of someone showing in action the release from a burden that they feel inside.
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise, said the Psalmist (51.17). Jesus responds to the woman with compassion and grace.
Simon the Pharisee, perhaps embarrassed that he has failed as host or just amused by this woman’s action, remarks (in his own mind) on the contrast between the man of God, the prophet Jesus is presumed to be, and the sinner, the woman of notorious reputation.
If he were a prophet, Simon says to himself, he would keep far away from her, for he would want to preserve his righteousness untainted by her sin. But Jesus breaks the rules.
He is a prophet and more than a prophet, more than Elijah or the baptizer John. What he does is to speak and to embody – to proclaim and to bring into reality – the good news of the kingdom of heaven.
It is present here in this place, in this time, in his action and his word; it is present in him.
By contrast to the attitude of Simon toward the woman, Jesus speaks and acts with compassion. He offers to her a word of grace. He defends her before the eyes of the worldly watchers at the table. And he tells her that her faith has made her right with God – her sins are forgiven. Go in peace, he says.
“Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus’ fellow guests are asking the right question. Who is this?
It is the one who does not try to preserve his status intact, who does not try to preserve the status quo out of fear of scarcity, but the one who responds out of the abundance of grace to the grateful heart of the repentant sinner, the one who gives away that all might live, the one who said, in the Gospel according to Luke,
"Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." (Luke 6:38, The Message)
Who is this? It is the one who brings life, and brings it abundantly. It is the Lord.
"Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." (Luke 6:38, The Message)
Simon sought to preserve intact a status, a static state he called righteousness. Jesus by contrast called on him to move forward into a dynamic future, a future with hope, in a faith in God's abundant grace.
The woman with the alabaster jar - she did incredible things, inexplicable things, extravagant things. Extravagant, incredible, inexplicable - unless you take into account who Jesus is. Who she knew he was.
Who is this? It is the one who brings life, and brings it abundantly. It is the Lord.
Blessed one, bless us, in the breaking of the bread, in the pouring of the wine, in the water that washes us in baptism. Bless us in the fellowship of faith, bless us with your ongoing presence in the Spirit. Bless us in the Word and in the deeds that show our grateful hearts in praise and love respond to you.
Give us this day the bread we need, the grace we have least to expect, and the power to move forward together in the name of Christ. Amen.
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The Third Sunday after Pentecost 2010
1 Kings 21:1-21a, Psalm 5:1-8, Galatians 2:15-21, Luke 7:36-8:3
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