RCL Year C (2 Pentecost) - June 6, 2010

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Proper 5) - June 6, 2010

1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17

When you have faith, and trust, and are doing the will of God, there is NO doubt that BIG and wonderful things will happen!!! I wonder who here among us has witnessed what would be considered a miracle? I mean a real, bona-fide, honest to God, miracle?

Really? Some of you have never witnessed a miracle? Why not??? Miracles happen every day! Don’t they? If they do, why do we say that we haven’t ever seen one? What do we think miracles look like? What are we waiting for to happen??

Are we waiting for a “great prophet” to rise among us to declare “God’s Favor” towards us… if it happened, would be know what a “great prophet” would sound like?

I love the story of the old man, who when asked if he had ever witnessed a miracle, he said no… and then when they asked him how did he know, he said, “I’ll know one when I see one – it’s kind of like a duck – You know, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.”

How will we know? Do we need a flash of light, or a voice from heaven? Do we need to have the dead brought back to life right before our eyes – here this morning during a Sunday service? And if that happened, how would we deal with it?

Would we really know it when we see it? would we be better believers – would we then learn to engage our faith in a tangible way? Would we have taken off the blinders… the blinders of our own ideas and ideals of how things should be, enough to let the miracle be recognized?

We get so caught up sometimes in looking for something specific to happen, that we sometimes miss what is happening all around us… I think it’s because miracles are always surrounded by suspicion. So, in order for us to see them to happen, we must have faith and trust completely in God…

The widow in Zarephath that Elijah is sent to by God in our Old Testament story, is down to her last jar of meal and last jug of oil during a severe drought – she even makes the comment to Elijah that she is out collecting sticks to make a fire so that she can go home and prepare it for her and her son to eat it and die.

This sounds pretty tragic. Especially for this poor widow… who in that culture was a little less than a second class citizen… She had barely anything to live on, because she has no one to provide for her. And it sounds a little selfish and even far fetched to have Elijah ask her to make him something to eat.

But Elijah told her to trust… trust that the Lord God of Israel will provide for her… trust that the jar of meal and the jug of oil would not be emptied until the rains came down. And it happened just as Elijah said.

But like so many of us, the woman didn’t rejoice in the miracle, she may have not even recognized it, because her son got sick and died. And to make matters worse, she was quick to blame God through Elijah – but she was obviously feeling pretty guilty about the life she had led – blaming his death on her recognized sin. Elijah then took her son upstairs and laid him across the bed and prayed over him “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”

Elisha prostrated himself over the boy three times and the child revived. The woman was finally then able to recognize the miracle, and acknowledge that Elijah spoke the prophetic truth. But is THAT what it takes for us to recognize a miracle? Would we know the prophetic truth if we heard it?

Jesus and the disciples went to a town called Nain and met up with a crowd that was obviously involved in a funeral procession. The body of a man was lifted up on a bier to be carried to his grave from the city. Then, Jesus encounters his mother who was a widow (who now had less than nothing because of the death of her son and no one now to protect her).

She was obviously upset, and Jesus had compassion for her. Jesus risked the social faux pas of speaking to an unprotected widow, and went up to her and told her not to weep. Then, Jesus messes up again, making himself ritually unclean, and touched the bier where the dead body was and told the young man to rise!

The young man rose and began to speak – and Jesus gave him to his mother! The scripture says that fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying “a great prophet has risen among us” and “God has looked favorably on his people” and they spread the word throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

We know that when we have faith, and trust, and when we do God’s will, BIG and Wonderful things happen… the blind see, the lame walk, and the dead rise! And things that were wrong are always restored to right.

In the lessons this morning, two widows loose their sons. Two widows, who are on the low rung of the social ladder, loose everything that protects them from societies ills. And in the blink of a miracle, both of these women have restored to them what they have lost. In compassion God reaches out to both of them and touches them and brings them to new life.

What would it take for us to recognize a miracle? Would it take us seeing the dead rise to new life… Would it take that which was wrong being restored to right?

Every time a baby is born, it is a miracle!

Every time a flower in springtime comes back and beautifies a garden, it’s a miracle!

Every time we get to the end of our rope but somehow make it through till another day, it’s a miracle!

Every time a person that is vexed by guilt and self-hate turns to the self affirmation found in Jesus Christ and is convinced that God loves him/her, it’s a miracle!

Every time a congregation that is on the edge of self-destruction because of prolonged conflict and polarization comes to a renewed commitment to the common life in the body of Christ, it’s a miracle!

Why is it that we always seem to look for the odd and unusual acts that defy the natural order before we consider them a miracle? These are pretty BIG and Wonderful things!! And by every standard that I can think of, these would all be considered miracles!!

I think that miracles happen to us and around us all the time, we just have to have faith and trust in God in order to recognize them…

We all have the opportunity today to participate in a great miracle, the miracle of the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. You probably won’t see a flash of light or a voice from heaven, but you will witness and participate in the miracle none the less… and in this miracle, we will feel Jesus’ presence with us, and his love and compassion surround us… and when we take in and feast on the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the sacrament, we are spiritually nourished and restored to new life. And ahhh, what a miracle it is...

RCL Year C (Trinity Sunday) - May 30, 2010

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Trinity Sunday) - May 30, 2010

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8 or Canticle 2 or 13
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

It is probably not a surprise to any of you… but the word “trinity” never shows up in the bible. It’s just not there. Jesus never refers to God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “the trinity.” However, in the celebration of the life of the church, and the calendar year today is “Trinity Sunday.”

This is the Sunday that scares most preachers to death, as they stumble about trying to explain what had been discerned by the early church and revealed to us in their teachings as the mystery of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

So how did the concept of the Holy Trinity (the triune God) end up with its prominent place in Church doctrine, if it doesn’t show up in the scriptures? I for one, don’t think that they sat around one day and just dreamed this stuff up. It took nearly 350 years of prayer and discernment, arguing and struggling to articulate their faith to one another in terms that they understood. Reasoning about how God had been revealed to them, and what it all meant.

So, in effect, if we look at it, the Holy Trinity is God’s revelation to the Church, it is how we perceive God… as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is our perception of a mysterious divine relationship of the ONE true and Holy God.

The graphical representation on the front of the bulletin, originated in medieval times, but it doesn’t do the trick of giving an explanation to the unexplainable. Because that’s what God is… To our limited feeble minds… God is the unexplainable, the incomprehensible, the divine mystery… But for some folks, that’s not good enough. They need to be able to explain the mystery – so it’s not a mystery anymore, but fact!

But every explanation that we could ever come up with, only leads us to further confusion and a deeper need to pray and reflect on the mystery. To me, I like to view the mystery of the trinity as a divine relationship. There are many images that come close to describing this relationship. Most of the best ones are from the early church, and they still speak to us today...

In the 16th Century, St. John of the Cross explained it, “God is the One who loves so completely that there must be a co-equal lover to God to receive that love; and the love between the two is so dynamic and powerful that it is the third person. God is Lover, Beloved and Love.”

But, for my favorite, and probably the most profound that I have ever heard, you have to go back real early… it is the way Tertullian describes it. Tertullian was an early Church father that lived between 160 and 220 a.d. He said, "God the Father is a deep root, the Son is the shoot that breaks forth into the world, and the Spirit is that which spreads beauty and fragrance."

Tertullian’s description is definitely one way that we can try to get our head around it, but it still comes up a bit short, because we are still trying to describe the indescribable – and explain the unexplainable.

There have been some that say: The Triune God is such a mystery, that any attempt to explain it would be heresy. But the trinity for us, the Church, in its complexity of divine mystery and all things unexplainable, becomes for us the lens through which we view the world. And if we let it, it puts things in perspective so we can build the bridges for ourselves off of what we know.

We know the person of Jesus Christ, who is the word that the prophets spoke, the word that become flesh and dwelt among us. Who lived and died as a human being, yet without sin. Who while he was on this earth, he taught and healed, preached justice and peace, and casted out demons and raised the dead. Jesus died on the cross as a perfect sacrifice of sin for the whole world, to open the way of access for us to have a relationship to God.

We know that the person of Jesus Christ taught about God, and referred to him as Abba, (Father) which is probably more like “Daddy” – a term of love and endearment, a term of deep compassion and respect, a term of admiration and equality. And we know that God, Abba, Father, created everything that is – and is the source of all being.

And We know that the person of Jesus Christ spoke of the Spirit of Truth that guides into all truth… the Sophia or wisdom… called the pneumas or Ruach – the mighty breath of God or a violent rushing wind (like we heard about last week when the disciples experienced the wind at the feast of Pentecost) that guides and sustains the Church into all truth.

So we know God, by how we have experienced God… We know God as the One God who created us, and we know God as the One God who redeemed us, and we know God as the One God who sustains us – and we refer to them in terms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. and referring to God in those terms gives us the words that we can use to share that wonderful story – as one of divine relationship.

God is complete in God’s self as One God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… And I hate to break it to you… But God doesn’t need us, God doesn’t need any one of us… It is us who so desperately need God. But even though God doesn’t need us, God loves us, his created image. He loves us so much, that he desires to have a relationship with us… He desires that relationship to the point that he became one of us so that he could invite us into himself = the divine relationship.

We may not be able to completely understand it, but we trust and strive to live into that relationship on a daily basis… And as we participate in that divine relationship, we invite others to participate with us… It is our purpose in this life, and it is how we find true communion and unity with God and with each other.

RCL Year C (Pentecost) - May 23, 2010

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Pentecost) - May 23, 2010

Acts 2:1-21 or Genesis 11:1-9
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Romans 8:14-17 or Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17, (25-27)

It is the custom at many churches on the Day of Pentecost to arrange for a simultaneous reading of one or the other of today’s Scripture lessons in multiple languages. Of course, this is dependant upon the different linguistic skills of the members of the parish community… Like today, for example, we heard Acts 2:1-7 read aloud in English, Spanish, French, Latin, and German…

While most of us trust our High School and college experience, sometimes communities are actually diverse enough to have folks who can read and speak the scripture in their native tongue… The idea of course is to remind everyone that today is the Day of Pentecost, When people “from every nation under heaven” heard the disciples proclaim the Good News “in the native language of each,”

The only problem with the idea is that the net effect is sometimes more one of Babel than of Pentecost. You remember the Tower of Babel from the Book of Genesis: the story of humankind’s pride in trying to reach the heavens on its own power and of God’s response which left the entire world tongue-tied.

Ever since then understanding and cooperation have been hard to come by. Our world today is still tongue-tied… What CAN be misunderstood WILL and usually IS misunderstood. But Babel, the parable of the first clash of cultures and failure to communicate, is more than a mythic explanation of the differences among nations and languages. It is an accurate description of the human condition itself…

We often do not understand one another even when we speak in the same language. We all remain obstructed by our fundamental inability to accept the differences among us in how we live and in what we think and even how and what we believe.

But is it really God who has scattered us? Is it God who has made us aliens in our own land and sometimes in our own minds? Is it really the Lord who has confused our speech and turned us deaf to each other? Or is our Babel today perhaps the result of how humanity forgot the grammar of grace and the vocabulary of God?

At Babel, the people in their pride built a tower to reach God and the heavens, and the Lord scattered them. “This is only the beginning of what they will do,” predicted God in the judgment of human sin and conceit. Sadly, the people didn’t understand how unnecessary it all was. As one scholar has pointed out, God is always more willing to come down and join us here on earth than we are able to reach the heavens by our own enterprise and effort.

At Pentecost, the Spirit of God comes down upon the disciples, resting on each of them and thereby bringing them, and us, all together once again. The disciples got a crash course in the language of God. It might probably be fair to say that after Pentecost the days of Babel should be over.

The great differences among us, in communication and dialogue, in culture, sexuality, race and background, in wealth and poverty, are scattered in “the rush of a violent wind.”
As Acts tells us, the differences are burned away by tongues of fire. It does not matter NOW whether we are the Parthians and Medes of yester year, or Americans, Europeans, Africans or even Iraqis of today. Well, that is what is supposed to have happened at Pentecost.

So, how come we still fail to understand each other today? Why doesn’t everyone speak the same language? Or at least understand the world in the same way? Is the promise of Pentecost hollow and without meaning? These are all good questions.

But what happened at Pentecost IS important to who we are as followers of Christ, and the reality of Pentecost is universal for everyone. When the disciples spoke, they didn’t just speak to believers but to the peoples of the whole known world, and when they spoke, they were understood in a multitude of languages.

There is no question that what they said made sense to everyone. What they spoke was no doubt the language of peace as they had learned it from our Lord Jesus Christ himself. “Peace be with you,” he said to the disciples, as we read in today’s Gospel lesson.

These are words that can be understood by everyone. this is even how, 99.95% of the world greets each other… They greet each other with an exchange of peace: Shalom, La Paz, La Pache. Specifically, in Hebrew culture, they greeted each other with Shalom, wishing the other person completeness in God.

Perhaps the greatest phenomenon of Pentecost is that all the peoples gathered at Jerusalem on that day heard the disciples - amid the buzz of the city and even the hustle and bustle of their own lives. Everyone heard them… and each person there understood the Good News of the salvation of Jesus Christ not only in Hebrew and Greek, which were the common languages of that time and place, but in the language of the human heart. The language of God… The language of the one true and universal peace and completeness.

Now (as it was then), all nations and peoples yearn to hear words of forgiveness and peace. But we live in a world that doesn’t like to listen. Too often we hear what we want to hear and simply call it the voice of God.

So if our lives and our world are more full of babble than Bible, perhaps it is because we are not taking the time to learn and discern or stop and listen. We have not learned the language of God given to us by the Holy Spirit. Yes - We pay lip service with a few words, and speak God-talk here and there and perhaps even say our prayers together as a family or even go to church on Sunday.

But it is not the vernacular of our everyday conversations. All this God-talk or language about God is only an approximation to the actual reality of God, because we know that our human language cannot fully comprehend the divine mysteries.

No one human being today owns the truth. No one owns God. No one owns the church – No one owns THIS church, nor can they put God in a box or even a book... God is so much more than we can comprehend…

But I promise you… the more we listen, the closer we come to God. And the closer we come to God, the more there is to hear and understand of “God’s deeds of power” and God’s great love for us. And then, just when we finally think we may have all this God business figured out, God surprises us yet again and challenges us to delve deeper to love those we cannot possibly love and to forgive what we would consider unforgivable.

Paul tells us from his First Letter to the Church in Corinth, “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
The Spirit, even though it is one with the Father and the Son, can never be bottled or canned. The Spirit is at work in each of us, always fresh and always new, It is the language of God waiting to be translated into the language of our own lives.

It is only in the extent of the effort we make to accept the other, to welcome and embrace the stranger no matter how different or foreign. It is then and only then that we come to understand the language of God. Then and only then is our Babel turned to Pentecost.
As the Spirit used the speech of the disciples on Pentecost to reshape and redirect the lives of those who listened to their words, so the Spirit on this Day reshapes and remolds us… But ONLY if we are willing to listen.

After all, God speaks to us all the time in the one true word that ends fear and brings everlasting peace — the Word-Made-Flesh, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Portions of this sermon were inspired by The Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedus, a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

RCL Year C (Easter 2) - April 11, 2010

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Easter 2) - April 11, 2010
Low Sunday

Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31

Right now, there are people out there trying to gather “proof.” Trying to gather proof through the “facts” that they can find… to give their beliefs merit…

Like the Crime Scene Investigators that we see on those popular television shows, that are gathering their evidence to solve a crime, they are out there gathering the “proof” so that they can believe in this or that…

Shows like CSI appeal to us, because that’s what we want, isn’t it? To be able to prove things… It’s like forcing the pieces to fit in some gigantic puzzle… Prove things… so that what we say has merit and authority.

We can “prove” so much with our God-given minds – Why not prove God? Why not prove Jesus? Wouldn’t that make our lives much easier? If we knew ALL of the answers to ALL of the questions??? Or would it??

I guess that we could go out like so many before us and start a quest to find archeological “proof” of the historic Jesus… We could use our inquisitive, God-given minds to act like Crime Scene Investigators and search for and gather all the facts. But would that proof actually help us believe?

I would suggest that “maybe” in our time, it is harder for us to take things on faith because we are so incredibly good at finding that “tangible” or at least the “scientific” proof for so many things. And it is extremely frustrating when science offers us something different than what has been believed for centuries… our beliefs are challenged our doubts raised…

Galileo Galilei was a devout Christian & gifted theologian… and the man considered to be the father of modern physics… He was responsible for many scientific discoveries in his lifetime… But he had an argument with the Church… because in 1609, he introduced the idea of a Solar system – a “heliocentric” or “sun-centered” system with revolving “planets.” But back then, (just 400 years ago), the interpretation of the Bible supported an Earth centered universe.

The Church convicted Galileo of Heresy and sentenced him to spend the remainder of his life locked in a tower. Now, Galileo’s theories have been “proven” and it is readily accepted by Christians worldwide… but now we interpret the context of the scriptures much differently…

But why do we think what we believe needs to be based on some kind of proof? Some people think that the opposite of faith is doubt. but it’s not… The opposite of faith is certainty! So, If what I believe is based on faith, and the opposite of faith is certainty, where does that put doubt???

Just because you believe, doesn’t mean that you can’t doubt… I believe that doubt is related to belief and engaged in a type of wrestling match back and forth, struggling with the questions of the faith... Someone who really wrestles with the questions has a lot more in common with the apostles, and a lot more in common with you and with me.

Doubt is not a bad thing. Doubt can lead us to faith…

In the Gospel lesson this morning, Thomas didn't get to see the resurrected Jesus at first. He didn't have a new found faith in the risen Christ that the other disciples did after they saw Jesus. Thomas was somewhere else. And regardless of how much the others that were gathered in that upper room testified to Thomas that they had seen the risen Christ, Thomas still had his reservations.

He said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I WILL NOT BELIEVE!

It is important for us to notice in the story that Thomas engaged his doubts. He came forth, He asked to be able to see. He wanted to believe! He already believed in Jesus the person… he traveled with him, learned from him, and saw him die on the cross outside of Jerusalem. But his struggle was to believe in the risen Christ. A week later the risen Jesus appears to them again: This time Thomas is with them! Jesus tells Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, reach out your hand and put it in my side, Do not doubt but believe!”

And don't we want to believe like that? Of Course We Do!

Even on those days when the story of the resurrection seems a bit beyond our grasp… We want to believe. We want to come forth; We want to ask to be able to see the wounds; And… We want to invest our lives and our souls in something tangible. We want to be able the make the proclamation that Thomas made, “My Lord and My God! because what happened to Thomas works for us. We are a society that needs that kind of “proof.”

Then Jesus throws a twist in Thomas’ new found faith that is based on “tangible” evidence. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We have not seen… yet we believe… we may doubt sometimes… but we are here… and we believe…

For centuries, this Sunday (The Second Sunday of Easter) has been called “Low Sunday…”
This is done mainly to point out that sharp contrast between this Sunday and all of the “High Holy” festivities surrounding Easter Sunday. In fact, I think that the folks who go to church
on the Sunday after Easter understand this lesson better than anyone else.

You are here because you understand that the resurrection of Jesus and Easter is not just a pleasant springtime tradition to observe with bunny ears, colored eggs, marshmallow chicks, and hiding candy for the children to find.

You are here because the risen Christ has invited you to a meal and you have come back for this meal again today. There is the faith! You're acting out your beliefs. You're acting out your faith that has been handed down through witnesses of the faith. Witnesses like those in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles who have been willing to take action and proclaim the resurrection amid persecution and ridicule.

We are all called as Christians to live into our faith (last Sunday, I called it practicing resurrection…) so that we can continue the witness to others. To tell them the story of God’s salvation. Salvation that comes to us in Jesus the risen Christ.

The action of living into our faith strengthens our faith, and helps us diminish our doubts. Faith is not some obscure mental act. It is not something we have to fabricate in our heads or understand completely. Faith is the state of being… being “possessed” by the love of God. And we act on it by telling others, so that they, too, can enter into that state of being being “possessed” by the love of God.

This is what I believe… Doubt is not a bad thing… Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? Do you believe that he rose from the dead? Do you believe in life everlasting? Let US be able to say without seeing - My Lord and My God! So that we can Gracefully accept our gift of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then we can Gracefully live into our gift of everlasting life with our God.

And, when we are like the beloved Apostle, St. Thomas… and we are filled with doubts… Let us ask for God to fill us with the power that we need to boldly profess our faith… So that, while we are strengthening our own faith, we are also passing it on…

So, let us now stand and turn to page 358 in the Book of Common Prayer and again boldly profess our faith together in the words of the Nicene Creed…

RCL Year C (Lent 5) - March 21, 2010

The Rev’d Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year C (Lent 5) – March 21, 2010
Writen also for the "Opponents of Christ" series

Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8

Jesus is well on his way to Jerusalem. His entry, and the actions that will take place afterward, will be celebrated next Sunday (week) with a reenactment and a dramatic reading.

But today, we aren’t there yet. But we are well on our way.

Jesus and the 12 have stopped off in the village of Bethany, just west of Jerusalem, about 6 km. Our gospel story from John says that they stop off at the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha.

We remember it is Lazarus that Jesus raises from the dead in the 11th Chapter of John after he had already been in the tomb 4 days. And today, on their way to Jerusalem, Jesus and the 12 stop by for dinner…

And after reclining at the table, preparing for supper, Mary takes a bottle of pure nard – a expensive imported perfume mixture made of an herb that grows in the foothills of the Himalayas… and anoints Jesus’ feet… and then, in an extremely informal and intimate act of care and compassion, she dries Jesus’ feet with her hair.

A women letting down her hair in public, especially in front of several men, was just not done in these times… But Jesus’ feet were anointed and the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Then Judas Iscariot perks up, and rebukes her… He says to Jesus, “Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?” This is almost a whole years wages for a working man… Now, I want to know how Judas knew the value of this extravagant imported perfume… how was he familiar with such things?

We are told that Judas Iscariot is the son of Simon Iscariot, who according to the Gospel of John, was a leper that was healed by Jesus and also Pharisee. It is unknown if this Simon (Simon Iscariot) is the same Simon as Simon the Zealot, who is referred to in the other gospels… But it would seem that John is making this inference…

If Judas Iscariot was in fact a Zealot (who was a zealous Pharisee – someone who had status and wealth in society – who later started a movement against the roman government)… If Judas was a Zealot, then he would probably have some knowledge about such an extravagant item, but the scriptures don’t say exactly.

None the less, Judas is verbally upset at Mary, who is anointing Jesus’ feet… Saying that it could have been sold and the money given to the poor… Then the gospel writer goes on, and makes sure that we know Judas is the opponent here – the one that will betray Jesus… and John calls Judas a thief and says that steals from the common purse…

Jesus is quick to set Judas straight, and in the process, teach us something about hospitality and discipleship… and teach us something about ourselves. In Mary’s act of anointing Jesus’ feet, she offers him an unequalled service of hospitality and generosity not worrying what she will get out of it.

And Jesus says to Judas, “leave her alone! She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” Some say Mary did this act because she was so happy that Jesus raised her brother Lazarus from the dead… She repaid Jesus with the act of anointing his feet with an expensive perfume.

Whatever the reason, Judas rebukes her. And, in Jesus’ comment to Judas, Jesus prophecies his own death and burial… Something that will happen sooner than any of them sitting at the table could possibly imagine.

I have spoke many times from the pulpit about using our wealth to build up the kingdom of God, and to further the work of Christ in the world. It has been the practice for centuries that the place of worship represents the house of God.

By giving God our FIRST and our BEST, we erect a building for our worshipping community to represent a certain awe and wonder… a certain majesty, that surrounds our view of who God is, and how God works in our lives.

Like Mary, we are all called to this type of extravagant discipleship – it represents the BEST of who we are… the best of the community, and its value is unequalled. Like Mary’s use of the costly perfume, we use elaborate metalwork and expensive cloth appointments, and have nice facilities to represent to the world who we know our God to be. To give God the best of our best, and then we set it aside for worship and for the work of the kingdom.

When we don’t act like this – when our buildings are falling down around us, or our facilities are not in order… Or if anything that we have here at our place of worship, is inferior to anything that we have in our own homes, it says that we don’t value giving God our best.

Mary gave God her best, and perhaps unknowingly – out of an act of gratitude, nointed his feet with the most costly of perfumes made of pure nard – and Judas called her down for it…

Judas seemed to have his own agenda of forcing Jesus hand to make a move, and start a rebellion against the Roman oppression something a Zealot would do. And in this process, (possibly driven by greed,) Judas Iscariot sells Jesus out and becomes the opponent of Christ today.

Judas wanted Jesus to step up and be the Messiah that he expected, not the messiah that Jesus came to be. In Judas’ eyes, the Messiah was supposed to be a freedom fighter and deliver Israel from oppression… but that’s not why Jesus came. Jesus came to heal, and restore, and to bring peace, in his own way, by teaching us to love and care for each other not by wielding a sword and leading a rebellion.

This is the last opponent that we will find in the Gospel stories as we travel through this season of Lent. Next week, Jesus will continue on his journey and enter Jerusalem in a display of majesty and be honored as a king… but today, he’s not there yet.

He stopped over and ate dinner at a friends house, and was treated with honor and respect, and much love…

Oh that we could love as much…