Acts 5:27-32

To Save or to Savor?

Excerpt from John 12:1-11

http://act.ucc.org/site/R?i=YV0lZqP3az7MH_PNhey_wQ..

“Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed
Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.”

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

E. B. White once observed, “If the world were merely seductive, that
would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no
problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve
the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. That makes it hard to plan
the day.”

In planning our days, confused as we are about how to spend them, we
may wonder if the answer is found in moderation. But Jesus refused to
criticize the woman who anointed him with lavish amounts of costly
perfume. It seems that Jesus thinks we are meant to get carried away.

The Christian life is not so much about moderation. Instead, it is
about rhythm. There is, indeed, a time to serve the world and a time
to savor the world. To be sure, one can get stuck on one side of this
dynamic rhythm, which can be about as dangerous as only inhaling or
only exhaling. The dangers of only savoring the world are clear,
leading to a life of self-indulgence. But just as certainly there are
dangers in only serving the world. To only serve and never to savor
the world is to be only the giver or gifts and never the receiver. It
means that we never have to admit our need or to say thank-you.

So we are called to do both — to serve and to savor — not at the
same time, perhaps, because that may not be possible, but each in turn
at the appropriate time. Which is another way of saying that one’s
life depends on being inconsistent in the way all who both breath in
and breath out are inconsistent.

Prayer

O God, help me both to serve and to savor — and to know which I am
called to do at this time. Amen.

About the Author
Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational
Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. His new
book, This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of
Two Ministers, co-authored with Lillian Daniel, has just been
published.

Sunday, April 4
Easter Sunday

Focus Theme
Resurrection Joy

Weekly Prayer
We exult in your love, O God of the living, for you made the tomb of
death the womb from which you brought forth your Son, the first-born
of a new creation, and you anointed the universe with the fragrant
Spirit of his resurrection. Make us joyful witness to this good news,
that all humanity may one day gather at the feast of new life in the
kingdom where you reign for ever and ever. Amen.

Focus Scripture
John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary
Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed
from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other
disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken
the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid
him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the
tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran
Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the
linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter
came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen
wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not
lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.
Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and
he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture,
that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their
homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to
look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the
body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the
feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to
them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have
laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus
standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to
her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing
him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him
away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
“Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on
to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my
brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your
Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to
the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had
said these things to her.

Reflection
by Kate Huey

Poor Mary Magdalene. One might think she has it worst on this first
day of the week, her hopes once high, now crushed. In John’s Gospel,
she comes to the grave all alone. We wonder what she’s thinking, and
what she expects to find. It seems certain that she does not expect,
of all things, an empty tomb. But Mary Magdalene’s thoughts and
feelings seem less mysterious than those of the two disciples, Peter
and “the one Jesus loved” (we traditionally think of him as John).
When Mary runs from the garden to find the male disciples, to tell
them that “they” have taken Jesus’ body (and we don’t know where
“they” took it, or even who “they” are), the two men seem almost
adolescent in their racing to the tomb. Even odder is their response
to finding nothing but a neatly folded gravecloth: they return to
their homes! when “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” the texts says,
“saw and believed,” we’re not even sure what he believed: the woman’s
report that the grave was empty, or Jesus’ promise that he would rise
again. Of course, Peter and John, and Mary as well, did not “yet
understand” the connection between what their eyes were seeing and
what their ears had heard from Jesus on more than one occasion, about
his suffering, dying, and rising again.

The seeing-and-believing theme runs throughout John’s Gospel, but We
know, from the end of today’s passage, that Jesus still felt it
necessary to commission Mary Magdalene to tell his disciples (the
community, really, not just the small band of “apostles”) the good
news. The lovely story in the garden (so lovely that it inspired a
hymn, “In the Garden”) doesn’t worry about the technical details of
how Jesus was raised but on the profound change in the relationship
between Jesus and Mary Magdalene and all of the disciples of Jesus
right down to us, today. From now on, Mary Margaret Pazdan writes, the
disciples of Jesus are even more than they were before: “Jesus’ hour
of glorification enables the disciples to be children of God and
brothers and sisters of Jesus…[not] persons who are under parental
care as dependents…[but] adult believers who belong to the household
of God.” That sounds as if there is more for us to do than merely take
good news back to the others: it’s a call for our whole lives. The
world should be able to see in our lives our own passion for the truth
that Jesus is risen and that God has begun what Marcus Borg and John
Dominic Crossan call the “Great Clean-up” of the world, the one that
won’t happen without us. If we go back to our lives tomorrow as if
nothing has changed, what then have we really experienced?

For further reflection

Carl Sandburg, 20th century
I was born in the morning of the world
so I know how morning looks….
Morning looks like any strong beautiful wanting.
There is your morning, my morning, everybody’s morning.

Carolyn Heilbrun, 20th century
Power consists in deciding which story shall be told.

Martin Luther, 16th century
Be thou comforted, little dog, Thou too in Resurrection shall have a
little golden tail.

Psalm 118

 ¹O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!

²Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”

¹⁹Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

²⁰This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

²¹I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

²²The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

²³This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

²⁴This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

²⁵Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!

²⁶Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.

²⁷The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.

²⁸You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.

²⁹O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

This festival psalm is used during the Jewish passor, which begins next Monday at sundown, and the Christian Palm Sunday.  It recalls God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery and oppression in Egypt.  It was used in ancient days as the pilgrims processed to the temple, and has probably been used by Christian pilgrims similarly upon their approach to Jerusalem.

Mark W. Stamm, in Feasting on the Word, asks us: “How does this psalm help us pray our way into [the] dynamics and on into the experience of Holy Week?”

In the same volume, Kimberly Clayton writes that this psalm reminds us that “God is for us.”

Lee H. Butler, Jr. writes, “the people who lined the festal procession with the palm branches that symbolized victory as they proceeded to the altar were engaging in activities to promote their desired outcome of deliverance and triumph.”

How will your spiritual disciplines and practices in these remaining weeks of Lent help to promote your desired outcome?  How will they lead you into the experience of Holy Week and Easter?  How will they remind you that God is for us?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Today I thought I’d offer Patrick’s lorica, known also as “the breastplate prayer.”

For my shield this day
A mighty power:
The Holy Trinity!
Affirming threeness,
Confessing oneness,
In the making of all
Through love . . .

For my shield this day I call:
Christ’s power in his coming
and in his baptising,
Christ’s power in his dying
On the cross, his arising
from the tomb, his ascending;
Christ’s power in his coming
for judgement and ending.

For my shield this day I call:
strong power of the seraphim,
with angels obeying,
and archangels attending,
in the glorious company
of the holy and risen ones,
in the prayers of the fathers,
in visions prophetic
and commands apostolic,
in the annals of witness,
in virginal innocence,
to the deeds of steadfast men.

For my shield this day I call:
Heaven’s might,
Moon’s whiteness,
Fire’s glory,
Lightning’s swiftness,
Wind’s wildness,
Ocen’s depth,
Earth’s solidity,
Rock’s immobility.

This day I call to me;
God’s strength to direct me,
God’s power to sustain me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s vision to light me,
God’s ear to my hearing,
God’s word to my speaking,
God’s hand to uphold me,
God’s pathway before me,
God’s shild to protect me,
God’s legions to save me:
from snares of the demons,
from evil enticements,
from failings of nature,
from one man or many
that seek to destroy me,
anear or afar.

Around me I gather:
these forces to save
my soul and my body
from dark powers that assail me:
against false prophesyings,
against pagan devisings,
against heretical lying
and false gods all around me.
Against spells cast by women,
by blacksmiths, by Druids,
against knowledge unlawful
that injures the body,
that injures the spirit.

Be Christ this day my strong protector:
against poison and burning
against drowning and wounding,
through reward wide and plenty . . .
Christ beside me, Christ before me;
Christ behind me, Christ within me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me;
Christ in my lying, my sitting, my rising;
Christ in heart of all who know me,
Christ on tongue of all who meet me,
Christ in eye of all who see me,
Christ in ear of all who hear me.

For my shield this day I call:
a mighty power:
the Holy Trinity!
affirming threeness,
confessing oneness
in the making of all—through love . . .

For to the Lord belongs salvation,
and to the Lord belongs salvation
and to Christ belongs salvation.

May your salvation, Lord, be with us always.

Psalm 126

 ¹When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.

²Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

³The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.

⁴Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.

⁵May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.

⁶Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.

What are your dreams?  In this time of scarcity, we might be tempted to set our sites low, but our texts this week remind us of the abundance of God’s promised blessings.

Steven Bishop, writing in Feasting on the Word, tells us that this is a Song of Ascent, used by pilgrims processing on their way to the temple.  He writes,

Today’s psalm clearly comes from a period after the return from Babylonian exile, as it likens the experience of resuce to waking from a dream.  This image prepares us for the explosion of joy and thanksgiving that erupts from this short psalm.  After the long dark days of exile, when it seemed that God had abandoned the covenant people, suddenly, as if awaking from a dream, the Judeans find themselves once more in Zion.  Laughter and music replace weeping, hope and promise replace despair.

Enjoy this little burst of Easter into our Lenten journey.

Isaiah 43:16-21

Isaiah 55:1-9

Philippians 3:17-4:1