March 21. 2010

In Jn 12 a place of raising from the dead becomes the locale for the impending sentence of death. This pivotal scene moves us through the gospel story. This supper with friends is linked to the last supper with disciples. When she wipes his feet it leads us to Jesus wiping the feet of the disciples.  We are certainly in the realm of the body with the scent of perfumes, the smell of feet, the stench of death at the tomb. At issue here is using a year's wages for one act of devotion-time and urgency push an astounding act of devotion. She shows the extravagance of love here (indeed a prodigal act). She  reveals what it is to follow Jesus fully-defined by love and service that may appear to go overboard. On one hand, it looks as if it is an extravagant act of devotion. In the eyes of Christ, the anointing is a prophetic act that launches his march to the cross and to our eyes marks Jesus as messiah, anointed one in his work as priest, prophet, and king, all of which come to a climax in Holy Week. So often, people use these words  of Jesus about the short time left to him as an excuse to ignore the poor, since they are a longstanding concern. He is defending her apparently rash decision to anoint him at great expense since his time was short. We all have plenty of time to deal with those in need.

 

Is. 43:16-21-Some time ago, I was made aware of a impressive book by Patrica Tull of LPTS, Remember the Former Things, that looks at the dense interplay of this section of Isaiah with other prophets.Here,  I am struck by God's instruction to not remember the former things. In 46:10 God says to remember the former things. Some would call that sheer contradiction. That's part of the balancing act of life, isn't it? We live between memory and hope, between past, present, and future, all being woven together. We can't live in the past only, but we do ourselves no favors to ignore its lessons. I'm not sure what the former things are, but I'll proffer two this morning. One is that the impending punishments of the book are not finished and gone. the other would be the powerful memory of the miracles associated with the freedom from slavery that led to Passover observance that we have transformed into Maundy Thursday. I have a sense that to spend a life waiting for a miracle prevents us from living life the best we can right now.(In searching for the one, we may well miss a partner, as the book Settling for Mr Good Enough argues). God's goals may be consistent for us, but the mechanisms may well change, so we should not be looking for repeat episodes from the unfettered creativity of the Almighty. Bakhtin said  "past and present make up the warp and woof of the present moment." New contexts do furnish new ways of understanding Scripture. The bible is a living book as we can see our situations in it. God is always doing a new thing. The living God is fully capable of responding in new, genuine, effective ways in our world. God works on an emerging, open future. The Christian faith insists that the past does not have to be endlessly repeated. the faith is not chained to the way things are.At the cusp of spring, some of the early plants are sprouting; every day we hear more birds outside. In the structure of the seasons, God is doing a new thing. Every time we wake up in the morning, God is doing a new things with us.