Monday of Holy Week: After Palm Sunday and During Passover
Extravagance. Pleasure. Effusiveness. Exuberance. These aren’t ideas that we usually associate with Lent and the overture to Jesus’ passion. But Mary of Bethany understands differently. — Matt Skinner
Have you ever seen or experienced someone physically caring for a loved one in preparation for that dying person’s death? — Edward F. Markquart
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Text: John 12:1-11 — Mary Anoints Jesus
12 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them[a] with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii[b] and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it[c] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Meditations for Monday and the events of Holy Week:
“Is it not true that only when we have been helped by God, that we begin to understand how to live extravagantly in honouring Christ wherever we may find him?” — Peter Woods
So what is it about Mary’s extravagance that merits Jesus’s blessing, and what is it about Judas’s criticism that earns Jesus’s rebuke? Mary responds to the call of love in the moment. In the now. Knowing what Jesus is about to face; knowing that he’s in urgent need of companionship, comfort, and solace; knowing that the time is short to express all the gratitude and affection she carries in her heart, Mary acts. Given the choice between an abstracted need (the poor “out there”) and the concrete need that presents itself at her own doorstep, around her own dinner table, Mary chooses the here and now. She loves the body and soul who is placed in her presence. In doing so, she ends up caring for the one who is denied room at the inn — even to be born. For the one who has no place to lay his head during his years of ministry. For the one whose crucified body is laid in a borrowed tomb. In other words, it is the poor Mary serves when she serves Jesus. Just as it is always Jesus we serve when we love without reservation what God places in front of us, here and now. Lutheran minister Reagan Humber puts it this way: “What won’t always be with us is the opportunity to see God in whatever and whomever stands in front of us right now. The kingdom of God is here. Right now is the moment when God can break our hearts. The love of God is the grace of now.” — Debie Thomas
“If we want to dialogue with the Scriptures, we must expose ourselves to the political, social, economic, cultural, and religious situations of the ancient world where the writings were born and where the people did not necessarily enjoy peace and justice.” — Hisako Kinukawa
“Remember finally, that the ashes that were on your forehead are created from the burnt palms of last Palm Sunday. New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.” — Richard Rohr
“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” — William Penn
Compassionate Pedicure Scene from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel — Ocean Vuong
A prosthesis. Halfway down her shinbone, a brownish stub protrudes, smooth and round as the end of a baguette—or what it is, an amputated leg. I glance at you, hoping for an answer. Without skipping a beat, you take out your file and start to scrub her one foot, the puckered nub beside it shaking from the work. The woman places the prosthesis at her side, her arm resting protectively around its calf, then sits back, exhaling. “Thank you,” she says again, louder, to the crown of your head.
I sit on the carpet and wait for you to call for the hot towel from the warming case. Throughout the pedicure, the woman sways her head from side to side, eyes half-closed. She moans with relief when you massage her one calf. When you finish, turning to me for the towel, she leans over, gestures toward her right leg, the nub hovering above the water, dry this whole time. She says, “Would you mind,” and coughs into her arm. “This one also. If it’s not too much.” She pauses, stares out the window, then down at her lap. Again, you say nothing—but turn, almost imperceptibly, to her right leg, run a measured caress along the nub’s length, before cradling a handful of warm water over the tip, the thin streams crisscrossing the leathered skin. Water droplets. When you’re almost done rinsing the soap off, she asks you, gently, almost pleading, to go lower. “If it’s the same price anyway,” she says. “I can still feel it down there. It’s silly, but I can. I can.”
You pause—a flicker across your face. Then, the crow’s-feet on your eyes only slightly starker, you wrap your fingers around the air where her calf should be, knead it as if it were fully there. You continue down her invisible foot, rub its bony upper side before cupping the heel with your other hand, pinching along the Achilles’ tendon, then stretching the stiff cords along the ankle’s underside. When you turn to me once more, I run to fetch a towel from the case. Without a word, you slide the towel under the phantom limb, pad down the air, the muscle memory in your arms firing the familiar efficient motions, revealing what’s not there, the way a conductor’s movements make the music somehow more real. Her foot dry, the woman straps on her prosthesis, rolls down her pant leg, and climbs off. I grab her coat and help her into it. You start walking over to the register when she stops you, places a folded hundred-dollar bill in your palm.
— Ocean Vuong
Meditations on Palm Sunday
The word endures. The Word endures. We who stand among the Palm Sunday crowds know that the Word will soon be beaten, mocked, and killed. We know, too, that that is not the end of the tale. — Jan Richardson
“Hey sanna, ho sanna, sanna, sanna, hey sanna, ho sanna sanna sanna , ho sanna, hey sanna, Hey, hey JC, JC won’t you smile at me. …” — Webber and Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar (rock opera)
Songs
Blessing of Palms
This blessing
can be heard coming from a long way off.
This blessing is making its steady way
up the road toward you.
This blessing
blooms in the throats of women,
springs from the hearts of men,
tumbles out of the mouths of children.
This blessing
is stitched into the seams
of the cloaks that line the road,
etched into the branches
that trace the path,
echoes in the breathing
of the willing colt,
the click of the donkey’s hoof
against the stones.
Something is rising beneath this blessing.
Something will try to drown it out.
But this blessing
cannot be turned back, cannot be made to still its voice,
cannot cease to sing its praise
of the One who comes along the way it makes.
—Jan Richardson
Hosanna: Help Us!
The Hebrew word Halleluia means “praise the Lord;” Hosanna means “save us!” or “save!” The Palm Sunday crowd falsely assumed that Jesus would bring political liberation.— Steve Vredenburgh
We think of “Hosanna” as a shout of praise, but the basic meaning of this Hebrew word is “Help!” It is an SOS cry. That appears to be the way the first Palm Sunday crowd used it. Having heard of Jesus’ ability to feed an army with a school boy’s lunch and His recent accomplishment of bringing a dead Lazarus back to life, they were convinced He was a candidate for the monarchy. “Jesus, Help! Expel our hated Roman rulers. You be our King!” How disappointed they were when Jesus, after riding into the capitol city on the wave of the crowd’s enthusiasm, merely looked around and walked back out. — Merwin VanDoornik
But what I didn’t know until this week is what the word “hosanna” actually means. All these years, I thought it meant some church-y version of “We adore you!” or “You rock!” or “Go, king!” It doesn’t. In Hebrew, it means something less adulatory and more desperate. Less generous and more demanding. It means, “Save now!” — Debie Thomas
“Hosanna” does come from an old Hebrew phrase, but one that was less praise and more desperate plea. “Save now!” It was a phrase stripped of all pretense of politeness. “Help!” Its insistent cry was one reserved for royalty or divinity. “Deliver us! Don’t wait!” The people are either calling Jesus “king” or “God” or both. … My own mind is drawn today to Anne Lamott’s book, which you have heard us reference a few times: Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. In it, Lamott says that all prayers boil down to these three simple words: help, thanks, wow. And more often than not, these concepts overlap and run together. … I think a truly holy Hosanna can hold these three words together, this help, thanks, and wow. Hosanna cries for deliverance. It calls out in gratitude. And it gives voice to holy awe. — Marthame Sanders
By Which Gate?
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan argue that two processions entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday two thousand years ago; Jesus’s was not the only Triumphal Entry.
Every year during Passover — the Jewish festival that swelled Jerusalem’s population from its usual 50,000 to at least 200,000 — the Roman governor of Judea would ride up to Jerusalem from his coastal residence in the west. He would come in all of his imperial majesty to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome demanded their complete loyalty, obedience, and submission. The Jewish people could commemorate their ancient victory against Egypt and slavery if they wanted to. But if they tried any real time resistance, they would be obliterated without a second thought.
As Pilate clanged and crashed his imperial way into Jerusalem from the west, Jesus approached from the east, looking (by contrast) ragtag and absurd. Unlike the Roman emperor and his legions, who ruled by force, coercion, and terror, Jesus came defenseless and weaponless into his kingship. Riding on a donkey, he all but cried aloud the bottom-line truth that his rule would have nothing to recommend it but love, humility, long-suffering, and sacrifice. — Debie Thomas
The Rest of the Week
It seems reasonable to me that people choose to go from the Big Parade to the Empty Tomb and skip the stuff that makes them uncomfortable: stuff like how Jesus ate his last meal with the people he loved most, all of whom (perhaps like me) would betray abandon or deny him, that these friends (perhaps like me) couldn’t even stay awake while he prayed in the garden, that the crowd (perhaps like me) would strike and taunt him for not living up to their expectations, that the people would (perhaps like me) shout crucify him! And twist him a crown of thorns, that passersby would (perhaps like me) shout “for God’s sake, save yourself”. Because we would save ourselves. And the fact that Jesus got himself killed in a totally preventable way never once showing enough self-respect to fight back or get himself off that damned cross…well maybe he had it coming. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Five hundred years after that … this story continues, the story of God’s decision to not hold back and watch to see what we might do on our own but instead to get involved, to take matters into the divine hands, to join God’s own self to us fully and completely so that we might live and die – and live again! – in hope and courage. That’s the story we tell, the story of this week’s dramatic reading, the story of God’s passionate and relentless quest to redeem each and all of us in love. — David Lose
Lenten Devotional – FRIDAY, Mar 26: ON MY ACCOUNT
Here is another phrase that means for righteousness’ sake. Christ blesses, specifically, those who experience insults, libel, slander, being reviled and/or persecuted, because they love and follow in his Way.
He addresses those who now identify as his followers and disciples. Yet he also addresses seekers who are curious and engaging with his Way.
Who, in our times, is persecuted for their faith? Often whole groups of people are persecuted for a ‘monolithic’ identity that has been assigned to all of them.
Since 9/11, fear and bias of Muslims has grown in the US. More people now hold negative views of Muslims, conflating the religion with terrorism or extremism, and projecting those biases and concerns onto anyone might be a practitioner of Islam.
Imagine assuming that to be Jewish is ‘one thing.’ Judaism has a wide variety of expressions, as do many religions. And some people experience it as a cultural identity rather than a religious one.
Imagine lumping all Israeli Jews and Palestinians under those two labels, as if those categories represent the whole reality of a person’s identity. As if those two terms can embody the multitude and complexity of thoughts, feelings, views, and experiences held by the individuals who might align with those affiliations.
Consider that within Islam, different groups have longstanding enmity. Shiites and Sunnis, for instance, have historic conflicts in some regions. Yet to assign a person a whole identity, based on one aspect of his or her religious affinity, underestimates the complexity of historical and current religious, ethnic, cultural, and social realities.
Consider mistakenly believing that to be Christian is ‘one thing.’ Some people don’t even understand that all Christian movements grew out of Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Think of the Protestant and Catholic wars that have raged in the past and now in places like Ireland.
Even in current times, belonging to the wrong religion, in some nations, can be a death sentence. Genocides have been committed against Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and others.
People are often persecuted for growing up inside a religion, even if many of the underlying causes of the conflicts aren’t ideological, but social and political and economic. Individuals are sometimes held accountable for the wrongs and hurts inflicted by religious institutions, even if the individuals who practice that faith didn’t commit those wrongs. They have been assigned, in such cases, a role as spokesperson for an entire faith. Yet can any individual speak on behalf of a whole faith?
These are a few ways that people might, in our times, be persecuted for faith. Let us recognize that the condition of being persecuted for one’s faith isn’t limited to a Christian experience. At this point, Christians are less likely to be persecuted than most other religions, since many countries identify, at least culturally, as Christian-majority nations. Yet it happens.
Again, this Beatitude names a broad human experience. In the most ideal understanding of this Beatitude, all people who are judged and harmed for standing up for or being connected to a faith are encompassed by this blessing. ‘On my account’ becomes the language that holds open the door for all people to be welcome into God’s Kingdom, since it represents Christ’s inclusive, expansive form of agape love. — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS
I’ll tell you one thing for sure: once you get to the point where you’re actually doing things for truth’s sake, then nobody can ever touch you again because you’re harmonizing with a greater power. — George Harrison
He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end. — William Penn
For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love. — John Donne
To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic. — Alphonse de Lamartine
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. — Kurt Vonnegut
It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us. — Walter Benjamin
Question or Challenge: Who embodies God for you? On whose account would you be moved to get involved in an ethical cause or activity? Would it sometimes be someone who is authoritative, influential, persuasive, or powerful and invites you to participate? Or might it be someone who needs your help and support and motivates you to take action? This isn’t a right/wrong, either/or scenario. Just a prompt to learn where we might experience the presence of Christ in our lives, inviting us into ethical engagement.
Lenten Devotional – THURS, Mar 25: KINGDOM of HEAVEN
We heard this phrase earlier in the Beatitudes. The Kingdom of Heaven is another way of saying God’s Kingdom. It means that you ‘who are persecuted for righteousness sake’ — from Matthew 5:10— belong to God. God has adopted, embraced, welcomed and claimed you. The Message version of the Bible says, ‘The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.’
The Beatitudes have been building up, and by the time we get to the end of them, we ought to identify ourselves as being claimed by God. Even when we’re imperfect and messy, we’re part of the Kingdom.
If you look at the people whom Jesus chose for companions, it’s a great argument that the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t full of winners and heroes and saints. It’s full of folks we’d probably recognize. And maybe we’d avoid inviting some of those rough characters to dinner, yet Jesus would open the door and pull up a chair for everyone.
Due to the awkward phrasing, readers might mistakenly interpret the Kingdom of Heaven in this blessing to mean that the persecuted are headed away from Earth, being called to some far-off divine paradise in the skies, beyond death. Yet readers would be mistaken.
Grammar changes the meaning! The Forerunner Commentary writes, “The word “of” denotes possession, not location: It is Heaven’s Kingdom … it is the Kingdom of Heaven, not the Kingdom in Heaven, although its headquarters is in heaven.” A different scholarly source adds, “This phrase, the kingdom of heaven, is used thirty times by St. Matthew. The other evangelists, and St. Paul, term it generally, the kingdom of God, and sometimes, the kingdom of Christ. These different phrases mean the same thing.” The writers of Matthew and other Gospels used these terms interchangeably.
In other words, those who receive this Beatitude, this blessing, belong to God’s kingdom here. Here on earth. After all, they’re experiencing persecution here and now. They belong in the company of God’s loving presence among the people living on earth here and now.
Here and now. Not later. Not somewhere else. After all, God is among us, with us, always. And we’re right next to Godself, in God’s presence, all the time, even if we don’t know it. God has wrapped the Kingdom of Heaven around us. — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS:
A new world. A better world than has ever been seen. There, you are not what you are born but what you have it in yourself to be. A kingdom of conscience, of peace instead of war, love instead of hate. That is what lies in the end of a crusade. A kingdom of heaven. — Ridley Scott
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is both now and not yet. It is present and it is future. — Tim Barnett
Challenge of Question: Do you feel like you belong to Heaven? Is it harder to believe that you, yourself, are claimed by Heaven or to believe that other people are so claimed?
Lenten Devotional-WED, Mar 24: SAKE
The other part of this Beatitude’s phrase is for righteousness’ sake. We’re acting for a cause. We’re choosing a sacred and holistic motivation.
What, then, falls into the realm of being for righteousness’ sake? It’s the motivation in response to ‘Love God, and love thy neighbor as thyself. It’s all those cares and causes that focus on the equitable and sustainable wellbeing of all humans as well as the whole natural world (ie, Creation). For righteousness’ sake is the purpose that drives our choices and prompts our actions.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could always point to being pure-of-heart in our motivations? If our righteousness’ sake was aimed at a faith-based objective? Being pure-of-heart, as discussed in an earlier passage in the Beatitudes, describes being whole-hearted and single-minded with a focus on ethical reasons underlying words and deeds.
Yet we’re human, and God knows, we aren’t perfect. We’re works in progress. We’re trying. Striving. Falling down. Stumbling. Then getting up and trying again.
So be compassionate with yourself, if you don’t feel like you’re always motivated for the right reason, or for the righteous reason, or for righteousness’ sake. Just know that we have an abundance of chances, with every choice and action, to do the next right thing. To incrementally work toward a righteous way of living and being. God will be with us all the way, the primal motivator underneath all the other causes we think of as being for righteousness’ sake. — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS:
If you don’t have a righteous objective, eventually you will suffer. When you do the right thing for the right reason, the right result awaits. — Chin-Ning Chu
Seeking truth and goodness and righteousness is part of the quest for wisdom. The more this quest is part of our lives, the more vigilant we will be, and the more active will be our discipleship. — Joseph Prior
If I pursue righteousness, I will not attain righteousness; but if I give up on trying to be righteous and rather look to Christ by faith, righteousness will be produced in my life as a natural byproduct of my relationship with Him. — Ty Gibson
Challenge or Question: What righteous sakes —causes— show up as significant commitments in your life, as measured by your financial contributions or donations of time, energy, and attention?