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Re: Spring Cleaning!

By: joe-taylor in FFFT | Recommend this post (0)
Mon, 25 Mar 13 4:27 PM | 65 view(s)
Boardmark this board | Food For Further Thought 		Msg. 51107 of 65535
(This msg. is a reply to 51095 by joe-taylor)
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A Pound of Pure Nard


"Then Mary took a pound of costly perfume, made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet amd wiped them with her hair." John 12: 1-11


She didn't hold back. She used a whole pound of that costly perfume, not just a half. Pure nard, not cut with some cheaper oil. Nard that had come all the way from the Himalayas. Nard that cost a full years wages. Nard that had no practical use other than to fill the room with its scent and to soothe his dry and cracked feet.

That night in Bethany, when she and her sister and brother welcomed Jesus to their table for what turned out to be the last time, she didn't parcel out her love. She used a whole pound of nard.

Three days later he didn't hold back either. When he washed the disciples feet during the last supper with them, he washed them all. All twenty four feet, all as dry and dirty as his. He didn't skip a one, not even those of Peter who would deny him or of Judas who betrayed him. As John writes, having loved them in this world, "he loved them to the end." Just like Mary loved him.

"We love because God first loved us," affirms John's first letter. Perhaps Jesus could love as he did because Mary had loved him. She annointed his feet, he washed the disciples'. She poured out her love as she poured out that costly perfume. He did the same for the disciples--and for this whole world.


God, as we journey through this holy week, may we remember Mary's love and Jesus' love. May we also remember those who have shown us such love, more priceless than a whole pound of nard. Amen.


Talathia Arnold is Senior Minister of the United Church of Santa Fe (UCC), Santa Fe, New Mexico.


To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.


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Re: Spring Cleaning!
By: joe-taylor in FFFT
Sun, 24 Mar 13 2:18 PM 		Msg. 51095 of 65535

The Trojan Horse of Palm Sunday


"Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road." Luke 19: 35-36


I have a friend who calls Palm Sunday the Trojan Horse of the church year. Partly, she means that Palm Sunday starts out well, happy and upbeat. We wave palms. We sing major key hymns. We process.

But then it changes. Somewhere along the line we start hearing the rest of the story, the passion story. Before we know it, we aren't any longer waving palms, we are shouting. "Crucify him, crucify him." How'd that happen?

It feels like a bait and switch. Or a Trojan Horse.

And there's an even deeper sense to the Trojan Horse analogy. Not only does what looks initially attractive prove to be less so. There's another thing. The Trojan Horse of Palm Sunday tells us that we aren't besieged from without, so much as from within.

That is, it's not the other guys, the one's we call "enemies" and "threats" from outside that are the real problem. It is the enemies within, inside us. It is the danger we are to ourselves. The Greek soldiers climb out from inside the Trojan Horse to lay siege to Troy.

And so Palm Sunday begins a Holy Week, a week that shows us that it isn't so much outside threats as inside threats that we have to face: the disciples who cut and run. The betrayer who is one of us. The No. 1 disciple who says, "I don't know him," and the crowd of religious people chanting, "Crucify him, crucify him." Sin is not an out-there problem. It's an in-here problem.

Behold, the Trojan Horse of this day, this Palm Sunday. Behold, it's truth: we aren't besieged from without, we are besieged from within.


Today and this week, help us, Holy One, to face our own part in the evils we deplore, our own role in the wreck of things. Amen.


Anthony G. Robinson, a United Church of Christ minister, is a speaker, teacher and writer.

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