February 26, 2024 — Hair, Hair, Great Wonderful Hair

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”  John 12:1-5

There is so much happening in this story about Mary, Martha and Lazarus.  And there are so many questions we can ask: “What was Mary thinking using this expensive perfume?”, and “Is this what discipleship should look like?”.  I have a question for us to consider: “What is so important about hair?” Doesn’t it seem odd the thing that Mary does with her hair? Why her hair, and why so soon after applying the ointment?

Well, it really isn’t about the hair, is it? What Mary does is a spontaneous, outpouring of love and “worship” with Jesus that it doesn’t matter what others think — and it shouldn’t matter what we think about Mary today.  What matters is what we think about Jesus — and then how we hope to respond to Jesus, today. Hair up, hair down, a lot of hair, no hair, wacky hair, rainbow hair, who here cares about hair? Too many people today worry about their hair – but it is a cultural expectation – just like women wearing their hair up in public was a cultural expectation in Mary’s day.  But Mary doesn’t care about public expectations in this moment because she does care intimately about Jesus, and so she responds to Jesus by letting her hair down. This is what we must ponder today — and how will we, all of us, offer some kind of response to Jesus, today – spontaneous, simple, honest response to the love, mercy and Grace of Jesus.

If Mary would have worried about what others thought, or would have worried that she would be compared to a “prostitute”, we never would have had this marvelous, wonderful outpouring of devotion recorded for us that happened over 2000 years ago.

What can you do today to express your love for Jesus?

Pastor Dave

February 27, 2024 – Being the Body of Christ

“But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” (1 Corinthians 12:18-25)

Glenn Fry, co-founder and guitarist/singer for the 70’s band The Eagles passed away at the age of 67 in 2016. They stated his death came as the result of losing a long battle to rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis, and additional complications from pneumonia. From What I know of rheumatoid arthritis, it is a disease that occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks your own body’s tissues. In addition to causing joint problems, rheumatoid arthritis sometimes can affect other organs of the body — such as the skin, eyes, lungs and blood vessels. From what we know about the body, it is amazing to us that it might attack itself — it is counter-intuitive to think it would do this. The body usually works so well together it is like a symphony of motion, flow, and coordinated effort. In fact, Paul used the body and how it works together to describe the church: “God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” But, of course, as in the case of Glenn Fry, the body can turn on itself – to destroy.

And this was Paul’s concern as well – that the people of G-d, working together like a body and its individual members, would work in concert rather than against one another to destroy. Once again, this is why we read the bible, because there is so much wisdom to be found within its pages. Where else might we read in such eloquent terms how we are to live, act and treat one another with such a clear analogy – we are the body of Christ, and as such, we are to work together, not against one another. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need for you, nor the head say the same to the feet. As the body of Christ, we are stronger together than we might ever be as individuals. And when we read these words written by someone as wise and intuitive as Paul, it gives us courage to put these words into action.

Continue reading the word of G-d found in the bible my friends. There is wisdom in its pages – true wisdom.

Pastor Dave

February 25, 2024 – Lent 2B

“[Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mark 8:31-38

What is Suffering? As I see it, we have several meanings to the word or concept of suffering. Suffering can be a physical or emotional injury that causes pain or discomfort. People with chronic pain know what it means to suffer. Suffering can also mean self-sacrifice – denying ourselves something for a cause or for the sake of others. Both of these definitions we can clearly associate with the season of Lent. It is in Lent that we focus on the cross – the implement that is used to cause Jesus’ suffering. So in Lent we do things to focus ourselves on some minor and mostly inconvenient denial that, though it does not reach the same level as Jesus’ suffering, it reminds us of his sacrifice.

The suffering that the Gospel of Mark is talking about in this text is something other than physical pain or self-sacrifice – the suffering Mark is talking about is the suffering that comes from taking yourself out of the ordinary and putting yourself into what makes you uncomfortable – specifically taking yourself more and more out of the things of this world that brings you comfort, and placing yourself into the way of the cross.  And this kind of living is truly counter-cultural – at least from our 21st century view.  For us in the 21st century, we are part of the “me generation”.  We hear people every day telling us to “put ourselves first” – be sure to “take care of number one” – and on and on.  But for the first century Jew, where people identified themselves within a multi-generational kinship group, to suffer would be to take oneself out of the family group – to leave everything as the disciples did.

In the 21st century, a society that is increasingly identifying itself with the individual – the individual is more important than the family group, and the individual is a growing unit of society. From the 21st century view, suffering, or carrying the cross for Jesus, would be looked upon as nothing more than self-sacrifice – nothing more. You may hear someone say “I have given up coffee for Lent – that is my cross to bear.” But it should mean much, much more. For example, we encourage you to do some devotional exercises in Lent – things like giving up coffee, or chocolate – and these are meant to be helpful and good for just the season of Lent – they are an individual thing. But picking up one’s cross for the sake of Jesus should go to a different level – it should at least mean taking oneself out of what society has deemed important. In other words, to deny the self means to stop focusing on just our own needs, to stop focusing on the individual, to stop focusing solely on ourselves.  And in the process we increasingly focus on helping those on the fringes of society, helping those who cannot help themselves, help those that society wants to “throw away”. And when we live this way, when we see this as “picking up our crosses”, then we should expect people to give us a hard time, yes even to persecute us, because we have taken ourselves out of the ordinary, out of the comfortable, out of the cultural mainstream, and put others ahead of ourselves.

If we spend our whole life trying to avoid suffering, we will be like the dog trying to catch its tail – running around and around in a complete act of futility.  This life will present us suffering – and how we endure it may make us stronger people. Allow the cross to be a signpost for your life – pointing you to serving those who are the last, lost, least and little in our society.  That, that would be truly denying yourself in the 21st century.

Pastor Dave