O
Lord of my life,
take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to
Thy servant.
O Lord and Master, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to
judge my brother,
for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
This prayer is the Great Prayer of Lent,
written by St. Ephrem of Syria. Within Orthodox tradition adherents are
encouraged to pray the prayer morning and evening for the 40 days of Lent. During Lenten Café, the first week of Lent, a
group of us studied the prayer in a couple of English translations; many in the
group have been praying the prayer through the season. Next week you will find the prayer in the
bulletin so you can pray it during Holy Week.
The praying of the words, work in us the main
point expressed in Isaiah’s words this morning.
Isaiah reflects on God’s deeds of the
past. He looks back to the epic story of
Moses and the people. Isaiah reflects on a theme of emancipation and
liberation, where the people of God are brought safely through the Sea,
delivered from Egyptian tyranny and slavery, by God’s own hand.
Then -right in
the middle of the text- comes the main point that Isaiah- that God --wants to
drive home:
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?
The second
half of the text speaks of God’s faithfulness in a new way; where there are
rivers in the desert, jackals and ostriches honour God, and God’s people declare
praise. The gaze of the people changes, from
exile to hope; a shift of imagination and energy.
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?
The prayer of
St. Ephrem is doing this, changing and re-orienting perceptions:
take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to
Thy servant.
…grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge others
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?
That would be
a “no” for Judas, as described in this morning’s Gospel. Judas is vocal about the perfume that Mary
uses to anoint Jesus’ feet; it is a waste, too extravagant – altruistically it
would be better spent for the care of poor. Judas’ perception has not changed;
he has not shifted into Jesus’ imagination of where God’s energy is going
through Jesus’ ministry. Judas has not moved from a spirit of sloth, despair,
lust of power, and idle talk; to a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and
love to Thy servant. And time is running
short for the disciples to understand.
Jesus is soon, in fact the next day, to ride into Jerusalem and be
hailed as King of Israel. Jesus’ end is near.
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?
Mary does
perceive a new thing, a renewed expression of God’s faithfulness – once again
God’s hand working the people out of slavery to emancipation and liberation.
From exile to hope; a shift of imagination and energy.
For Mary, “a
new thing” comes from living out of the covenant faith of old and her
experience of Jesus. Jesus was often a guest in the home of Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus. Jesus would come, others would
gather, and Jesus would teach; Mary was allowed, encouraged to sit at his feet,
to learn and discuss as any of the other disciples. It mattered not that society suggested women
were to be in the kitchen and offering hospitality, not studying the Law or
reflecting on the acts of God. This was
“a new thing,” and to add to this, Jesus recently raised Lazarus, Mary’s brother,
from the dead. These experiences of God
-this new thing- changed Mary.
Mary came into
the room with a gift for Jesus, - to anoint his feet and wipe them with her
hair was an act of LOVE. It was thanksgiving – her brother was alive, she sat
and listened and learned as a disciple. Her
imagination and energy was given to making a pure offering.
I suspect she
worried not of the poor, not in this moment, for she had already given her
tithe as required by the Law; that is the first 10% of her income to be
returned to God, given to the Temple collection to take care of the poor, the
widow, and the orphaned. Having given what was required by God to God, she felt
no guilt or sympathy, she was free. This act of love, this extravagance of
perfume is in addition, meaning resources she was free to use as she
wished. Her heart chose to honour the new thing God
was doing and about to do ---
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?
The Gospel’s
juxtaposition of Judas and Marys’ understanding and experience of God’s
Messiah, reminds me of German liberation theologian, Dorothee Soelle, who wrote:
“The question that is often put to me, ‘Do you believe in God?’, usually seems
a superficial one. If it only means that there is an extra place in your head
where God sits, the God is in no way an event which changes your life, an event
from which, as Buber says no real revelation, I do not emerge unchanged. We should really ask, ’Do you live out God?’
That would be in keeping with the reality of the experience.” –from Joyce Rupp’s book Prayer
Judas could
answer, ‘I believe in God.’ It was Mary who lived out God.
For you, is
God more than an exercise of intellect? Do you believe in God? Or have you
experienced God such that you live out God? Living out God is seeing the new
thing springing forth.
There are many
here this morning who have grown up in the church. If asked I suspect most of us would say we
are believers in God. Now that does not mean that we all have the same
understanding of God, describe God in the same way, and never ask
questions. Over the years, opportunities
have been offered to us to help us enter into a deeper walk with God, to become
more than believers by becoming disciples; people who are willing to learn
more, to wrestle with ideas, to hear and study God’s stories, and to worship
and pray. As disciples perhaps we went
to Sunday School, adult learning events, Bible Studies, retreats, regularly
attended worship. It is somewhere in the
time of being a disciple that a change happens within us, a change that shifts
us to a life of hope and sets us free from anything to which we are in bondage.
Free, liberated, this is that moment when we grasp God’s word:
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do
you not perceive it?
Yes, and one
no longer just believes in God, rather one lives out God.
To apply this
concept to our lives, we learn from Mary’s story what ‘living out God’ means:
·
We are to practice hospitality -- Mary and her
siblings opened their home to Jesus and the disciples, welcoming them to their
home.
·
We are to
practice generosity – Mary and her
siblings gave a dinner in Jesus honour.
The disciples were included and Lazarus the head of the household was
present.
·
We are to practice courage – Mary’s action of devotion was public. She did not listen
to the nay-sayers or enter an argument. She went about offering her gift.
·
We are to practice
extravagance and abundance –
Mary’s gift filled the room with fragrance. She was thankful beyond words, no
action would come close to all that she had received from Jesus. The costly
perfume and using her hair to dry Jesus’ feet was a token of heart-felt thanks.
·
We are to practice love and intimacy –
Mary’s action was pure love. Her heart
and soul reaching out to the One who changed everything, to the One who was
about to do a new thing; now it springs forth.
·
We are to practice opening ourselves to the spirit and
gift of intuition – Mary knew that
Jesus would die. Mary knew that change
from a spirit of slavery to living hope and imagination would lead to death because
there would be some that would be afraid and simply not understand.
·
We are to practice all this – hospitality, generosity,
courage, extravagance, abundance, love, intuition – all this in community. With believers, disciples,
so that experiencing Jesus (now Christ) among us, we might be apostles; living
out God in the world. This we see in a later story, where Mary is one of the
women at the empty tomb who spreads the word that Jesus is risen.
My prayer is
that of St. Ephrem of Syria, for myself, and for you…that we might not just
believe in God, but, rather, live out God…because we have experienced in
community God’s new thing, springing forth.
O
Lord of my life,
take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to
Thy servant.
O Lord and Master, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to
judge my brother,
for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
