Do You Believe in God or Do You Live Out God?

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.