Friday after the Third Sunday in Lent: No big deal

Morning Prayer Lessons: Psalm 88; Jeremiah 11:1-8,14-20; Romans 6:1-11; John 8:33-47

Initially uninspired by the particular content of today’s readings, I found myself thinking of base communities which form our view of the world and reality.  My mind wandered off and I realized mine may be the last generation to have knowingly been effect by the Great Depression. On the surface I was impacted by the stories told by my grandparent and parents, but if I look a little deeper, the Depression shaped me as well.

Simply put, my maternal grandparents lost almost all they had on the day after they paid down their mortgage with all their liquid assets.  The next day the bank foreclosed on them.  Thankfully my grandfather was a resourceful lawyer and somehow a friend of Roosevelt, perhaps connected by the ravages of polio in each of their lives.  This part of the story is unclear. In the midst of the second most devastating experience of their lives, my mother’s family hobbled together a new beginning in economic deprivation when the whole country was going through the same experience.

The funny story comes years later when I was talking to Mom.  You see there was a family photo album I grew up looking at on rainy days.  In it is a picture of my Mom, a little girl, standing in front of a small ill kept building.  I guess I never asked about the building. I assumed it was the house they had to occupy when their brick center hall colonial was taken.  I was always so sad for them when I saw how they had to live.  At about 50 years of age I mentioned it to Mom who began to laugh fully.  It turns out this was their chicken house. I realized the stories of my childhood were so impactful; I had shaped this view of their world.

Yet what I also know is we always lived carefully when it came to money.  There was never any waste and things that might be used again were either stored or given to someone in need of them. There was no shame in a ‘hand me down.’ We kept a garden and canned. All of my siblings and I found summer work when we were of age and assumed some responsibility for providing our needs or wants. So careful were my grandparents that they all left behind a reasonable estate.  I have always understood the habits shaped by the depression when I see them in others.

Perhaps this is often my disconnect with the core values of our culture today.  To carry a watchful and caring eye for others with less, is to me to be American and Christian.  My early world was indelibly marked by this outlook even in a racially divided South. If you had no use for something in your possession, you looked for someone who might use it and gave it and here race did not seem to matter.  Today’s world seems to me so casual about self excess and too often forgets to look out for the other.  It is no longer a given that people of faith long to be their brother and sister’s keepers with a broad view of who is brother or sister.  I need to reel back here before I get political as well. 

All this brings me back to the lessons of this day. In John 8:33 we read about a world view:

They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free"?'

Jesus has just spoken of himself as the Truth, his teachings as the truth and speaks of this truth setting us free to find and know self and God. His audience’s base community has shaped their view of reality.  As Jewish leaders, that view is one of being chosen, a child of the one true God made known to Abraham. It is to know how to live in relationship to God’s law.  It is also to experience that failure to fully keep this law is the rule more than the exception.  It is perhaps to long for the Messiah, but not expect him to come ‘now’ and thus not to trust his coming in Jesus to be real. And somewhere in there it is never to call yourself enslaved to a super power because you are still chosen of God.  It may also be to hope Yom Kippur observed is enough to be free.

Jesus' whole conversation in this passage is to convince the religious of the cost of our failure to follow God as perfectly as we perceive we do.

Jesus answered them, 'Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Then Jesus goes on to talk of how sin enslaves us.  I would add little by little we taste enslavement whether we name it or not.  Just as seeking to practice the teachings of Jesus saves me from being simply preoccupied with self and my own will. It is no big deal when I share what I have, even when it stretches my means or interferes with my leisure. It is no big deal when I face myself and know I need to apologize for some unkindness on my part. It cost me little to offer an action in response to a perceived need.  It is no big deal when I see myself in light of Jesus teachings and have to say “Whoops, I need a ‘do over!’” It is no big deal when I vote for the well being of the underclass.  It is no big deal when I stop and pray or help or apologize.  

I think the big deal is I have a solid base community, not perfect, just solid in how we look for God’s claim on our lives, take the sacraments to our nourishment and alertness.  It is important to me to share my care in this world, just as I knew growing up often with some good hand-me-downs.  I guess faith is the best of them all.  Little by little this ‘truth’ works on us to makes us free.

Thursday after the Third Sunday in Lent: Sea grass and Grass

We have returned to the beach and the restoration is complete, as far as the human endeavor is concerned.   I look at it from the third floor deck and it seems so regular and the sand so fine and it is so much broader than it was two weeks ago. This man made grace will make for better walking and summers of enjoyment for many.

I wonder when it will again be marked by shells.  The rains of these last days are working on removing the machine marks but the winds have not yet done their part to cover over the man-work.  The dune structure is not yet in full conversation with the renewed sands and the sea grass is too much in its instructed boundary.  I will be happier when the grass invades the beach again and the beach, the grass.  Then I can almost pretend this is nature’s design, like God made it.

Speaking of restructure, I just noticed a lectionary restructure of John.  I have been waiting for the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) to appear and just realized we leapt over her in the Daily Office. Today’s reading, John 8:21-32, makes deeper sense when we know it is connected to her story. Out of curiosity I consulted the Lectionary to see what we have done with her. She will appear it seems in daily mass parishes on Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent.  I am not pleased but at least I know why I never missed this leap before. So much of my life has been peppered with daily mass.

I have loved her and her story from the first time I knowingly read her story and was invited to meet her.  Her story has opened up and opened me for a life time.  I have never knowingly been caught in adultery, though like Jimmy Carter I have looked lustfully and committed it in my heart.  By now I know this to be one more sign I am still alive.

There are other ways I have given myself to what is not my truest and healthiest love. I have hope for other people’s lives, their gifts, intelligence, birth and family experiences…until I wake up again and realize that beneath all these exteriors are untold stories of struggle, hurt and wisdom making. There were chapters when other people’s work settings, parishes in my case, were my envy or my escape from my daily vocation. I have wondered if other people’s loves were better than mine when I was raw from my own. I have surfed the TV and come on The Bachelor and had an instant of thinking what it might be to be him…or her. Then after a few minutes, I stop, I realize that beneath the polish or shallow surface there is most likely a person no more perfect than me. We may not name these things adultery but in the life journey of loving God, self, and others with our wholeness, they can most definitely be adultery, this passing over our committed loves for a fantasy of love. Abandoning the work of trust and fidelity for some “might have been.”

What forever holds my attention in John 8:1-11, is the tenderness of Jesus with this woman about to be stoned for adultery.  I imagine she is either desperate to feel loved or so cut off from her true worth that she has grown casual with her passion.  I have long noted the man she has been with seems to be off scot-free which was the usual misogynistic practice. So much righteous anger is in the presenters and they are men.

And Jesus so tenderly looks away, casting no recorded eye of judgment, writes a long lost something in the sand. Speaks: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” 

I have no Idea if she is able to live as asked.  I only know that I must wonder about my own life. How am I doing at this “do not sin again.”  Suffice it say, I still am growing by forgiveness.

But here is today’s gift for you and me.  In John 8:31-32 Jesus says “to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” His word is not so much law as it is Spirit.  It is not so much rule as it is guided journey.  Yes there are boundaries worthy of our lives, but they are held out in divine live and care. They are not the angry crowd but the loving gaze.

How this phrase changes over time: "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." This truth we long to know perhaps first seems truth as in God’s full truth, as in what I must believe or how I must behave.  Then one day it is deeper, it is truth about me and my self deceptions and my ego journey and how short all this is of God’s vision for my life.  I look over my shoulder and I wonder at what I have missed, who I have harmed…if only I knew then what I know now?

After some self indulgent flagellation of my mind and my heart, cast down I look upon the sands of my life and he has written something that is forever both unclear and clear… “You are forgiven now go and sin no more that nothing worse befalls you.” 

I see myself.  I see God’s ever renewing care.  I see I am no tide that has the power to wash it away.  I know again I can find new places to yield to God’s love and begin again…not innocent…but wiser perhaps about the difference in my ways and Christ’s ways and open to be led again from mine to his and refreshed by this hope.

And this truth only sets me free. 

I wonder when the sea grass will merge with the new beach and cover over the scar of repair. How long before the wind and forgiving rains will merge the two.  I wonder when next will ‘truth’ rework me and grace, God’s forgiving love, heal some scar I do not yet see.  When next will truth make me more deeply free. Like wind on sand it can heal much.

Tuesday after the Third Sunday in Lent: Faith, to act or laugh

Faith is an odd thing.  We often want it to be so like science.  One hypothesizes God and/or God’s will and then gently, but clearly, proves it…or does not. Then we know just what to do or how to be.

My younger brother often jokes that he is going to heaven on the family plan.  I hope so. His image is that my faith practice may be enough for us all.  I hope so. I wonder, with one brother already gone before us, will we one day more deeply reconnect in the heart place of God, will we all?  Will the unhealed places of this life one day be full and whole?  I wonder.  Is this faith or just wonderment?  I must admit that while my brother’s faith is hidden to me, his ethics are not.  They are clear and sharp often.

In today’ reading from Romans 4:13-25 we are still reflecting on Abraham and his faith.  Paul uses the image of “faith reckoned to him as righteousness.”  It is credited to him.  Southerners use the word reckon, but to us it means something like: I believe that to be the truth or the facts. “I reckon so.” We will say.  But Paul’s use is deeper.  It is here used to mean was credited to Abraham.  Like when I don’t have the cash in hand to buy something and I use credit.  I might have the cash elsewhere or tied up or not at all. Yet I am loaned what I need to get through this moment. Except it is not loaned here, it is fully credited.

Abraham was as imperfect as you and I are, but he had faith. He could not always do the right thing, but he had faith.  He tried to trust God’s promise that he would father by his legitimate wife, when he had not for so long.  He doubted enough to say, Lord when? So what is this faith he had that was “reckoned to him as righteousness?”  It was not science for science would be in full doubt by now.  

Faith is not the lack of puzzlement but the willingness to puzzle through and on.  It is a trust beyond what seems sometimes correct reason.  It is somewhere between inner knowing and hopeful trusting. Some say it is a gift from God given to one and not another…but given not on merit but on holy whim or plan.  Abraham was willing or able to listen and puzzle and hope and act as if.  He acted as if what was promised was a surety when it did not appear so.

We see this at play in John 7:37-52.  Remember Jesus has slipped into Jerusalem for the Feast of tabernacles.

^“On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”  

We are told he is speaking here of receiving the Holy Spirit in our lives. Like Abraham perhaps?  The world about him responds variously. They wonder variously.

Some say this is really the prophet...the Christ.  But from Galilee, others wonder? The scripture says nothing about Galilee.... And they missed him.  I wonder where I might have been in that crowd for it mirrors life today.

‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ This is my hopeful place.  If like Abraham I am willing or able to listen and puzzle and hope and act as if, then I will live in touch with this living water.  There will be for me a daily inner fountain to refresh me in better and deeper wonderment about God’s good and intention for my life.  That is what it means to call Jesus the Christ, the messiah. In him I encounter the hope of knowing God and acting as if.

And by the way, there is a little Sarah in me.  I often giggle behind the screen and hear myself say, “Yea, right, at my age? This will be interesting”

Monday after the Third Sunday of Lent: Sabbath

From Psalm 80:14, 18 (or 3 or 7)

Turn now, O God of host, look down from heaven;

    Behold and tend this vine;

            preserve what your right hand has planted.  

Restore us, O God of hosts;

      Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.   

It is Monday, long my Sabbath day in a way that Sunday could never be.  As a priest, while I love Sunday, it began when employed early with getting ready.  Up two hours before church, I had to ready my person, my spirit, and go over my sermon again and seek the last change of it and other details.  I was always nourished on Sunday but never rested.

Monday I had no guilt at a slow start.  Oh I might be up early, even as I am these days, but there was no pressure to roll out my life.  My prayer time was more patient, even luxurious.  Other people's struggles and needs were moved back in my mind, though offered in prayer.  The tasks of the day did not press too hard.  I was inwardly quiet.  Eventually I would either garden or create something in the kitchen and/or tend intimacy. This smacked of work but all was held more lightly than on other days.  This was not an orthodox Sabbath, just my Sabbath. By its end I was rested and more whole.

Restore us, O God of hosts;

      Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.   

Psalm 80 is a psalm of memory.  The author remembers how Israel was favored by God and takes sharp note of how rough life is, how once God reached out to free this little nation in Egypt, how they were shown a land and felt guided in taking possession of it.  Here is a memory of how the nation prospered growing from riverbank to sea. 

 

Early Americans created a history of seeing self as this new Israel. Be wary.

Here also is a memory of forgetfulness.  The nation eventually was breached, ravaged, lost, taken away, captive. I know this feeling of forgetting what is core to me and God.  I know what it is to wake up and feel lost a bit or much. It is from this place we can journey home again. Do you know this place?  What draws you unaware from God and good?  

Yet even in this broken place, memory and hope find root.  

Turn now, O God of host, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine;

            preserve what your right hand has planted.  

This is more than a Sabbath hope, it is a Sabbath awareness.  Here is the awareness that there are times when we need to realign our life with God and God’s energy.  Here is where one finds a gift of being tended, beheld, preserved to a greater purpose.  This is no quick fix, but a layered fix.  Memory of whose we are begins our journey.  Memory of how we might live now aids growth.  Choosing alertness even when we might not like it, is essential to our accepting the tending of God. We are being now mended. So the psalmist returns:

Restore us, O God of hosts;

      Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.    

Israel was restored though it is not clear she ever regained all she lost both materially and spiritually.  However, I am aware we tend to wax nostalgic when we look back over life.  Perhaps there truly was as complete a restoration to how life was lived in former days.  We do know forgetfulness returned, tensions of inner growth and rejected growth remained real.  They do as well today in the vineyard where we live and in each one of us.

As I grow older I notice things I long missed about myself. My gentleness has worn places just as my brokenness has healed places.  I have some old patterns of rebellion I still struggle to tend and turn God-ward. So here I am at my Monday Sabbath and I pray this psalm.  But I remember it is a community psalm so you can join me.

Turn now, O God of host, look down from heaven;

       Behold and tend this vine;

            preserve what your right hand has planted.  

Restore us, O God of hosts;

      Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved

The Third Sunday of Lent: Our right mind

After reading the Morning Prayer lesson from Mark 5:1-20 about Jesus and the “demoniac” and the swine and the village, I came on this poem.  It opened my view.  I have always thought of the demoniac as an angry schizophrenic.  Now I wonder.  Did he have reason to be angry?  Did his division and anger grow by being ostracized, by being so heavily chained?  Has not mine at times, when my story, my inner becoming was simply not to be in view?  What happens when no one wants to hear our story, our insights, our becoming?  Even if this deafness is momentary, does it not bind us and ask us to lose ourselves…for whom?

The poet here was involved in the Polish Resistance under the Nazis and then was disillusioned by communism before immigrating to the USA where he eventually became a professor at Berkeley.  He was raised Catholic and it shows through.

Czeslaw Milosz, “Readings”

            From The Collected poems 1931-1987  (pg 234)

You asked me what is the good of reading the Gospels in Greek.
I answer that it is proper that we move our finger
Along letters more enduring than those carved in stone,
And that, slowly pronouncing each syllable,
We discover the true dignity of speech.
Compelled to be attentive we shall think of that epoch
No more distant than yesterday, though the heads of caesars
On coins are different today. Yet it is still the same eon.
Fear and desire are the same, oil and wine
And bread mean the same. So does the fickleness of the throng
Avid for miracles as in the past. Even mores,
Wedding festivities, drugs, laments for the dead
Only seem to differ. Then, too, for example,
There were plenty of persons whom the text calls
Daimonizomenoi, that is, the demonized
Or if you prefer, the bedeviled (as for “the possessed”
It’s no more than the whim of a dictionary).
Convulsions, foam at the mouth, the gnashing of teeth
Were not considered signs of talent.
The demonized had no access to print and screens,
Rarely engaging in arts and literature.
But the Gospel parable remains in force:
That the spirit mastering them may enter swine,
Which, exasperated by such a sudden clash
Between two natures, theirs and the Luciferic,
Jump into water and drown (which occurs repeatedly).
And thus on every page a persistent reader
Sees twenty centuries as twenty days
In a world which one day will come to its end.

 

He makes me wonder.  Are all the demonized truly possessed or do we make them so?  I think of William who for a decade came to daily mass where I was a priest in Newark, NJ.  He was quite lost to us if one asked the pedestrian question: “Tell me about you?”  He got lost and babbled then.  But if you simply waited time he would emerge.  He had served in Vietnam.  Some trauma had overtaken him.  He prayed deeply as was clear from the small items he brought to the altar rail.  He remembered me with little prayer cards, or a mass being said elsewhere for me. He had  a heart for Jesus and me…just it was wounded long ago.

And so I have to wonder; where do demons come from, not only when they go but when they enter?  Do we “bind people with chains” for the “common good,” such as sending them to war or asking them to seal up their story when they come home?  Is it done when we do not want to listen, to hear what might disturb our easiness?  Is it achieved when we see someone who differs by skin or accent or tattoo or political view or the beloved they hold and we cease to listen, to care?

Perhaps like Jesus I need only whisper: “Come out; speak your name and story. I will listen.”  And in our speaking silently, our listening, our allowing the other to penetrate our protected lives, that which seemed demon goes over the cliff and we are left with a story and a right mind.

“And Jesus said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”…and all marveled.”

Saturday after the Second Sunday in Lent: Time to listen a little deeper.

I am a member of an organization which has a troubled recent past.  The details are not important here but suffice it to say there was a leadership issue resulting in friction between the employed leader, the elected leaders and the membership.  In the end part of the membership walked, the employed leader was replaced with a more attuned one and the elected leaders have largely changed.   

The current elected leaders and committees are attuned to growth now and there is the question of healing. Yet there is a sharp memory of past hurts and hopes to not only grow but restore to membership those who left.  This is almost always the case, at least on the part of some members, in organizations that survive a conflict.  Some talk has gone on about the how of this.  There is the first grab at “just invite them back.”  But this always smacks of not recognizing the hurts on the part of those who left and those who stayed.  Someone got burned and wisely left the fire.  Others stayed and tried to control the fire once they saw the flames.  They have different perspectives on the situation and the journey of integrity.  And there is as always the question of forgiveness and who forgives what and to what effect.  And beneath this is the question of blame and how we use it to injure each other or go pat it to get to truth.

We, in our house, have wondered about the truth and reconciliation process employed in South Africa as a model of organizational healing.  This however requires a willingness to sit with each other in respect, patience, with a desire for a truthful way forward. It requires the willingness to recognize that truth has many sides, like the Eastern story of the 6 blind men and the elephant.  That raises the question: Who is willing to invest this care in the organization as a way of healing the past to create this way forward.   Many organizations just seek to leave the past as a rumor of right and wrongs and repeat some of them unaware. 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of John we just leapt right over chapter 6 into John 7:1-13.  When I went to see why, it was because chapter 6 was read just before Lent this year. Chapter 6 is a wonderful one on bread, feeding the 5 thousand, people wanting more, Jesus offering living bread, people wanting that…until it meant following him as the Living Bread of God, the one who houses God’s wisdom for a full and costly life.  This is the point where many simply say: “I’m out of here…who can understand all this!!”  Others recognize that while they don’t fully get it, Jesus still seems the best hope for eventually getting to the core of life in their time.  They, though fewer in number, stay as disciples.

In 7:1-13 Jesus’ brothers ask him to come to Judea for the Feast of Tabernacles, a wonderful week of hanging out as family together in “booths” to remember God’s faithfulness.  Oh by the way, his brothers never understand Jesus until after the resurrection.  So Jesus politely declines and says he will hang in the Galilee making the statement: “My time has not fully come yet, but your time is always here.”  Then he sends his disciples on home to Judea, hangs a bit and secretly goes to Judea.  Why secretly? Because the authorities are beginning to be uneasy with his impact and his sense of truth and God’s intervention in their common life.  This won’t stop Jesus, but he is not blind to choosing his times and places for addressing truth and the conflict it can bring. The powerful often like to muzzle truth that differs from their own version.

And so I come away from Jesus knowing there are times when we can tell our truth and times that we cannot yet do so.  There are times when our side of truth can land on a listener and invite us both deeper. But this means their truth will be invited to land on us as well. There are times when this can happen and times when this will not happen. 

Sometimes we have to bide our time, wait for the right moment and atmosphere if what we want to have is a constructive effect.  This is not the same as just being afraid of conflict, it is rather prudent timing.  It does mean we will however have to sit with each other, listen, go deeper, know we come from sometimes divided experience, listen some more, go out on a limb to trust that a deeper truth will emerge.  We may risk something or much.   

This is how we save or enrich a valued relationship, a marriage, a partnership, a beloved child/parent, a church, an organization, a governing relationship like our nation. 

It is also how we find and are found by God. So again I come to prayer, I open my both fractured self and my best self in a place of both my and God’s listening.  I open to Jesus in scripture.  I will be gentle with him and he with me.  I will grow.  I must believe that God too either grows or if not invites me to see a side I have missed. I remember “my time is always here.” 

And the best churches and other organizations practice in some manner this way of being together.  And every now and then they too have a conflict.  Time to return to listening and forgiving.
 

 

The water color above: Watching time | Kim, Se Hyung – Cairo American College, Egypt

Friday in the Second Week of Lent: Bread and salt

I got up this morning and before coffee began to make bread in the bread machine so we would have some bread by mid morning.  I was putting in the last ingredient when suddenly I thought perhaps I put in a tablespoon of salt rather than a teaspoon.  The first effort was to remove some but since I had created the well for the yeast already the salt was not distinct.  Do I toss the whole thing and drink some coffee and regather my wits or do I simply hope the ingredient is either right or will not ruin the loaf?  Do I potentially waste time or ingredients? I am letting the bread machine run its course as I drink coffee.

Lent has a lot to do with moral ingredient in our lives.  I suppose there may be some right proportion we are to seek so we live clearer lives. Certainly we who practice faith under the Christian umbrella learn to strive for “right living.”  And yet we also trip and fall, or at least stumble from time to time. 

I am doing taxes right now, the gathering and sorting phase which I hate.  There are all these little temptations to ‘modify’ a fact or two in my favor. I hate those temptations largely because I will pay for my choice one way or the other, either in tax dollars or a potential audit.  The later sounds like judgment day to me, while the former is all about greed.

I sometimes observe mid-life families with multiple children in restaurants who look prosperous and calm and wonder how they got to seem so perfect.  When they are home is it all so certain?  Are they as together as they seem to me?  How do you get to be that way?  And then another question follows.  What am I not seeing?

Lent reminds us that there is an unseen aspect of all our lives.  It is the inner arena of moral choice and whether or how we value what is called ‘right living.’  What happens to us when we fail in choice or this right living, as I sometimes do?

Today’s readings from Romans 2:25-3:18 and from John 5:30-47 are not the easiest to bring to understanding.  The Roman’s discourse is long and complex but what Paul is struggling to put to us is that the Law of God, given the Jews, is a gift of vast value.  It shows us what is expected of a faithful life.  But it is also a potential problem.  We may teach it and not follow it or even follow it with a judgmental tightness.  As we seek to follow it few if any are perfect. It is a tutor which invariably ends with the faithful knowing they fall short of perfection.  While it is a good tutor, God sees we need more.  So St. Paul speaks of a spiritual circumcision of the heart. Here we both see the possibility of good and the difficulty of always seeking it. It cuts us to our quick.  But here is more.  Here we also are able to be opened to Grace, the love of God we see in Jesus that offers to forgive, redirect, plant in us hope to begin again.  And Grace holds us in this ever new beginning.

 

That brings us to John 5.  Jesus has been indirectly challenged as to why he would heal on the Sabbath and break to law.  He then goes into an intricate description of how his work aligns with God’s continuous work of healing the world, seeking to draw us Godward.  The author of John is clear; we are not made whole simply by seeking every jot and tittle of the Law, but aligning ourselves with the deeper motivation, God’s love of all.

But I know you have not the love of God within you. I have come in the Father’s name and you do not receive me…” 5:41-43 

The point of the discourse is that if we look on Jesus, follow his teaching (Word), we will encounter the core of God.  Is it that the Sabbath of our Heart will burst with healing and wholeness from time to time?  Will I bypass greed and do a better thing?  Will I just forgive the imperfection of ME and perhaps my family yet again?  I do so hope so.

I wonder what this Sabbath healing might be for you who read this.

When the bread is done, if I put too much salt in it, can I just slather it with no salt butter or maybe jam and redeem it?  Or will I just look on it lovingly, say I made a mistake, and begin again. Both I think taste of grace.

Do bird's like bread with too much salt?

 

I’ll know in an hour.