Something new, both practical and mystical
Lent 5 Sunday 3 April 2022
Readings Fifth Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21
16 Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
17 who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18 Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
Philippians 3:4-14
4If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
John 12:1-8
12Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
Thoughts and Reflections
The Prophet Isaiah wrote: I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
… do you not perceive it? I’m afraid all too often we don’t. The passage is asking us to acknowledge that God is bringing us an exciting future but they also call us to honour the past. ‘I am about to do a new thing…’ God is constantly doing a new thing, and God’s new thing builds on God’s past faithfulness. God is really an interfering God, because God interferes in our world and in our history. By doing this God takes us beyond our pre-conceived limits of faith to unimagined new possibilities of faithful service.
All too often in the Church, we believe that faith means sticking to our human-made institutional structures. But faith does not mean that. True faith leads us into chaos, an iconoclastic chaos that pushes us onward. While that is exciting, innovative faith does need to be balanced by honouring tradition and discovering the order that enlivens and inspires. Maybe I’m bias, (Surely not?) but I think Anglicanism can provide that.
In the Old Testament reading Isaiah proclaims that God is about to do a new thing! The One who has delivered the children of Israel in the past will deliver them again in the future, bringing them from captivity to freedom, from the heaviness of the past to the openness of the future. God is taking the initiative and presenting new possibilities to a people who, like their parents in Egypt, could see no way forward.
‘I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth.‘ This is an important message for post-pandemic churches to hear. Even before the pandemic closed churches for a period, we were fearful of our budget deficits, our shrinking memberships, and our aging congregations. And because of this fearfulness, we were, and still are, tempted to stop right where we are and just tick over as long as we can. The result is that we end up struggling between tradition and innovation, the past and the future- neither fish nor fowl.
I saw a wonderful quote from Martin Luther King this week. He said “the Church has been an echo rather than a voice, a tail light behind … secular agencies, rather than a headlight guiding men progressively and decisively to higher levels of understanding.” Yes, all too often the 21st Century church has been a red tail light we see chasing after secular institutions who took the lead, but God wants the Church to be a headlight, illuminating a new positive future for itself and the world. Our way forward takes us beyond the past, even the positive past, to God’s creative future.
Today’s scripture invites us to explore spiritual disciplines that open us to God’s provocative possibilities for the future. God calls us to be a headlight aimed at the horizons of peace and care and love. Today’s readings remind us that even the small and struggling churches can be vital and missional, provided they are open to God’s new thing. Saving one soul can save the world, and any congregation can be a world-saver.
This comes through clearly in the New Testament reading where Paul challenges us to go forward in faith with eyes on the prize which is being one with Christ. Faith is not backward-looking. God invited Paul to something more than the rabbinical training he underwent where he became righteous under the law. God was inviting him to a living relationship with a living God. But Paul is not jettisoning his past. His moving forward depended on his past just as our moving forward as congregations depend on the commitment of those who have gone before us. Still, Paul challenges us to keep our eyes on the prize. Healthy faith – abundant living – looks ahead, and is inspired by visions of the future, grounded in the accomplishments of the past.
The Gospel reading portrays two essential facets of love but also shows us two sides of faith that we are called to follow, the active and the contemplative. In the reading Martha is serving others in a practical way. She makes sure that the guests are receiving appropriate hospitality. Perhaps Martha tends to be too task-oriented and anxious – she wants things just right – but her service is essential to the evening and makes it possible for Mary’s attentiveness to Jesus.
In the Church we need people concerned with bricks and mortar, and we need mystics and imaginative thinkers, too. They are the yin and yang of congregational life. The Marthas in our congregations pay the bills, so the Marys can love extravagantly. We need housework and romance in a relationship and consistency and mysticism in the church as well as our personal lives. There is a time for building the infrastructure and ensuring institutional well-being for the long-haul, this is Martha’s gift, and there is a time to throw caution to the wind, Mary’s contribution. Perhaps, in their own spiritual growth, Mary will become more earthly-minded and Martha more imaginative and mystical.
Yes, God does call us to something new, and our novelty in this time and place is grounded in God’s novel inspirations throughout history and embodied in this present moment.
