IT IS RATHER HUMBLING

WEDNESDAY AFTER FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT 2015

I “fell off my horse” so to speak as I am posting my Wednesday blog on Friday…maybe I was stuck in Groundhog Day?

Today is Mark 12:18—44

Bishop Wright in his devotional focuses on verses 18—27. He highlights a point that Tertullian made. Tertullian (160 – 220 AD) was a Christian writer who lived in Carthage. Christianity at that time was new. People did not understand it. There were rumors that at Communion real flesh was eaten. People in power, the establishment felt threatened by it and so, “What would happen if a cannibal eats a Christian and then later is converted to Christianity…at the Resurrection who will have which bits of his body?” Tertullian was highlighting a commonly used ploy—when people feel threatened by a person or another group or an idea, they tell a silly story to make “rubbish of the idea.” Bishop Wright’s first point is to please understand that is what the Sadducees were doing. They are the elite. They run the Temple. They are in power. They feel threatened by Jesus. Jesus responds by turning to the Scriptures.

In fact beginning at verse 13 in chapter 12 there are a number of groups feeling threatened—first the Pharisees with the famous moment of “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s… Then the Sadducees and then the Scribes. Jesus responds to each. He then tells the bystanders to “watch out for these religious types” and the chapter closes with a faithful widow giving all she had. In the second half of verse 43 and verse 44 we read, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

And that is the part of the Scripture that is speaking to me today. I am late getting my post up…this is a Wednesday post on Friday. I have been running about (I think that I posted about busyness a few days back). We are running up to Holy Week and it is the natural crunch of work. There are two ironies for me. The first is that in my run up to Holy Week I am reading about Jesus’ Holy Week. He is challenging and getting challenged. The second irony is that some of my busyness is that I, one of those religious types Jesus is being challenged by, that I am with some people who really do give sacrificially. It is a privilege. They face all sorts of challenges…and yet they give to God through their labors, or their money, to the Cathedral. It is rather humbling…which is a good thing.