Lenten Devotion

Dear Faith Family:

 

I thank all of you for yesterday.  It was a day to savor.  It was a blessing to read cards, to visit and remember, to watch pictures and hear kind words that touched on all the many places of a journey in ministry that has covered so many years.  It seems like thank you is not enough but it is from the bottom of my heart.  Let us continue to share together in this most holy of the weeks of Lent and remembering who we are in our faith and to whom we are called to be faithful. 

 

Pastor Ken

 

March 29, 2010

To Save or to Savor?

Excerpt from John 12:1-11

"Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

E. B. White once observed, "If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. That makes it hard to plan the day."

In planning our days, confused as we are about how to spend them, we may wonder if the answer is found in moderation. But Jesus refused to criticize the woman who anointed him with lavish amounts of costly perfume. It seems that Jesus thinks we are meant to get carried away.

The Christian life is not so much about moderation. Instead, it is about rhythm. There is, indeed, a time to serve the world and a time to savor the world. To be sure, one can get stuck on one side of this dynamic rhythm, which can be about as dangerous as only inhaling or only exhaling. The dangers of only savoring the world are clear, leading to a life of self-indulgence. But just as certainly there are dangers in only serving the world. To only serve and never to savor the world is to be only the giver or gifts and never the receiver. It means that we never have to admit our need or to say thank-you.

So we are called to do both -- to serve and to savor -- not at the same time, perhaps, because that may not be possible, but each in turn at the appropriate time. Which is another way of saying that one's life depends on being inconsistent in the way all who both breath in and breath out are inconsistent.

Prayer

O God, help me both to serve and to savor -- and to know which I am called to do at this time. Amen.