Christian Testament Text for Sunday 16 January 2022

1 Corinthians 12:1-11          Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

Reflection        Just a few paragraphs after the text from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we discover even more gifts; ^“And God has apostles, prophets, teachers; deeds of power, gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. (1 cor 12.28)  And if you have not yet seen your gift mentioned, not to worry. Paul has several more lists. In his letter to the Romans we find gifts of ministering, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leading, compassion and cheerfulness. (12.6-8)  to which he adds in his letter to the Ephesians, apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors. (Eph 4.11-12)

Turns out just about anything that anyone does for the good of others ranks among the gifts given to humanity. And here is the thing, rather than being grateful recipients of these unearned gifts and generously dispersing them for the good of others, too often we identify with our gifts, presume to be the source of the gifts and exploit them to enhance our personal power, privilege or pleasure. Or we fall into a different trap, denying our gifts, hiding them under the proverbial basket, allowing them to dissipate and disappear. 

Translated from the Greek charisma, gifts are favors received without earning them, without merit. Charisma is also translated as grace which refers to God’s impelling goodness in relationship with humankind. Therefore we can think about our gifts as the outward and visible expression of God’s inward activation grace. 

Think of it this way. God’s grace is like a seed planted at the center of our hearts. When we bring our heads into our hearts the river of  consciousness opens the way for the seed of grace to flow, scratching the surface of our awareness. When grace rises to conscious awareness we are illumined. With our minds are illumined by grace we are ignited, on fire, compelled to allow that grace to flow through us in the form of our gifts.

This is what Paul means when he writes, “Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit… the same God activates all of the gifts in everyone.”

God activates the gifts that are already in us. All that is required is that we turn our attention around, bring our heads into our hearts, and open the way for grace to flow, delivering our particular gifts to consciousness and fruition.

So the question is how do we bring our heads into our hearts and open the way for grace to flow through us?

I believe we begin by consciously affirming our desire to be the vessels through which God’s grace flows. Then we turn our attention to our hearts. By directing our attention to the center of our chests, the core of our being, we take the intention of our head and bring it to our heart affirming, “It is my intention to be the vessel through which God’s grace flows.” Bringing our heads into our hearts we align our will in the will of God and when we are at one in the will of God, grace flows like a river to illumine our minds and deliver our gifts for the good of others. 

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Hebrew & Gospel Texts for Sunday 31 October 2021

Deuteronomy 6:1-9       Moses said: Now this is the commandment--the statutes and the ordinances--that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Mark 12:28-34        One of the scribes came near and heard the Saducees disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Reflection     Both Moses and Jesus preach about the dance of grace in the covenant relationship between God and humankind. First Moses summarizes the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments that the people of God received “On the mountain out of fire” just one chapter earlier in the Hebrew text. (Deut 5.6-18) Between thirteen and sixteen hundred years later Jesus quotes Moses, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength,” again summarizing the first five commandments then recaps the last five adding,”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The commandments and their summary constitute a bilateral covenant describing how humanity is meant to order life in relationship with God and one another.  Rather than legalistic imperatives, the commandments are actually descriptions of how we are to respond with grace to grace.  Our relationships with God and one another are meant to be articulated in the intimate mutuality of receiving and extending the movement of grace.

So what is grace?  In the Christian tradition grace has meaning beyond the secular understanding of good manners, elegant movements and poise. It means more than a deferment of time as in ‘grace period’ or the address of nobility, “Your Grace.”  In religious parlance grace refers to Divine favor in relationship with humankind. We understand grace as God giving God’s self to us so that we will embody that grace and extend it to others.  Which means, grace is not a thing, not a particular gift, “I thank God for the grace of giving me brown hair and making me short and providing a good medical plan.” No.

Grace is the movement, emergence, becoming of Divinity in and of, with and through each one of us. We are meant to participate in this dance of humanity with divinity and, as with every dance, graceful partners co-operate. The Divine spark at the core of each of us moves as grace inviting us to dance.  It is up to us to choose whether or not we accept the invitation. When we do say “yes,” grace flows to us and through us. We dance.

Although we can do nothing to earn or deserve grace it is our obligation to respond to grace. The eternally generative outpouring of Divine grace summons our unrestrained continuing of its flow through us to others.  Think of it as a dance between the effusion of God’s grace and our grace-filled response, grace upon grace upon grace flowing for the good of all. The  Decalogue as well as the summary of the law are meant to order our lives, essentially give us the dance steps to advance a mutuality of affection and exchange of grace for grace. 

How do we deliberately participate in the flow of grace to us and through us? We begin by recognizing the presence of grace. Acknowledging the kindness, comfort, help, assistance, advantage, aid, profit or goodness of grace flowing to us opens the way for grace to continue to flow through us. Consider it this way. You are a beautifully formed vessel filled with living water but  being preoccupied with the shape of your vessel you fail to notice the water and never open the spout that allows the water to flow. Not only will your neighbors’ thirst not be quenched, soon the living water will be stagnant and evaporate. Grace, like water, intends to flow to us and through us and it does so by our deliberate choice to allow the flow.

Describing the covenant relationship between God and humankind both Moses and Jesus are preaching good news because being in covenant with God and our neighbors elevates our relationships from sparring grounds for grumbling, if not outright war about entitlement, rights and responsibility to jointly generative collaboration where fulfilling our obligations to one another is not a burden but rather the outward and visible expression of the unearned grace poured to us and through us. Shall we dance?

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Gospel text for Sunday 19 November 2017

Matthew 25:14-30      Jesus said, “It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

Reflection         I remember being about twelve years old, standing in the reception area of my ballet class dance studio and overhearing my dance teacher’s side of a telephone conversation. “Yes, we do have one student, maybe two. Tall, slender, possible candidates. That would be lovely. No, none of the others.” 

I, the tiny one; short and rather more solid than slender, felt gut punched. There is no way I am a “possible candidate” for whatever it is my teacher is talking about. By grace somehow I understood that in spite of my love of the ballet, I was not given sufficient talents to be the prima ballerina I imagined. Not long thereafter I decided I would focus on what I actually was good at, science and english, analyzing and writing. 

An early stage of human development demands we take honest stock of who we are, assess and acknowledge our talents and then decide how we will make the most of them. This I believe is the message Jesus intends for his disciples in the parable of the slaves entrusted with their masters talents. 

If the man of means going on a journey represents God, then the disciples and all of us are the slaves, each given different talents and set free to determine how we will use, misuse or fail to use them. And here is the thing. We are each given different talents and the opportunity to employ them. We are not intended to contend with one another over talents we do not have. We are not all intended to be and to do the same thing. Rather, we are intended to accept our God given gifts and make the most of them. 

For reasons I cannot fathom, but certainly appreciate, my twelve year old self did not decide to hang in there and compete with the tall, slender ballerina types for a role for which I was not suited. Instead somehow I accepted the fact that I was more of a bookworm, a nerd, so reset my sights on being what I was naturally good at. 

Long before I heard about ‘gifts of the Spirit’ somehow by grace I was inclined to cooperate with what was given to me. I believe this spared me years of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” in what could have been my outer darkness, madly striving to be the long, lithe, prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet. 

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Gospel text for Sunday 12 June 2016

Luke 7:36-8:3        One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him-- that she is a sinner." Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "Teacher," he replied, "Speak." "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Reflection       I, the penitent said, “I confess to Almighty God, to God’s Church, and to you, that I have sinned by my own fault in thought, word, and deed, in things done and left undone; especially __________ “ at which point I began to read my magnum opus of transgressions. Hot tears delivered rivers of mascara to my chin. The priest to whom I spoke never flinched. Choking out the final words I handed the two damnable pages to him and continued. “For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember, I am truly sorry.  I pray God to have mercy on me.  I firmly intend amendment of life, and I humbly beg forgiveness of God and the Church, and ask you for counsel, direction, and absolution.” 

What have I done? Raised in a strict puritanical household where just about anything thought, said or done could be construed as sinful and grist for the mill of the Divine Judge, when I learned that the Episcopal Church I was joining offered a Rite of Reconciliation, a pastoral rite offered to anyone who desires to be set free from the oppressive power of sin I thought, “This is my chance to get rid of my lifetime of baggage.” So I sat down with my IBM computer and hammered out two painfully honest single spaced pages of my offenses. For a month I reviewed my narrative, everything from leaving the Presbyterian Church when I was thirteen to look for truth in philosophy and Eastern traditions, to being a single mom, divorced with a full compliment of 70s experiences hidden in my heart. This was going to be my once and for all time confession so I was determined to leave nothing out!

The priest was silent. “However will I be able to walk into this church again?” Finally I heard, “The way I see it Debra, you never stopped looking for God, arguing with God.  Sure, some of your adolescent behavior was well, adolescent. And your judgment has not always been the best. But Debra, that is not sin. It appears that your sin is scrupulosity.” The look on my face must have betrayed my stupor.

He continued. “You have been obsessively concerned with sin and compulsively driven to be perfect. You have not loved yourself as God loves you. Instead, you have put yourself in God’s place, acting like judge, jury and sentencer. This distorts your relationship with God and your self.” He handed me the self prejudicial pages and said, “Destroy these  pages and pray for the grace to be kind and gentle with your self. Sin is failure to see yourself as God sees you which means you are not able to see others as God sees them. This leads to a false sense of separation or alienation. When you leave my office go to the chapel and pray for the grace to love yourself as God loves you.” We concluded the Rite. (BCP447-8)

Embodying the way of Jesus the priest looked to my inherent goodness, not to my offenses. He saw me in the light of Christ, with the compassionate eyes of Jesus whereas I could only see myself with the critical eyes of the Pharisee whom we meet in Luke’s parable of Jesus, the Pharisee and the woman kneeling at Jesus' feet.

The Pharisee sees the weeping woman kissing Jesus’ feet and anointing them with ointment and immediately he leaps to the judgment that the woman is a sinner and Jesus cannot possibly be a prophet because if he was he would know what kind of woman was daring to touch him. By contrast, Jesus looks at the woman and sees the deeper truth of her fundamental goodness. He treats her with compassion and dignity and she experiences God’s love. The woman’s natural response is the outpouring of extravagant love; love that is welling up from within her in gratitude for the love she is receiving.

This is reconciliation, the restoration of relationship with God, with self and with all of creation. In the overabundant grace of restored relationship the natural response is extravagant love. Love poured out without measure.

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Gospel text for 6 March 2016

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

So Jesus told them this parable: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.

"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

    

Reflection        The most hopeful and glorious thing about this story for me is the overabundant  and unconditional welcome home the father gave to his estranged son. As soon as the profligate son admitted to himself,  (“came to him self”), that in violating his father’s trust he had also violated his relationship with God, harmony was restored. But the son did not know this. He thought his shameless actions condemned him to be of lesser value to his father. He thought he would have to beg forgiveness and assume the role of a hired hand. And those very thoughts changed everything. The son’s humility coupled with his desire to return home turned him from disorientation to reorientation. His choice to return to relationship with his father aligned him with the will of his father and with God. No groveling. No payment.

When the father “put his arms around his son and kissed him,” any concern for lost property, social stigma or irresponsible behavior was eradicated. The father immediately reinstated the son in the family and community. The father’s unrestrained welcome is the natural response to restored relationship, it is the grace filled, God given response.  

Here is the thing. In God’s economy what is primary is love and relationship. Action may be called sin in as much as it fails to enhance love or undermines relationships. The traditional understanding of sin as private acts that require explanation, amends, satisfaction or restitution fails to acknowledge the grace of God  that, “…does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” (1Cor 13.6-8a) 

In an imagined conversation between the father and returned son Louis Savary writes, “Let’s not focus on the past, my son. Stay focused on my love and my grace. Never let others discourage you concerning your past. There is much work to be done in the present and the future and you can best do your part in that work as my forward-looking free son…” This is recovery. This is resurrection life, given by grace to all who choose to change their minds and turn toward God. 

 Savary, Louis M. The New Spiritual Exercises: In the Spirit of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. NY. Pallets Press, 2010. p33.

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Gospel text for Sunday 21 February 2016

Luke 13:31-35        Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’"

Reflection         There is a lot going on in this text, in fact, the verb “to go” is what captures my imagination. The Pharisees’ warning to Jesus to “Get away…” can also be translated “Go away.” Immediately Jesus responds telling the Pharisees to go to Herod and that he must go and finish his work during the next three days on his way to Jerusalem. The irony is, Jesus tells the Pharisees that he has to go to Jerusalem to be killed in response to their warning to go away to avoid being killed.

It is also worth wondering, what turned the Pharisees around? All along the way the Pharisees have gone out of their way to challenge and entrap Jesus. Now, they are going out of their way to warn him that Herod wants to kill him? Why the sudden change of heart and tactic? Frankly, we have no idea what the Pharisees were thinking. Some commentators suggest their motives were genuine. Others suggest that even though the religiously conservative Pharisees secured their lives by working as arms of the state, interpreting Jewish law and maintaining order among the Jewish people, some of them described Herod the Great as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis, the evil genius of the Judean nation.”*  At the end of the day, Pharisees were Jews, not Romans. Their God was the God of Israel, not Herod.  

Apparently some of the Pharisees put their lives on the line when they warned Jesus to “Go away…” They chose to turn away from their comfortable alliance with the occupying Roman officials that insured their protected status in favor of turning toward the God of Israel. Turning toward God, following the way of Jesus, is costly. In fact, it costs everything. As the German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, grace is not cheap.

Grace requires more than being a law abiding citizen. Grace requires more than being socially and politically correct. Grace requires we go, pick up our cross and follow Jesus to Jerusalem, “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” It means dying to our old way of bartering for safety, security, esteem, power and control in exchange for obedience to secular authority.  Grace means being born again as people who put flesh on the bones of our faith by standing up for the dignity of all people. Grace invites us to risk everything, to put our safety, security, esteem, power and control on the line in order to go, to follow the way of Jesus and live according to a higher standard of dignity for all people. It seems, some of the Pharisees acted on this. 

Achtemeier, Paul J., Harper’s Bible Dictionary, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.), 1985.

Spino, Ken (Rabbi) (2010). "History Crash Course #31: Herod the Great (online)". Crash Course in Jewish History. Targum Press. ISBN 978-1-5687-1532-2. Retrieved 7 May 2013.

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Gospel text for 22 November 2015

John 18:33-37        Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Reflection        Pontius Pilate is a government guy concerned with the black and white of bureaucratic  matters. He needs to know, “Is Jesus a king and therefore a threat to the political kingdom of which Pilate is a part? or not?” But Jesus is not interested in political position. He is interested in truth. Presupposing Pilate's question, "What is truth?" I turn to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words definition of truth; “objectively, signifying "the reality lying at the basis of an appearance; the manifested, veritable essence of a matter" … ”even as truth is in Jesus," … meaning is not merely ethical "truth," but "truth" in all its fullness and scope, as embodied in Him; He was the perfect expression of the truth; this is virtually equivalent to His statement in John 14.6; “I am the way and the truth and the life.””

“The veritable essence of matter” is truth. This is the real heart of the matter. Truth is Jesus. Jesus is truth, the “veritable essence of matter,” Divine Presence. Truth (Jesus) is hidden from the eyes of those whose interests are defined by worldly position, power and politic. No doubt that is why Pilate goes on to ask Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18.38) Jesus never answers Pilate. If Pilate cannot see it standing in front of him, nothing Jesus can say will open his ears to hear it. By contrast Jesus sees beyond the things of this world to another reality, a spiritual realm. This alternate reality, the spiritual realm, is that for which he came into the world; to reveal the truth of something more than the political maneuvers of people bound to the kingdom of earth. For those who have eyes to see Jesus reveals the “veritable essence of matter” also understood to be the “uncreated light of God,” the “grace” of God, or the manifestation of living God in numberless shades of grey. 

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Gospel Text for Sunday, 12 February 2012

Mark 1:40-45
A leper came to Jesus begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.