Heading back to my island retreat for the summer, I drove about ten hours yesterday before getting ready to rest my joints, chow down and konk out. That chowing down part was especially good as I indulged in one of my favorite traveling foods, country fried steak. It was especially poignant because I was dining compliments of my recently departed friend and coworker who had given me a gift card to Cracker Barrel a year or so ago. Redeeming the card for a delightful meal was a special treat because I was thinking of her. She was not a shy and demurring person but she loved with the same intensity that she recognized some of life’s worst bullshit. ( more her word there, than mine )
Sometimes we get so involved in the stuff of daily living we might forget to stop and smell the roses. That takes in a rather large spectrum of activities but clearly the most important is how we love and that means how we interact with others. It isn’t merely a question of whether ‘we play nice with others’. Love is how we are sincerely and deeply touched, to the core of our being.
In today’s passage, and others related to it, we know just how much Jesus loved Lazarus. If Jesus was fully human, part of that is having friends, not acquaintances, but real friends, hanging out, telling stories and jokes, perhaps even taking some water at hand and making some mighty fine wine!
In today’s passage we are reminded, as I was last night, of the power of love and friendship. We are called to love freely and empty ourselves totally to others. Yes, it hurts when people ‘move on’ but our lives are richer and the love does not die.
I often note at wakes how Jesus understood just how hard it is to say goodbye. He was fully human and as such said goodbye to the human bonds with his beloved John, his mother, the apostles and many others with whom he lived and loved. We must take time to love and live, party on, bare our souls, be radical, be honest, live fiercely.
For love and life, we give thanks and pray.
John 12:1-10
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary 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. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (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.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
No comments:
Post a Comment