"Bread for Our Journey" is an online approach to faith development for individuals, groups, and families. This weekly collection is curated and written by Saint John's staff.
With Bread, let us deepen our understanding
of scripture, open our awareness of different voices and wisdom,
and broaden our spiritual practices that bring creativity and justice to our world.
|
|
Wherever you see this "For All Ages" icon, consider inviting your children to connect and reflect in these ways with you.
|
|
April 3rd, 2022
Through this season of Lent, we are intentionally turning to God. As we reflect on stories of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we deepen our connection with God’s unconditional love we call grace.
This week we hear the story of an evening in the last week of Jesus' life where Mary anoints Jesus with oil.
|
|
READ THE WORD
Our scripture for today is taken from the worship readings for this Sunday.
John 12:1-8
Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living. Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them. Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house.
Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, even then getting ready to betray him, said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces.” He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them.
Jesus said, “Let her alone. She’s anticipating and honoring the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have me.”
The Message Translation
|
|
REFLECT ON THE TEXT
Use these questions as prompts to journal on your own or to reflect in discussion with family or friends.
In this story, Judas is frustrated with Mary of Bethany for anointing Jesus with expensive perfume. Judas calls it a waste of resources (in an aside, the author of John tells us that Judas is not being altruistic but makes this comment because of his own greed). Mary's perfume was very valuable, and she have it all to Jesus.
What could this mean in the 21st century?
What do you have an abundance of in your life?
How might you share what you have with ministries and people God calls you to support?
Collage artist unknown
|
|
Each week through Lent we will share traditional symbols to tell the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
You can use these symbols in your home as touchpoints throughout the season and a way to spark faith conversations with your loved ones.
|
|
SYMBOLS OF LENT
This week's symbol is bread.
There are so many types of bread in the world. Some are hard on the outside and soft on the inside. Some are unleavened, which means they don't rise; they are flat. Some breads have meant or cheese inside. Some are sweet. I wonder what is your favorite type of bread?
Jesus talked about bread and used bread quite a bit in his teaching. In the special prayer he taught us, Jesus said we should ask God for bread every day. He also performed a miracle in which he fed more than five thousand people with just five loaves of bread. Before, he died, Jesus said to his friends that eating bread together was one of the ways they could remember him. Bread is is so important.
Bake, eat or smell bread. As you do, remember how many cultures around the world enjoy bread and eat it everyday. And remember Jesus, as he suggested!
Adapted from Faithful Families for Lent, Easter, and Resurrection by Traci Smith
|
|
PONDER THE TEXT
Let us take a deeper look at what is happening in and around the text.
Cynthia Bourgeault has spent years studying Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ closest apostles, often conflated with a prostitute. Cynthia reclaims Magdalene’s significance as Jesus’ beloved companion and a model of authentic love. She writes:
Christ is not Jesus’s last name—an obvious but so-often overlooked truism. It means “the anointed one.” And however much his followers may have wished for the ceremonial anointing that would have proclaimed him the Davidic Messiah, the fact is that he became “the Anointed One” at the hands of an unidentified woman who appeared out of nowhere at a private dinner bearing a jar of precious perfume and sealed him with the unction of her love. . . .
I believe that the traditional memory of Mary Magdalene as Jesus’s anointer . . . holds the key to understanding . . . the Passion as an act of substituted love. It also . . . offers a powerful ritual access point to the Christian pathway toward singleness and “restoration to fullness of being.” If we are fully to avail ourselves of Mary Magdalene’s wisdom presence today, it will be, I believe, primarily through recovering a wisdom relationship with the ritual of anointing—that is, coming to understand it . . . as an act of conscious love marking the passageway into both physical and spiritual wholeness.
|
|
All four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John! - include a story about a woman anointing Jesus with expensive, fragrant oil. In Luke, people wondered why Jesus would let a woman and a sinner touch
him at all. But in each story, Jesus is grateful. Jesus recognizes the woman generously gave out of love for him. Jesus does not judge her for being wasteful, nor for being a sinner, nor for being a woman. Jesus says there will always be opportunities to give to the poor, but at this moment in time, her gift was important.
The gift was important because Jesus knew he was going to die soon, and he saw this gift as a symbol of the journey he was about to take. The people around him did not understand this. They could not appreciate the special gift. They were too distracted by their judgments.
We don’t always know why people give the way they give. We are not always good judges of what is a generous gift and what is a wasteful decision. We may misunderstand why people use their resources the way they do. Jesus’ kind reaction shows us it is okay to see things differently. God understands what is going on. And even if a giver makes a mistake, or wastes something, or gives a gift that makes
no sense, there are always opportunities to give again.
Extravagant Gifts
When we give or receive a gift that is meaningful to us, it can feel like a special treasure, whether it’s something big and fancy or small and simple. As a family, share with each other some of your favorite gifts you’ve ever gotten and some of your favorite gifts you’ve ever given. It’s okay if they are experiences instead of things too!
• How do you decide how much to give to someone in need?
• Can a gift be wasteful? What makes a gift worthwhile?
• How do you know if a gift is the right gift for the right time?
Adapted from Illustrated Ministry, Lent for Families Curriculum
|
|
REST IN GOD
This season we turn to "Good Enough: 40-ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection" by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie. These spiritual practices can create simple and sacred spaces for you to meet with God just as you are.
Take a blank piece of paper and pen. Without thinking about what you will write, put your pen in motion and let it talk to you about what is here, right here and right now. Write letters and words and phrases; write the chaos that is your life. In all its strange detail. Use color words and emotion- laden adjectives and pile it all up, all the blessings that your pen knows about that you haven't thought of yet, or brought to mind for years.
Draw a circle around it all. This is what is. Then lift your pen, start in a new place, and let your pen make a word salad of desires. All of it. The things you have long hoped for, even the things that are now over. All your hearts deepest and most hidden longings. Let it flow.
Then draw a circle around it all. This is what was, and what may be. They are here too, though hidden in memory or in desire. And all of this- past, present and future- is still you. It is the particularity that is your life. Precious beyond rubies. Utterly irreplaceable, indelible. Because as soon as you turn over the page and walk away, it is still there with you. So do it, turn the page, but keep the pen. It knows a lot.
__________
|
|
PRAY
She comes to the table. She comes from beyond the boundaries. She comes as if she belongs. She comes as if her whole life has been distilled into this one gesture that she offers: lifting, breaking, pouring. She comes with no words, yet with her entire being she proclaims a message both prophetic and priestly as she ministers to Jesus just days before his death...
We in the church often think of acts of beauty and grace as somehow separate from—and less important than—acts of justice and caring for others. Like Jesus’ dining companions that day, we tend to think of what is creative and artful as a luxury, as tangential, as wasteful.
Yet this woman’s graceful gesture—and Jesus’ grateful receiving of it—dispels such a notion. This story impresses upon us how beauty and justice are not separate from one another but are each part of our response to the Christ who offers himself to us with extravagant love and grace, and who calls us to offer bread and beauty from the same hand.
As we reflected on this woman’s lavish gift that ministered to Jesus’ deepest need, I shared a question I want to share with you. It’s a question inspired by Macrina Wiederkehr’s reflection on this story in her book Seasons of Your Heart:
"What are you willing to waste on Jesus?"
Blessing of Balm
When we see
the body of Christ
still broken in this world,
may we meet it
with lavish grace
and pour ourselves out
with extravagant love.
|
|
If you have questions or suggestions for this curriculum,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
