Monday, February 19, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
The least of these
Be holy, for the Lord, your God, am holy.
At the beginning of the film Doctor Zhivago, under a backdrop of the snow-covered Ural Mountains, young Yuri Zhivago marches in a funeral procession. His mother has died. Her body is carried on a bier. She is very young and very beautiful. The priest intones, “Now is life’s artful triumph of vanities destroyed, for the spirit has vanished from its tabernacle. Its clay grows black. The vessel is shattered, voiceless, motionless, dead.”
The priest dressed in black continues. “Commiting which unto the grave, let us beseech thee …” The priest stands silent, the gravediggers place the casket’s lid, and the body of his mother descends into the ground. They shovel in the soil and cover her.
When everyone has left except his new “family,” he places the small bouquet of flowers which he carried during the funeral procession on the mounded pile of dirt.
That night a spring storm howls outside. Yuri sleeps alone in a room with a single casement window. A tree’s black branches tap on the window, hammer on the panes. Outside the snowy wind blows the wreaths and flowers off his mother’s grave.
Russian authors and script writers write about the souls of their characters. I have heard that for spiritual advisers, the spirit comes FIRST. Yuri became a physician and a poet, a giver of all good things in the years before and after 1917, when Russia was ripped apart by the Communist Revolution. The atheist philosophy of communism eliminated SOUL from its social equations. But it did not remove the spiritual from the Russian people.
The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple.
In a comedy about Russia, Hedy Lamarr loves Clark Gable because he has a soul. Unlike other Americans, as she says. In a book by Michael O’Brien, The Father’s Tale, the father searches for his son across the Soviet Union, and as he travels encounters several men and women for whom the spirit comes first, for whom soul is all that matters.
Many of these people welcome martyrdom, an opportunity to give themselves over to God without recourse. 100 percent. Kit and kaboodle. If they die, they will stop sinning and rise into the arms of their Father. Spirit comes first. It’s all that matters.
I personally do not expect to encounter martyrdom, in the near future or indeed, in my life. And although I am spiritual first, or so I think, I am puzzled by how to live “in the world but not of the world.” During the compelling sermon yesterday, I caught myself thinking about prescriptions at Sam’s Club. In our Sunday School class I searched Amazon for a sleeveless sweater to replace my old one. When we prayed at the end of our class, the prayers involved physical needs of one person after another.
But Jesus brings together our spirit and our body with ease.
I was hungry, and you gave me food.
I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.
Jesus does not separate himself from the poor and the lost. He is not just among them, he is within them.
Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.
He is within me, whether or not I am distracted by my body and its needs. But truly, I know him best when I forget myself, and invite and serve the ones around me. And receive with gratitude their serving of me. And know we all of us hear the sound of Jesus calling, Jesus rescuing, Jesus loving.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
 (Leviticus 19, Psalm 19, 2 Corinthians 6, Matthew 25)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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