Thursday, May 4, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
What kind of king is this?
Paul pulled no punches before the synagogue officials of Antioch.
My brothers, if one of you has a word of exhortation for the people, please speak. Paul got up and spoke: “God, according to his promise, has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus. John the Baptist said, “I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.”
Paul was not with the disciples in the Upper Room. Perhaps he knew, perhaps he didn’t, of Jesus’ bending of the knee, unfastening his tunic, and washing the disciples’ feet, all of them. And then an hour or two later he was arrested and gone from them, and they thought it was forever.
When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. As you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.”
So the last thing Jesus did before he was taken away, was to wash their feet. And in his absence he wanted them to wash the feet of others, become servants, refuse the false costuming of the high and mighty, share themselves with others of every kind and station. Of course he wants that for me too, and in his unconditional love and acceptance of me he promises that I will see him in the faces and fallen postures of starving, thirsty, naked strangers, even in the eyes of prisoners (Matthew 25).
All I have to do is show up, be on time, and God will work. A famous-at-the-time prophet from Arkansas named Bob Jones told me that a long time ago. Margaret laughed, because I was always late.
Mr. Bob Jones felt the fingertips of various leaders of the Vineyard where we attended and offered them ideas about their gifting. He thought all my fingertips were tingling. I guess they still are. Sometimes I show up, sometimes I don’t. I wonder about my laziness, and my resentment of the German-American Work Ethic foisted on me by my father, and my father’s father, and so on. Lutherans receive a mixed message about grace and works. In my case I worked hard and didn’t feel much satisfaction, and received great gallups of grace and didn’t feel worthy. But that seems OK; lots of work got done and God kept on loving me through sin after sin after sin, and now …
I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever, with my mouth will I make known your faithfulness, I do declare, your love stands firm. O Lord God Almighty, who is like you, you are mighty and your faithfulness surrounds you.
As he got older Henri Nouwen often wrote about what he was learning. He wrote about the pain of guilt, and also about God’s acceptance.
There is a real pain in your heart, a pain that truly belongs to you. You know now that you cannot avoid, ignore or repress it. It is this pain that reveals to you how you are called to live in solidarity with the broken human race.
Funny, I usually have thought I need to be free from this pain of guilt. Maybe not so much. I think I must own it, and let it go, knowing it will come back again at an “opportune time.” When I can let it go again.
We are all in this same boat. And Jesus is just over there, walking on the waves.
 (Acts 13, Psalm 89, Revelation 1, John 13)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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