Psalms 38 * 119:25-48; Job 12:1, 14:1-22; Acts 12:18-25; John 8:47-59In Holy Women, Holy Men today, we remember and honor David Pendleton Oakerhater. I commend his short biography to you found in the HW,HM. I am struck by a phrase in the Collect to be used today: ....Liberate us...from bondage to self.... Bondage to self.
I think this is one of those concepts that Jesus was constantly talking about in his ministry. He wants us to have a different center of balance from which we pivot to interact with the world. Jesus is driving at this when he says to the people he is talking to today: Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death. To which those folks listening scoffed at the seeming absurdity of that statement. They were focused on what they were sure was true. These folks did not want to think about the world in a different way. Jesus is pushing them to see God among them, with them, living life with them. Not some frozen idea residing somewhere in the cosmos. And to take that concept and to see life and our purpose here as something beyond self.
That's all I got this morning.
jfd+
Copyright 2010, The Rev. John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.
Photo courtesy of Matthew Harlan Jarvis.
Exactly what I needed to hear.
ReplyDelete