Second Sunday in Lent (Year 4, NL)

For two decades, every Holy Thursday I heard the same voice singing the same song.

John 13:1–17, 31b–35

Jesus uses both words and deeds to prepare his followers for his absence. Are the disciples watching for what it means to really, really love? Are we?

I have a friend who visits his mother's burial site each year on the anniversary of her death. When the day comes, the mood is always solemn and deeply reflective--and tremendously difficult for other people in his life. What they don't know is that this annual ritual is generative, corrective. It helps anchor my friend for the rest of the year. 

I have another friend who almost never visits his parents' gravesite.

Slaughtering animals, washing feet—I can smell the rooms in both Exodus and John.

The lectionary readings for Ash Wednesday are the same each year. So it almost doesn’t feel like Ash Wednesday if I go through the day without hearing Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”

The feet and legs of the homeless men we serve at the Bowery Mission in New York are a testimony to the pain they endure daily. Many of their legs are swollen because, like Jesus, they have nowhere to lay their head to rest.

"Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world.” What happens when you know your time has come? What do you say to those closest to you?

John 13 begins with imminent betrayal, suffering, and death. Understandably, we envision the scene with somber images. But I wonder if we overlook Jesus’ joy.

I believe God can make us completely over, but I also believe that this is not always necessary.

As I came to the first student and his family, kneeling with outstretched hands, suddenly someone took out a phone and snapped a picture.

In my younger, decidedly anti-Christian days, I did not like the way Christians asked God for mercy. It reinforced my idea that “the Christian God” was cruel and punishing. After all, if God was a loving and compassionate God, one would not have to beg for mercy. And if God was cruel and punishing but at the same time righteous and just, then human beings were clearly bad and unworthy.

This whole system of thought—shameful people and cruel God—made me want to stay far, far away from Christianity and Christian churches.

Of the four kinds of love, affection is most linked to place. It arises among those who share a common life not by choice but by circumstance.

When Jesus moves away from the table, strips down, and ties a towel around his waist (John 13:4), I don’t think he is thinking about how stinky James’s feet always are, or about the bunions that have been growing on Matthew’s foot as they made their way to Jerusalem. Rather, he is in the process of inviting the disciples into the most wonderful life imaginable—one in which love, intimacy, and humble service bring both deep delight and freedom from trivialities.

The meeting of Benedict and Francis, characterized in the media as "potentially problematic," was in fact dramatically unproblematic.