Saturday, March 7: Patti Hopper

John 7:6. [Jesus said], “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.”

As I parked my car at the grocery store, I noticed a man sitting on the bench, surrounded by what appeared to be his belongings. After I got out of my car and headed towards him I told him there was a container of grapes on the front seat of my car and he was welcome to them. I suggested he put the container back in the car. He said, “My name is Herman,” and he smiled broadly and so I told him my name.

I went and did my shopping. When I returned the empty container was back on the seat. “Thank you Patti,” said Herman. I felt like I had a new friend.

My “time” to pass along the teachings of Jesus was, and is, always here.                

  —Patti Hopper

Friday, March 6: Mary Pneuman

John 5:34. I say these things so that you may be saved.

“What will the neighbors say?” is an old refrain that still echoes somewhere in the back of my head, and in truth, much of my understanding of “who I am” has been shaped by approval or disapproval from others. More often than not, I have feared being found lacking (someone once told me I tended to examine my faults “under a microscope.”) Growing up, I depended on my parents or grandparents (and Santa Claus) to decide if I was “bad” or “good”—“okay,” or “not quite okay.” Star stickers, ribbons, medals, grades, achievement and results became the indicators of how well I measured up—if I was worthy of respect and approval—even love from others.

Along the way, I have come to learn that what ”the neighbors” think is often wrong and that the fences I’ve constructed for protection from revealing too much of myself kept me apart from those with whom I yearned to be in closer relationship, especially God.

In John 5:30-47, Jesus reminds us that we will be saved by our belief in Him, not human testimony (including our own). Earlier, He said that even though John the Baptist had testified to the truth, His own testimony was greater because the authority to judge had been given to the Son by the one who sent Him.

So as children of God, we are justified by his Son and are freed from the bondage of false judgment. To be slaves to self-doubt and human judgments separates us from the love of God, who, through Jesus, graces us with perfect freedom to be who we were created to be.

In the interest of compassionate and loving human relationships, it is important to be aware of our shortcomings and consider what our neighbors may think, but we need always to remember that God is our ultimate judge. The Word of God is forever trustworthy and true. We are saved by our faith in Him.              

—Mary Pneuman

Thursday, March 5: Marilyn Pedersen

John 5:19. Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”

I read the verses surrounding this passage and rediscovered the story of how the Pharisees were looking for any excuse to persecute Jesus for healing the sick and performing his wondrous miracles. Jesus went to great lengths to explain that his power (gifts) were not his own. God was performing the miracles, Jesus was merely the instrument. Jesus was pointing the way…if you heard Jesus’ words and believed in God, you would not be condemned. There is life after death.

The Christian faith is about believing that the person of Jesus Christ was God connecting with his creation (humanity). The message is clear…there is more to experience after our bodies wear out. Our time on this planet is finite and all too short but this is not all there is. My soul is not imprisoned by the body I currently inhabit. Death is a necessary stage that we all have to experience. The good news that Jesus brought is that my soul will transition into something more wonderful than I can ever imagine.
                                                                                                                   

—Marilyn Pedersen

Wednesday, March 4: Jesse & Lorraine McReynolds

John 5:17. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I am also working.”

It is easy for us to reduce our faith into a series of rules: do this, don’t do that; when this happens, make sure that happens too. But to see God’s plan for us as a series of rules, static and knowable, breaks the most important rule of them all: love one another, as Jesus loved us. Because when we love, rules are properly moderated by the acts of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness that are Christ acting through us.

The “them” in this verse are the consummate rule-followers, the Pharisees, and Jesus has explained to them why He dared to heal on the Sabbath. He healed the sick because His work and His Father’s work was not yet done, and no human rules could stop His mercy and forgiveness. God’s love for us sinners is alive, and defies any law that would see it contained.

In this Lenten season, as we reflect on our sinfulness and long to be closer to God, we know that God’s love is boundless and unconstrained by the rules of man. Help us to not seek shelter behind the pious self-defense of “look at me, how good am I, I’m following the rules”—nor conversely, to justify any behavior we want with the lazy claim that the rules don’t apply to us. Rather, may God give us the grace to act with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness as we strive to do His work on earth.
                                                                                                

—Jesse & Lorraine McReynolds

Tuesday, March 3: Kim Malcolm

John 4:48. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

This verse is from John, part of a longer action-packed passage featuring Jesus teaching and healing. Jesus is busy. En route to Galilee, he encounters the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well. He stays two more days, gathering more believers. When he gets himself and the disciples to Cana in Galilee, he is visited by a royal, who begs him to save the life of his son, who is close to death with a fever.

I wonder at Jesus’ patience. Hordes of people flock to him, full of questions, desperate to be near the hope that he embodies. Pharisees show up to pepper him with questions and to test him on the law. His disciples don’t take center stage in these passages, but you can almost feel their anxiety leaching from the sidelines—what is He doing? Why is He taking such risks, talking to a Woman Like That? Can you keep an eye on him while we go into town and try to find something to eat?

Jesus is the calm eye of this holy storm, pointing out to us that his promise to us is in every moment. Again and again, he tells us anxious, fearful people that the signs of God’s love for us are ever-present—if we only open our eyes and look.

This morning I read a letter sent by a young American aid worker to her family, written while she was in captivity in Syria last year. She writes, “I have come to a place in experience where, in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our creator b/c literally there was no else. + by God + by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall.” Even in her prison, with darkness approaching, she saw the signs. I hope I can open my eyes, also. 

—Kim Malcom

Monday, March 2: Judy Katri

John 4:27. They were astonished that [Jesus] was speaking with a woman.

Sometime ago when I worshipped at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, I noted the mission statement printed in the service program: “We believe in one God, known to us in Jesus Christ, also known by different names in different traditions. We seek to challenge and transform the world beginning with ourselves and to celebrate the image of God in every person…”

In the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus is traveling from Southern Israel to Northern Israel through Samaria where He encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Considering the cultural context of the time, it is shocking that Jesus reaches out to a woman; particularly a marginalized woman from a different culture and background. The Samaritans were despised by the Jews for many historical and religious reasons. They did know Yahweh as the God who gave Moses the law, and yet they also worshipped idols. Both the Jews and the Samaritans were hoping expectantly for the coming of their Messiah.

In their earlier conversation, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “If you only knew what a wonderful gift God has for you, and who I am you would ask for living water.” (4:10) The woman asks where this water comes from and if Jesus is greater than their ancestor Jacob. Here Jesus begins to reveal His person and purpose. The two unlikely strangers also discover a commonality in their shared patriarch, Jacob.

In rushing back to town to tell her neighbors about her encounter the woman symbolically leaves her water jar at the well. She proclaims, “Come and see the man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (4:29) Now the Samaritans see something different about this unnamed woman. The people of the village went streaming to the well to meet Jesus. “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony.” (4:40)

We, too, like the woman at the well and the people of Grace Cathedral. can be messengers of God’s grace, regardless of our diverse backgrounds or circumstances. In seeking the image of God in every person, even we can make a difference in the world- beginning with ourselves. 

  

—Judy Katri

Sunday, March 1: Jim & Rachel Clifton

Mark 8:34. [Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Jesus says that following him will involve denying ourselves and taking up our “cross” and following him. So what does that mean to us followers in the 21st century who live our lives in relative ease and comfort? To those in Jesus day, there is no doubt, as they passed by crosses lining the avenues and crossroads in the Roman Empire, that the cross was all about suffering, humiliation and an agonizing death. They probably weren’t falling over each other to sign up for “taking up their cross.” But as we know, they did exactly that, and here we are today as Christ followers with a history and a legacy of their faith. Will we be called to suffer as those early disciples? Probably not in the same way, but we can begin by responding to God where he is personally and individually speaking to us.

All of us are in the process of learning what it means to deny ourselves in what we might sometimes consider to be our rights—anger, resentment, self-indulgence, pride. We desire to move toward others in forgiveness, compassion, empathy, time and resources—all a journey of self-denial of sorts. Let us begin to pray that God will help us to do what he did for us in Christ when he entered into the sufferings of this world. In our families, in our neighborhood, and beyond our safe community and relationships, we can come alongside others and help them to carry their burdens. Jesus knew that denying ourselves to live in the larger context of his kingdom would change us from the inside out and would begin to conform us to his own image. In Philippians we read: “Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but made himself nothing—he took the humble position of a servant and appeared in human form.”

Let’s make that our joyful prayer together in this Lenten season – that in learning to deny ourselves, we can open ourselves up to live into the very life of God in us.                                   

  —Jim & Rachel Clifton