Jesus’ Colorful Passion – On a Stage Near YOU!

Every time someone gets up to proclaim the scriptures at worship lately, I’m reminded that a burglar ripped off our microphone, two cymbals, and a cymbal stand. I think they’re bad people.

Today I heard that our neighbor was robbed at gunpoint while working, during the middle of the day, in his tax office six blocks from here. I think that must have been a bad actor.

Now for sure, you can help me shift my attitude. In fact, I probably can’t do that without you.

But what I’m talking about now is something different. See, there are no bad people in this story of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, and execution (John 18-19). Everybody inside the story, the naïve, lazy disciples, the betraying Judas, the Temple police, the priests who sent them, even Pilate, all of them were acting with integrity – much like Jesus. The difference is, Jesus acted out of both integrity and humility. He not only moved truthfully, as he understood truth to be; he is grounded – that’s what humble means – he was grounded in God’s truth

These other folks acted true to character, but they were grounded in something other than the unfolding story of God’s way of freeing them from oppression and injustice. They were convinced that they were the authors and directors, rather than actors in the story authored and directed by God.

Everyday, we, like they, have many opportunities to portray our true colors. By what we say and do, how we decide and judge, who we show ourselves to be – we display our true colors. We’re either truthfully acting in the ground of God’s story, or we’re bit players in some other powers’ fantasy.

Jesus, MBA

There’s money all over the place in Holy Week. It begins with Jesus overturning the money changers’ tables and scattering money all over the floor in the Temple. In the middle is the extravagance of the woman who anoints Jesus, and the cash on the barrel Judas negotiates to hand Jesus over. At the end, those same silver pieces come crashing back onto the Temple floor.

It’s a good thing that God doesn’t manage the wealth of grace the way we manage money. That’s what caught Jesus’ eye about this woman, and sent the onlookers into frenzy. The woman managed her expensive oil in virtually the same way God manages the wealth of God’s grace. She was extravagant with it. She lavished it for no apparent reason.

We don’t run our banks, our savings and checking accounts, our IRA’s, our 401 K’s, our money market funds, our mutual funds, or our stock portfolios that way at all. But that’s not the worst of it.

We’ve turned our time, our attention, our energy, our talents and everything we can manage to count, measure, calculate, tabulate, buy, or sell into a commodity. With the best of intentions, we even talk about children as our most precious resource. We always want to know the return on investment. We’re always looking to weigh the risk against the gain.

God, in Jesus, invites us into another way of reconciling accounts. Simply receive the precious gift of God’s outpouring love with open hands. Don’t hang onto it. Let it splash over those closest to you. They are as deserving and desirous of God’s generosity as you are.