Reflection for Maundy Thursday: The Grandmother Guin Table

I am not a very handy person.  I miraculously passed shop class in high school, and I’ve never been good at fixing things of any kind. 

There is one and only one exception to this ineptitude, and it involves a small wooden table that belonged to my wife’s maternal grandmother, Grandmother Guin.  I don’t know how old the table is, but my wife can’t remember her grandmother’s house without it.  It is certainly not something of recent vintage. 

Do to Others

I’m beginning to notice that I’m opening myself to readings of Scripture I hadn’t noticed before.  Like last week’s Gospel reading.  Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James, and John and immediately they left their nets and followed.  I have been so struck by the immediately part, I guess because of its incongruity with my own experience, that I’ve been overlooking the very real possibility that immediately doesn’t necessarily preclude a great deal of time Jesus had spent with the four future disciples before he got around to calling them.  The notation about immediately may have other purposes than the indication of blind faith. 

Salvation is in the Mission

A sermon preached on January 22, 2017, at Church of the Incarnation in Highlands, NC

This is a Sunday filled with temptation for a preacher.  It is tempting to make this Sunday about our new president.  It is tempting especially in light of the readings for today. 

It would be easy enough to use the readings for today to such an end.  The reading from Isaiah is about the end of a political catastrophe and the coming of a great light.  The only problem is that it depends on where one stands as to whether the catastrophe has just ended and the light arrived, or whether the light has just ended and the catastrophe arrived.  It would be easy enough to use Paul’s words to the Corinthians to address the realities of our present division, for the division is undeniable from whatever perspective one observes it.  “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”  (I Cor. 1:10)  I can even imagine how one might use the reading from Matthew to address the current political climate in our country.  (Mt. 4:12-23) 

To Remember About God

This is a story that has inspired the work of Love Must Act.  It is a story about a young girl from Grahamstown, South Africa and a group of volunteers from Lexington, Kentucky.  They all met when the Kentucky volunteers came to introduce Reading Camp in South Africa.  Reading Camp is a ministry of the Episcopal Church in Lexington, where I served as bishop from 2001 to 2011, that helps children who are seriously behind grade level in reading ability.  It takes second and third graders who are at least a year behind grade level and helps them make significant remedial progress over the course of a very fun week at camp, which is an experience the children we work with would never have had.

Blessed are the Poor

There are two versions of a collection of saying known as the Beatitudes because they all begin with “Blessed are.”  There is a version in Luke (6:20-23) and a version in Matthew (5:1-12).  Matthew’s version is better known, in part, I suspect, because it is easier to take.

Luke’s version is shorter but harsher and starker.  Take the first beatitude.  In Luke it is, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  We’re much more used to, and comfortable with, the way Matthew records it:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Or look at the one about hunger.  Luke records Jesus as saying, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”  The message seems a little different in Matthew:  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Scholars generally agree that Luke’s version is closer to what Jesus actually said.

The End Begins Here

Bishop Stacy F. Sauls reflects on one of the most challenging and difficult-to-explain of Jesus's statements: "You always will have the poor with you."

Once, in the home of Simon the Leper, “as [Jesus] sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head” (Mk. 14:3).  With their minds on caring for the poor, some of the disciples complained and scolded her.  In her defense, Jesus said,  “For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me” (v. 7).

I have always found that a very strange thing to say, especially for Jesus, who had devoted so much of his life to the care of people who were poor and who was, at the time the event occurred, transgressing social boundaries by dining in the home of a leper. 

The Shoe-Shine Man

A reflecton on poverty and mission, by Bishop Stacy F. Sauls, originally delivered as a keynote address in June 2013 to the Episcopal Church's Asiamerica conference in San Francisco.

It’s funny where you run into Jesus if you’re paying attention.  I met him once in the Cincinnati Airport, which when I was Bishop of Lexington, we preferred to call the Northern Kentucky Airport. On this particular day, Jesus was shining shoes, and mine happened to need shining.  Isn’t that just like Jesus?  On the night before he died, he washed the disciples’ feet.

Just Another Rich Man

Bishop Stacy F. Sauls reflects on the parable of poor Lazarus and the rich man.

OK, this one is troubling.  It’s the story of a rich man and Lazarus, the poor man just outside the rich man’s gate.  (Luke 16:19-31)

The rich man “was dressed in purple and fine linen and . . . feasted sumptuously every day.”  On the other hand, there was Lazarus, “covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table.”  It is quite the contrast.

Lazarus died.  The rich man also died and was buried.  Only in his torment in Hades does the rich man realize the chasm between him and God.  He asks Abraham to have Lazarus bring him water.  Abraham refuses.  “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things.”  Then he asked Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers so that they would not meet a similar fate.  Again, Abraham refuses.  “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”