Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12:1-8
Three themes run through our three readings this morning.
The first is the theme of gift giving.
Isaiah speaks of God’s gifts and action in the world.
Paul evaluates several of God’s gifts to him and declares God’s love in Jesus so wonderful that Paul responds with giving back to God.
Mary and Martha both give loving gifts to Jesus. Mary’s gift gets all the attention here. But, John also notes that Martha prepared a meal for Jesus. That was a gift too. It’s worth thinking about how we can give a gift to Jesus. We could give some money to CBA to help them make the programmes to broadcast on the radio at Easter. Or we could do something to love a person who needs loving right now. Or something else – there are lots of possibilities.
All of these gifts point to the biggest gift that will be celebrated as Holy Week starts next Sunday.
Martha’s gift of a meal was an ordinary everyday sort of gift. Mary’s gift was unusual and Judas made fun of it. Jesus defended Mary’s gift. He said it was a very worthwhile gift. While we are thinking about Mary’s gift, Paul’s gift, and our own it is good to be reminded that Jesus values all our gifts.
The second theme is what is of greatest importance to us
and to God.
Mary’s gift and Paul’s statement are their ways of answering the question “what is most important in the world to you?” Mary either used her most special possession to show Jesus how important he was to her or she took most of the money she had to buy the special anointing oil for him. Paul insisted that though he had been and done some really cool things, none of them was as important as knowing God and doing the job God had given him. He became a preacher and missionary because knowing God was the most important thing to him and he knew that was what God wanted him to do.
This coming Thursday (March 17) is St. Patrick’s Day. When Patrick was a teenager living in England he was kidnapped and taken as a slave to Ireland. After 6 years, he escaped and made his way back home. Later he had a dream in which God told him to go preach in Ireland. He recruited a team to go with him and went and did what God told him. Later he was recognised as patron saint of Ireland. Like Paul, Patrick gave up much to be Christ’s person and was glad to do so.
What is most important, most valuable, most precious to you? This is an important question and we will have to live out our answers to it throughout our lives.
The third theme is that God is often doing a new thing.
For children everything is new and adults tend to want things to stay the same so who will get excited about Isaiah’s vision of God doing “a new thing?”
Still, some of us have done new things recently:
Frances and Hudson have done something new – they’ve started school.
Jim started a new thing last Sunday evening when he prayed with the people who were here.
Who else has done something new?
Our three readings have another thing in common: they point ahead to the events leading up to and through Easter, starting with Palm Sunday next week. In those events there are bad parts, especially when Jesus was beaten up and killed and the good part when he was alive again. Note that God was doing a new thing in both the bad and the good parts of the story. So think about this as we prepare to walk through that story during Holy Week – from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.
Recently I read a blog titled, Why you need a midlife crisis by a friend of Donald Miller, (24 Feb 2016).
When I was middle-aged, mid-life crises were quite the popular thing; nearly everybody was having them, men especially. People in that season of life tend to be those in their mid-forties whose lives have plateaued, who think about their mortgage more than they should, and have kids who are costing them a bundle in time, money and emotional energy – that kind of thing.
At its core, a mid-life crisis is a grand moment of clarity. In the crisis we come to grips with our own mortality and realize that the life we are living is inconsistent with what we really want. It is an analysis that compares our actions with our core priorities and expectations.
The expectations some of us hold are laced with selfishness and narcissism. This can lead us to abandon jobs, families, and other responsibilities and try to live as if we are someone we are not. Insert the common tropes of overcompensating middle managers, convertibles, and affairs. This type of mid-life crisis inevitably disappoints.
I heard one couple saying that, given their situation, they were due for a mid-life crisis. The wife was quick to remind her husband that neither a sports car nor a mistress was in the budget. She told him he would have to come up with something else.
There is a more noble option.
Our expectations and what we most want can lead to good decisions if they are centered on generous and loving priorities. In this context, we may reorient our lives away from jobs we merely endure to vocations about which we are passionate.
We focus on the core relationships in our lives and reconnect with our spouse, children, parents, and faith. We realize that we have allowed the momentum of circumstances to unwittingly carry us away from what matters most. We take the good things we have been putting off until someday – and make them action items for today.
I had my mid-life crisis early, around age 33, and it resulted in my changing career and beginning in parish ministry. Times have changed yet mid-life crises seem to be still quite common and indeed, there are other crisis points like the quarter life crisis of the twenties. And the three-quarter-life crisis which is where I am. Not that I’m in crisis mode – I’m in transition.
It was Socrates who said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ Some people prefer to ignore the crisis points of life and while they aren’t hurt by some crazy impulse they don’t get the benefit of evaluating their lives.
“By asking ‘why’, and being honest with ourselves, we find out what is going on ‘below the surface’ of our lives. In this way we examine our own life and empower ourselves to change.” -Wisdom for Life
Evaluation is worth doing regularly.
The problem with a mid-life crisis is not the crisis itself. If there is a problem, it stems from trading things of real value for hollow promises. Destructive and irresponsible behavior is not the inevitable result of a mid-life crisis. The mid-life crisis itself can be quite helpful because it forces us to ask ourselves several questions:
Is my life out of alignment with my core priorities?
Is there a dream I once harbored that needs to be released from the dock and allowed to sail?
Is there a relationship that has been left untended for far too long?
Is the path I am on taking me to a destination I actually desire?
At some point, everyone will be confronted with the foundational questions of a mid-life crisis. Regardless of whether they result in circumstances obvious to others, they will reveal the quality of our priorities – and our choice of priorities determines whether the answers generate destruction or growth.
Today we must add three more questions:
What’s most important to me and how does that show in the way I live?
What and how am I giving to God?
Is God doing a new thing that I need to join?
This sort of assessment is valuable.
Especially if it’s done as a way of making sure our lives and relationships are healthy. There is no reason to wait for mid-life to create a possible crisis by asking these questions. Likewise, it is never too late for a good life crisis.
Perhaps if we asked these questions of ourselves (and asked them of our friends) on a regular basis, the answers would not yield a crisis at all. Instead only minor course corrections may be needed.
So the question remains, “Are you overdue for a good mid-life crisis?”