DAY 70

SCULPTING

Deuteronomy 13, 14 & 15 and Mark 12:28-44

In the readings of the Old Testament we again see God instructing and shaping his people. He is laying a lot on them. What to eat, what not to eat. He is chiseling or sculpting them into His people. There is amazing compassion in the law about the poor. Consider where it says, “there will always be poor among you” and then this phrase is surrounded by debts being cancelled, slaves being freed, not being sent away empty handed, etc. I think as humans we need help being shaped into caring for those in need. Still, it is amazing to ponder the spectrum from the rather stringent requirements about clean food, to the compassion for the poor.

The Gospel has a similar spectrum: we start with the Shema which we studied a few days ago and then we see it in action in the widow. The sequence in the text (as you know) is one that goes from the Greatest Commandment (where Jesus quoted Deuteronomy) to the question of “Who is the Christ?” and Jesus stumps them by quoting a Psalm, to Jesus then cautioning them about not being like the Scribes, to ultimately this amazing widow.

He is of course in front of the Scribes when he tells people not to be like them. He is not the author of the book How to win friends and influence people…although he is the author of The Book. I mentioned yesterday that it is about passion; this widow has it. It is about living the Great Commandment. The challenge is to do so not begrudgingly out of obligation, but rather out of response to God’s great love for us. Love the Lord your God; love is not a begrudging action…and yet for me to properly love means I need to change. I need to have chiseled off of me some hard and unhealthy attitudes. I need to have parts of my judgment sculpted and shaped into form with God’s.

It is his great love that is in operation in Deuteronomy. He is trying to shape and protect this very new nation that is to carry the message of God to the world. In Mark it is the same. Amid all the questions and all the tension of Holy Week in the Temple, Jesus calls his disciples over to him and points out the widow. He is not doing this in front of the people questioning him. It seems as if he has been able to “duck-out” for a moment and just watch. He is (and has been for three years) trying to shape and protect the twelve that will carry his message to the world. He finds a terrific teachable moment of the Great Commandment in the widow and seizes on it to share with his followers. He doesn’t want to waste an opportunity to help them.

The same is true for us. He doesn’t want to waste any opportunities to shape and sculpt us. So I am thinking what moments did He present me with this week which might be exactly for that purpose – how about you?