{"id":16536,"date":"2021-03-18T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/urc\/urc-daily-devotion-thursday-18th-march-2021"},"modified":"2021-03-18T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T06:15:00","slug":"urc-daily-devotion-thursday-18th-march-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/urc-daily-devotion-thursday-18th-march-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"URC Daily Devotion Thursday 18th March 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday 18th March 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

St Mark 14:3 – 9<\/strong><\/p>\n

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he 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. But some were there who said to one another in anger, \u2018Why was the ointment wasted in this way?  For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii,  and the money given to the poor.\u2019 And they scolded her.  But Jesus said, \u2018Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.  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. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.\u2019<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n

Call me a pedant but I am careful to promise anyone \u201cI will never forget you\u201d (as I fear that eventually I will be unable to remember anyone!)   In today\u2019s reading, however, Jesus responds to those angered by the woman\u2019s extravagance by saying, in effect, that what she has done will never be forgotten.   Her response was deemed to be so significant that it merited serving as a memorial to her.   And it is worth noting that in Mark\u2019s Gospel we are not her name.   Hers is an act of sacrificial and extravagant generosity without recognition nor dependent on any expectation of receiving anything in return.<\/p>\n

Her generosity provoked anger \u2013 masked as concern for waste \u2013 but generosity is not essentially about the monetary value but of attitude.   I suspect they were embarrassed too \u2013 both by the intimacy of the act itself and that it highlighted their own meanness.  In \u201cA New Kind of Christian\u201d, Brian McLaren writes, \u201cIf we can\u2019t discipline ourselves to learn the joys of generous living, I think we\u2019re an embarrassment to the Gospel\u201d.   It\u2019s a challenging thought:  rather than being embarrassed by generosity there is an embarrassment to the Gospel when it is absent.<\/p>\n

We do well, therefore, to reflect on the extent to which our churches and their annual accounts display a generosity that is less focused on \u201cus\u201d and \u201cour place\u201d and more on people in places beyond our walls. Generous living.   And in our own personal resources \u2013 time as well as money \u2013 how willing are we to be extravagant in our generosity and without insisting that we are named and thanked?   For ultimately, Jesus suggests, it is our acts that will be remembered more than our names.   And, most crucially, ours is a God whose love for us is extravagantly generous.
 
Prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Forgive us, God of generosity,
when we succumb to the temptation to be mean-spirited and tight-fisted
and when we despise those who shame us by the breadth and depth of their kindness.
Loosen our grip on what we own and our fixation on reward and make us willing learners of the joys of generous living so that we may not be an embarrassment to the gospel of your cross-shaped grace.
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday 18th March 2021 St Mark 14:3 – 9 While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he 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. But some … <\/p>\n

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