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Home Sections The Daily B.R.E.A.D. April 4, 2009 - Saturday Meditation (No Dominance in New Creation)
April 4, 2009 - Saturday Meditation (No Dominance in New Creation) PDF Print E-mail
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Sections - The Daily B.R.E.A.D.
Wednesday, 01 April 2009 03:25
H umans divide.  It is God who unifies.  What we need to hear and understand is that unity is what God wants.  Though we can’t do it ourselves, we certainly can impede it, and we desperately need to understand how doing that would be completely contrary to God’s will.   
 
John 11:45-56 (45) Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him; (46) but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. (47) So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. (48) If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." (49) But one of them, Ca'iaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; (50) you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." (51) He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, (52) and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. (53) So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death. (54) Jesus therefore no longer went about openly among the Jews, but went from there to the country near the wilderness, to a town called  E'phraim; and there he stayed with the disciples. (55) Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. (56) They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, "What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?"

Old Testament Reading: Ezekiel 37:21-28 (26) I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. (27) My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (28) Then the nations will know that I the LORD sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore."

 
 
Meditation by Robert P. Heaney

 

On the cusp of Holy Week, today’s readings give us some hint of what the new creation, which we’ll celebrate at the Easter Vigil, actually looks like.

 

We will be one.

 

In the readings from Ezekiel and the psalm from Jeremiah, we hear God promising to gather the scattered remnants of Israel, and in the Gospel, John, interpreting the high priest’s comments, sees Jesus gathering “into one the dispersed children of God”.  In both readings it is God who acts.  Plainly we can’t do it ourselves.  Humans divide.  It is God who unifies.  What we need to hear and understand is that unity is what God wants.  Though we can’t do it ourselves, we certainly can impede it, and we desperately need to understand how doing that would be completely contrary to God’s will.

 

Think of the ways we divide – all variants of “us” and “them”: white and black, immigrant and native-born, gay and straight, rich and poor, Protestant and Catholic, liberal and conservative, clerical and lay. . . the list is endless.  These kinds of divisions are ingrained in our psyches – in our biology even.  That’s why what Jesus has done is to make something totally new – totally different.

 

This is not to suggest that these distinctions are trivial, nor that we can abolish them by willing it.  But they're not as important as the equality and unity of the new creation, which has to be given precedence whenever there seems to be conflict with the new creating that God is doing.  It's important to remember that we humans use these divisions for dominance.  But there is no dominance in the new creation.  There is, instead, only self-giving.  Recall Paul:  “Neither Jew or Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female”.  And Jesus, in his prayer to the Father at the last supper, asks God that:  “they may be one, as you Father and I are one – so that the world may believe you sent me…..”

 

“So that the world may believe. . . ”  Division doesn’t manifest God.  We, as Church, do not show God’s presence so long as we are divided.  In just one week we will celebrate – not just remember, but actually relive – that new creating.  It is well to keep this emphasis on unity uppermost in our minds and hearts as we approach that holy day.

 

Supplementary Reading
A Blessed Life 

The Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' – Acts 20:35



My mother was a blessed woman. The key to her happiness was her giving nature. She habitually gave back to the Lord ten percent of her money. Not only did she give of her meager income, but she also gave of herself. For my mother that meant apple pies. I can still picture her in the kitchen, slicing the apples, piling them high in the deep pie pan, and sprinkling cinnamon, butter, and sugar on top. Then she would wrap the crust over the mile-high pile of apples, sealing it carefully.

Her pies were a work of art, and she never made just one of them. She always made two—one for us and one for somebody in town who could "use" a pie. Mom was her happiest when doing kind things for others.

Learn to give and your life will be blessed.


* * *

Look for at least one opportunity to do something nice for someone else today and see what happens.

* * * 



Note:  This excerpt was taken from the "Power for Life Daily Devotional
 
GOD BLESS US ALL!

PRAY as if everything depended on HIM. ACT as if everything depended on YOU.
 

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