Karen Turner: Maundy Thursday Responsive Prayer

Merciful Savior,
We have traveled this long, dusty Lenten journey.
Our feet are tired, dirty, aching, and calloused.
You have shown us Your love by becoming a humble servant.
Humble us when we try to travel without You.
As Christ has washed us, so let us wash one another.
Humble us when we believe some work is below us.
As Christ has washed us, so let us wash one another.
Humble us when we are too proud to accept help, or care, or love.
As Christ has washed us, so let us wash one another.
Humble us when we do not fully receive the gift of Your amazing and bountiful grace.
As Christ has washed us, so let us wash one another.
Amen.

Karen Turner in “Maundy Thursday Responsive Prayer” from the collection of Prayer Liturgies for the Easter Season.

“Maundy” is derived from the latin mandatum, meaning “commandment.” Maundy refers to the command Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper: to love one another.

I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:34-35

Taking the form of a humble servant, He exhibited this great love by washing the feet of the disciples. What might this look like for us today? How might you go wash someone’s feet, or rather, humbly serve them to show God’s love today?

And remember, it’s a command, not a suggestion.

“Jesus praised her action as a beautiful thing done to Him and blessed it to be an event that should be remembered in His gospel history. Each of us also has our own alabaster jar of perfume…When she poured the perfume, in actuality, she poured out her heart to Jesus. When she poured the perfume on Him, she was pouring out her love to Jesus…This woman’s action for Jesus foreshadowed Jesus’ action for us…

This story of the woman’s love and devotion to Jesus points to Jesus himself. As the woman poured out her very expensive perfume made of pure nard on Jesus, Jesus was about to pour out his precious and sinless blood to wash away all our sins. As the woman made a lavish expression of love to Jesus, Jesus was about to make the most extravagant and lavish statement of love in the history of the world by giving his precious life for sinners like us…

Our Lord Jesus has done a beautiful thing for us. He gave his life as a ransom sacrifice for sinner like us though we don’t deserve it at all. He shed his precious blood without reservation in order to wash away all our sins once and for all. His love for us is indeed recklessly spendthrift, selfless, costly and extravagant. He spent everything for us. We are to love him and serve him likewise, like this woman.”

Henry Park, excerpt from Sermon entitled “Jesus was anointed at Bethany” delivered at Columbus University Bible Fellowship.

Holy Week Wednesday is often known as Spy Wednesday because this marks the day Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. It’s also the day Jesus chilled at the home of Simon the leper and was anointed by Mary.

Think about the contrast.

One will sell Jesus out for a handful of coins while the other lets go of that which is priceless in this life because in Jesus she found something of greater worth. While we can try to calculate the value of this perfume in modern terms, it would be best to label it with the moniker from the Mastercard commercials: Priceless.

Like the widow yesterday gave God all she had, this woman empties her jar on Jesus.

Where are you this Holy Week Wednesday?

Will you sell out Jesus for the paltry pennies this world has to offer?

Or will you empty your alabaster jar on Jesus?

My perfume is on my Master.

“On God’s scales, the woman’s gift outweighed the rest. Jesus said she had cast in more than they all did. That is more than saying she had given more than anyone else that day (v. 43). Jesus called His disciples over to Him and said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on” (vv. 43-44)…

This widow’s gift amounted to more in the balances of heaven than all that had been put in by the whole crowd. Those two very tiny coins outweighed all the rest. The rich people gave out of their abundance. She gave out of her insufficiency. They gave out of surplus; she gave out of need. Literally, she gave “her whole livelihood.” It has the idea of “the means by which life is sustained.” The widow gave out of true devotion to God. God was the only one who saw her as she placed her tiny coins in the vessel.

It is not how much we give to God, but how much we hold on to for ourselves. Have we given Him our all?

There is more than money involved in this picture of Jesus and the woman in the temple. It is a principle of life. It is the very heart of stewardship based on grace. All I am is His. As a redeemed person God owns it all. There is nothing in my life that does not first belong to Him. “You have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God with your body” (2 Corinthians 6:20). Earlier Jesus told the Corinthians, “you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God” (3:23). You belong to God! If you are owned by Christ, that means your body, your mind, your time, your will, your talent and your material assets all belong to Christ. You belong to another and you own nothing. God owns it all.

The rich had given much, but it really cost them nothing for it was merely the “overflow” of their lavish accounts. The woman’s gift cost her everything, “her whole livelihood” (v. 44). This lesson of Christ is vitally significant for us. God measures our giving not by how much we give, but by how much we have left over after we give! Grace giving is sacrificial giving…

The giving that catches God’s eye is not necessarily great in amount but in percentage… Sacrificial giving has a kind of recklessness about it. It holds nothing back. It has learned to give as God gave to us. The greatest example is His Son (Phil. 2:5-8).

This attitude toward grace giving is at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It bids us come and surrender to Christ and trust Him with every need, every care, and every provision in life. It is total absolute trust in Him. “God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19).”

Wil Pounds in “Mark 12:41-44 – The Widow’s Mite” in his Stewardship Principles Series (2008).

I really like how Pounds expressed this statement which is why it’s the title of the post: “The giving that catches God’s eye is not necessarily great in amount but in percentage.” Sacrificial giving both catches God’s attention and is celebrated because it reflects His love and grace to the world.

I offer this truth with a warning label: living this way will cause people to think you are crazy. Why? They think this act left the widow (or would leave them) empty. At the end of the day, I am learning that she had more than anyone else. She had the confidence that God would take care of her like He had for all those years leading up to this day.

Join me in living and giving this way. I believe when we do we also catch our Father’s attention too.

“During the various religious feasts in which thousands of Jews traveled to Jerusalem, authorities allowed money changers and animal sellers inside the outer court of the temple. People bought animals to sacrifice, and they had to exchange foreign money for money acceptable to religious leaders.

These temple-sanctioned businesspeople were inside a place of worship. When people profane sacred things by trying to profit financially from them, they become dull and callous to the ways of God’s Spirit. The problem only compounds when they become ministry leaders.

The money changers were making it hard for common people to worship God. The outer court of the temple was full of bleating sheep and money changers. Jerusalem visitors had to exchange their money for the currency accepted by the temple priests. Everyone was focused on money…”

Carey Kinsolving in “Why did Jesus Drive the Money Changers out of the Temple?” in Kids Talk About God blogpost.

The temple cleansing as recounted in Matthew 21:12-17 and parallel passages comes into view today because many think it happened on Passion Week Monday. What would people say about the church you attend or the ministry you serve? Would they say: “All they want is money from me?”

May the Lord of the Temple convict and cleanse each of our hearts of any greedy motives through the power of the Holy Spirit so that we do not rob people of resources and the opportunity to pray and make offerings to Him as an act of worship.

“Sometimes I get the impression that God wants me to give him something and sometimes I don’t give it because I don’t know for sure, and then I feel bad because I’ve missed my chance. Other times I know he wants something but I don’t give it because I’m too selfish. And other times, too few times, I hear him and I obey him and feel honored that a gift of mine would be used to carry Jesus to another place. And still other times I wonder if my little deeds today will make a difference in the long haul. Maybe you have those questions, too.

All of us have a donkey. You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road. Maybe you can sing or hug or program a computer or speak Swahili or write a check. Whichever, that’s your donkey. Whichever, your donkey belongs to him. It really does belong to him. Your gifts are his and the donkey was his. The original wording of the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples is proof: “If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkeys, you are to say, ‘Its Lord is in need.'”

Max Lucado in And the Angels were Silent (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987) 54.

I was talking with a ministry leader this past week who was praying for technical assistance with the ministry he’s served with for nearly five years. I urged him to put the word out that “the Lord has need of such skills.”

What’s your donkey? Remember, your stewardship is based on what you have, and faithful stewards put to work the gifts and goods that God has entrusted to them. And what’s your response when asked to put your donkey to work?

As you think about Jesus’ humble entry into Jerusalem today, don’t forget that an open-handed steward released that donkey when the Lord had need of it. Let’s go and do likewise.

“Have you ever stopped to think that Christ never gave anyone money [in the Gospels]? The riches of the world were his for the taking and his to give away, yet when the poor and hungry came to him, he didn’t give them money, and he rarely gave them food; he gave them love and service and the greatest gift of all–himself.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American Congregationalist clergyman in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations, ed. Martin H. Mansur (Louisville: WJKP, 2001) 122.

As we draw near to Passion Week, the cross, and the resurrection, let us reflect on the implications of this for our lives. Even as Christ gave love, service, and His life for us, what does that mean for each of us? Will we follow suit?

The proclamation of Paul in Galatians 2:20 ring in my ears: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Let this be our collective response.

“God does not need our money. But you and I need the experience of giving it.”

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family as cited in 1001 Unforgettable Quotes about God, Faith, and the Bible by Ron Rhodes (Eugene: Harvest House, 2011) 98.

Many leaders have recounted that “God does not need our money.” I like how Dobson reminds us why Jesus would exhort us to give. It’s for our good.

So what do we gain through the experience of giving? What do we lose when we don’t? Think on these things as you consider your own giving.

“It’s easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself; as though the gift could ever be preferred to the Giver.”

Augustine (354-430) Bishop of Hippo, in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations, ed. Martin H. Mansur (Louisville: WJKP, 2001) 122.

Lately I have been praying for my used car to sell on Craigslist and my home to move on the real estate market. No movement on both fronts. I have come to realize that my focus has been off. That’s part of what I love about Augustine, his sermons and quotes help me think straight.

Father, I want You today. Or in the words of Matthew in his Gospel, I seek you first (6:33). Should you shower me with other gifts, well, I will endeavor to enjoy and share them as your Word instructs, but I choose to be content with You alone.

“Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God if thou wantest charity for thy neighbor; and think not thou hast charity for thy neighbor if thou wantest faith to God. Where they are not both together, they are both wanting: they are both dead if once divided.”

Francis Quarles (1592-1744) as recounted in The Christian Register on 26 November 1908, vol. 13: 1285. Quarles was an English poet known for his famous work, Emblems.

In modern terms, Quarles is saying Christ-followers must also be neighbor-lovers. The two ideas cannot be separated. My prayer this season of Lent is both that we grow in faith toward God and that we serve as conduits of God’s material and spiritual blessings to those around us, which includes the destitute and the undeserving.

Why? As we approach the cross we realize how destitute and undeserving we were when the generosity of God was extended toward us! Without this faith or understanding of grace, there can be no charity. With it, the potential for generosity and charity becomes limitless because the cross is for everyone!

‘Charity’ now means simply what used to be called ‘alms’–that is, giving to the poor. Originally it had a much wider meaning. (You can see how it got the modern sense. If a man has ‘charity’, giving to the poor is one of the most obvious things he does, and so people came to talk as if that were the whole of charity. In the same way, ‘rhyme’ is the most obvious thing about poetry, and so people come to mean by ‘poetry’ simply rhyme and nothing more.) Charity means ‘Love, in the Christian sense’. But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.

C.S. Lewis in Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).

Lewis always has good things to say.

When I researched to see what he thought of alms, he again impressed, or rather, blessed me, and I pray his thoughts touch you. Charity is not merely giving to the poor, it is expressing love, and it is something we have to learn.

I pray this Lent has been a training ground for each of us to grow in charity, or rather, love.