Joanna Manning

Listen and Learn

PENTECOST 2019     

A couple of weeks ago, I got a message from a friend, requesting that I come to Queen’s Park about 4.00 pm the following Monday to join a demonstration. The occasion for this was the attempt on the part of the NDP to pass a bill declaring climate change an emergency.

But a striking fact about this invitation was that I was requested to wear my clergy collar.  Now if, like me, you’ve been to many lefty- type protests,  you often DON’T want to be identified as a clergy person! But not this time. I was there were greeted with open arms, invited to pray and then to pose for a group photo.  

Walking back to the subway, I pondered on this turn of events. It occurred to me that maybe it was because the organizers, mostly university and high school students, are for the most part, “unchurched.” Their parents likely didn’t bother baptizing them and regular church attendance was not a part of their upbringing. So maybe this unchurched generation are not as predisposed to regard the church as something alien.

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Mary of Bethany by George William Joy (detail) - 1900; public domain

God of extravagant love

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 125, John 12:1-8,
and “The Heavens Torn Apart” – John Terpstra

Joanna Manning

The readings today are full of the promise of restoration. Isaiah has rivers gushing in the desert; the psalmist sings of those who sowed with tears reaping with joy and carrying home their sheaves; Paul tells us to forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead; and in John’s gospel, Mary of Bethany pours out a jar of costly ointment which fills the whole house with its fragrance.

 And So we read about a God who breaks boundaries, does new things, a God of surprises, and a God of extravagant love! This is the thread that runs like gold through the readings of today, culminating in John’s account of the anointing of Jesus’s feet by Mary of Bethany then drying them with the strands of her lustrous long hair.

So in this gospel, after the raising of Lazarus, Jesus has returned again to the house at Bethany. It is possibly his last stop before he enters Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus feels safe here. Elsewhere Jesus has spoken wistfully about the birds of the air having a nest to shelter themselves, but he has nowhere to lay his head. But it does appear that he was a familiar and much loved guest here. It was a safe refuge, possibly the closest Jesus came anywhere to feeling at home and amongst friends.

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