by Janice MacLean | Mar 22, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“What now?” Into the disorder of the week he pours water in a basin and wraps a towel around. I like to imagine he got the idea from Mary Magdalene. It was her gift to anoint his feet, her tears pouring love, her hair a towel of tender care. Great love....
by Janice MacLean | Mar 19, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
“Two stones cannot occupy the same place, but two fragrances can.” – Sufi saying Two fragrances. [Open bracket Mary Magdalene breaks open the costly perfume and anoints the feet of Jesus wiping his feet with her hair. And the whole house was filled with the...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 18, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
It happened in the Temple the part that was more like a marketplace than a church, a widow, poor and of any imaginable age pays her temple tax with two small coins, a mite, but all she had. And Jesus says something like: “The truth is, this woman has put in more...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 15, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
As the week unfolds there is conflict, urgency, and loss. I imagine Jesus reaching for these words in the prayerbook of his soul. “Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 15, 2016 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
Provocative, he is. Perhaps not a warrior on a horse; Yet even a donkey rider in a Passover crowd is bound to attract attention. And he did. They reach high snapping leafy branches from the trees. They bend low throwing cloaks on the path before him. Hosanna! Voices...
by Janice MacLean | Mar 27, 2015 | Lectionary & Scripture, Reflections
The Gospel of Thomas, a manuscript discovered in 1945, gives us new understanding of Jesus from the Wisdom tradition. It offers these words for the spiritual journey. You hear echoes of these words in Matthew and Luke. The Thomas saying goes further. If you are...
