Tag Archives: Offering

by

To offer ourselves

Click here to listen to the audio of this 7-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below, or read the text summary thereafter.

Romans 12:1-2a:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

This passage offers us two sets of verbs:

  • Offer, sacrifice, worship – which speak to giving ourselves to God
  • Transform, renew – which speak to an inward-focused process

The passage also offers us two nouns:

  • Our bodies – which speaks to the embodied being that we are, crafted from clay and in-breathed by God’s Spirit
  • Our minds – which speaks to the immaterial being that we are, mind, emotion, thought, spirit

Together, these two verbs and these two nouns call us towards a complete offering of ourselves – a surrender, a relinquishment – to God.

2020.07.16_wind-installations-falling-off-a-cliff-in-india

Feature image from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/emergentvillage/2013/03/off-the-cliff-of-surrender/

by

Fragrant Offering

Click here to listen to this 5-minute message. Or read the summary below or watch the video thereafter.

Today is the first Monday in Holy Week. The video below is a very brief (5-minute) reflection on our Gospel reading for today: John 12:1-11. Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, anoints Jesus’ feet with an expensive perfume called Nard. Judas reprimands her for wasting money that should rather be given to the poor. But Jesus speaks up for her saying that she has done a good thing for Jesus, who will be with them for just a little while, while the poor will always be with us. This narrative reminds us of the need for all of us to pour ourselves out for others, like Mary did with her perfume and Jesus did with is life.

2020.04.06_nard

Featured image of Spikenard flowers from http://www.draganacmonastery.com/product/nard/