Mitch Albom, the author of “Tuesdays with Morrie”, also wrote the book “Just One More Day”. It is an appropriate title to think about on this last day of February in Leap Year 2024 when we actually have “just one more day”.
How often have we wished that phrase, perhaps near the end of a great vacation, or before an important project is due? Or maybe as Mitch Albom uses it: to have just one more day with someone who has passed from our lives.
With God, we always have one more day. God is Infinite Possibility and Eternal Generosity. February 29 is a good day to stretch our faith and ask what God would have us do with “just one more day” to witness Divine Abundance in our lives.
Will it be one more day to love, work, and be thankful? Will it be a day to be competitive or cooperative? Will it be a day to take advantage or to give it? How we use that “one more day” will say a lot about how we use all our days.
We might consider a question posed by one of our long-ago Sisters:
“Wouldn’t it be sad to come to the last day of our lives and realize that we had missed the whole point?”
Using this “one more day” well might just help us not to miss that point!
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD. Such a person is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, But stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.
Jeremiah 17: 5-6
Have you encountered a person who is spiritually languishing, or even dead? The light of their spirit has gone out. There is no joy, hope, delight, or generosity in them. Sometimes their barrenness is buried under false hilarity or bravado, but after leaving them we find ourselves confused, saddened, empty, tired, or even a little angry.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray for any barren spirit we have encountered. They badly need our prayers. And let’s ask God for the merciful freshening of our own spirit, seeking it by prayer, loving silence, and honest reflection on our choices and actions.
Poetry: What the Fig Tree Said – Denise Levertov
Literal minds! Embarrassed humans! His friends were blurting for Him in secret: wouldn’t admit they were shocked. They thought Him petulant to curse me!—yet how could the Lord be unfair?—so they looked away, then and now. But I, I knew that helplessly barren though I was, my day had come. I served Christ the Poet, who spoke in images: I was at hand, a metaphor for their failure to bring forth what is within them (as figs were not within me). They who had walked in His sunlight presence, they could have ripened, could have perceived His thirst and hunger, His innocent appetite; they could have offered human fruits—compassion, comprehension— without being asked, without being told of need. My absent fruit stood for their barren hearts. He cursed not me, not them, but (ears that hear not, eyes that see not) their dullness, that withholds gifts unimagined.
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and asked … “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
Mark 10:20-23
In our Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that the path to heavenly glory is bound by a spiritual discipline that, in this contrary world, will cause us suffering. The cup is that chasm in life where we must choose peace over violence, generosity over selfishness, mercy over judgment, truth over deception, love over indifference. There will be resistance, both within us and around us, when we make such choices.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s be honest with ourselves as we answer Jesus’s question: “Can you drink the cup that I will drink?” Let’s pray for the grace to drink that cup as it comes to us in the particularities of our own lives. Let’s ask for the spiritual confidence and understanding that the cup – our cup – leads to eternal life.
Poetry: Can You Drink the Cup? – by Scott Surrency, O.F.M. Cap. (2015)
Can you drink the cup? Drink, not survey or analyze, ponder or scrutinize – from a distance. But drink – imbibe, ingest, take into you so that it becomes a piece of your inmost self. And not with cautious sips that barely moisten your lips, but with audacious drafts that spill down your chin and onto your chest. (Forget decorum – reserve would give offense.) Can you drink the cup? The cup of rejection and opposition, betrayal and regret. Like vinegar and gall, pungent and tart, making you wince and recoil. But not only that – for the cup is deceptively deep – there are hopes and joys in there, too, like thrilling champagne with bubbles that tickle your nose on New Year’s Eve, and fleeting moments of almost – almost – sheer ecstasy that last as long as an eye-blink, or a champagne bubble, but mysteriously satisfy and sustain. Can you drink the cup? Yes, you — with your insecurities, visible and invisible. You with the doubts that nibble around the edges and the ones that devour in one great big gulp. You with your impetuous starts and youth-like bursts of love and devotion. You with your giving up too soon – or too late – and being tyrannically hard on yourself. You with your Yes, but’s and I’m sorry’s – again. Yes, you – but with my grace. Can you drink the cup? Can I drink the cup? Yes.
Music: We Will Drink the Cup
We will drink the cup. We will win the fight. We will stand against the darkness of the night. We will run the race And see God’s face, And build the Kingdom of love.
Do not fear for I am with you. Be still and know that I am God.
You will run and not grow weary, For I your God will be your strength. Refrain
We are the Church, we are the Body. We are God’s great work of art.
Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.
Isaiah 1:18
The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Matthew 22:12
Today’s readings are studies in contrasts – white/scarlet; exaltation/humility.
Isaiah promises a transformative grace changing scarlet sins to snow-white goodness. In our Gospel, Jesus teaches the crowds that the way to holiness is in exact contrast to the practices of the Pharisees. The Gospel turns the patterns of the world upside down. Lent is the time to enter that turning.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray for the humility that will allow us to open ourselves to God’s transforming grace – that wash of insight over our spirits, cleansing us of spiritual confusion.
Humility can be a tricky virtue. Its essence is not a sense of worthlessness or “less-ness”. Humility is instead a profound awareness that all belongs to God, and that we are privileged to share in that Abundant Life. Humility does not concentrate on the Self. It looks at the Other in grateful and expectant obedience.
Poetry: A Woman in Winter – from In Wisdom’s Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season by Jan L. Richardson.
A woman in winter is winter: turning inward, deepening, elemental force, time’s reckoning; sudden frost and fire’s warming, depth of loss and edge of storming.
She is avalanche, quiet hungering, utter stillness, snowfall brewing; hollowed, hallowed, shadows casting, field in fallow, wisdom gathering.
Waiting, watching, darkness craving, shedding, touching, reaching, laboring; burning, carrying fire within her, a woman turning, becoming winter.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
Luke 6: 36-38
How many times in our lives have we realized that, in giving or serving, we have received much more than we have given? No material recompense can rival the gift of another’s gratitude and trust. When we are merciful as God is merciful, we know a joy beyond measure.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
A wise older friend said this to me long ago, challenging me to live my life by the abundance of Divine Measure. You might like to reflect on her phrase as you pray today’s Gospel:
Never resist a generous impulse.
Prose: from Gratitude by David Whyte
Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean that we are simply not paying attention.
“Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a mountain that I will point out to you.”
Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.
Often it is at the height of our joy, or the height of our sorrow that we feel closest to God. Intense experiences can bring us unequaled grace and opportunity for spiritual growth.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In our prayer, we may gratefully remember the “mountains” of our lives, those times when joy, hope, pain, or anxiety built almost insurmountably in our hearts. How did God meet us in those moments? How did we meet God? How have our “mountains” transformed our lives?
Poetry: Unveiling the Heart’s Mirror – Rumi
All through eternity Beauty unveils His exquisite form in the solitude of nothingness; He holds a mirror to His Face and beholds His own beauty. he is the knower and the known, the seer and the seen; No eye but His own has ever looked upon this Universe. His every quality finds an expression: Eternity becomes the verdant field of Time and Space; Love, the life-giving garden of this world. Every branch and leaf and fruit Reveals an aspect of His perfection. The cypress gives hint of His majesty, The rose gives tidings of His beauty. Whenever Beauty looks, Love is also there; Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek Love lights Her fire from that flame. When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night Love comes and finds a heart entangled in tresses. Beauty and Love are as body and soul. Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond. They have together since the beginning of time- Side by side, step by step. I swear, since seeing Your face, the whole world is fraud and fantasy The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf or blossom. The distracted birds can’t distinguish the birdseed from the snare. A house of love with no limits, a presence more beautiful than venus or the moon, a beauty whose image fills the mirror of the heart.
Moses spoke to the people, saying: “This day the LORD, your God, commands you to observe these statutes and decrees. Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 26:16
… you are to be a people peculiarly God’s own, as promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments,
Deuteronomy 26:18
… and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God, as he promised.”
Deuteronomy 26:19
Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48
In our readings today, God calls us to BE in the fullness of grace. For the people of the Old Testament, that path was found in the Law and Commandments. For Christians, that fullness is found in patterning our lives on Jesus. He showed us that God’s perfection is beyond Law. It is absolute Love and Mercy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In our prayer, we might ask for a deeper understanding of the “perfection” God asks of us – not a measurable, demonstrable alignment with subjective guidelines, but an unlimited openness to grace. God’s perfection is a Love without boundaries. Jesus is that Love made Flesh. In God, we are called to live in their example.
Poetry: Easy to Love a Perfect God – Shams-i of Tabrizi
Shams-i Tabrīzī (1185–1248) was a Persian poet who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Rumi and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi’s poetic collection. The tomb of Shams-i Tabrīzī was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It’s easy to love a perfect God, unblemished and infallible that God is. What is far more difficult is to love fellow human beings with all their imperfections and defects. Remember, only you can know what you are capable of loving. There is no wisdom without love. Unless we learn to love God’s creation, we can neither truly love nor truly know God.
If the wicked man turns away from all the sins he committed, if he keeps all my statutes and does what is right and just, he shall surely live, he shall not die….
…. And if the virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do evil, the same kind of abominable things that the wicked man does, can he do this and still live? None of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered, because he has broken faith and committed sin; because of this, he shall die.
Exodus 18:21;24
Sometimes our life, with its many challenges and mysteries, can seem like an amusement ride spinning in the middle of the universe. We can be turned this way and that by forces such as our doubts, fears, disappointments, shocks, failures, unmet expectations, and the many figments of our imaginations. Oddly enough, these tumbling realities are the very places we meet God to Whom we desire to turn our lives no matter how our circumstances turn.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We might use this simple prayer to turn our hearts to God in every moment.
Dear God, in all things, I wish to turn my heart to You. Receive my desire and steady me in your Love.
Poetry: Thee, God, I come from, to Thee I go – Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
Thee, God, I come from, to thee go, All day long I like fountain flow From thy hand out, swayed about Mote-like in thy mighty glow.
What I know of thee I bless, As acknowledging thy stress On my being and as seeing Something of thy holiness.
Once I turned from thee and hid, Bound on what thou hadst forbid; Sow the wind I would; I sinned: I repent of what I did.
Bad I am, but yet thy child. Father, be thou reconciled. Spare thou me, since I see With thy might that thou art mild.
I have life before me still And thy purpose to fulfil; Yea a debt to pay thee yet: Help me, sir, and so I will.
But thou bidst, and just thou art, Me shew mercy from my heart Towards my brother, every other Man my mate and counterpart.
Tend the flock of God in your midst, overseeing not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.
1 Peter 5:2-3
The image of Jesus the Good Shepherd has blessed believers throughout the ages. As our weakness is lifted in the tender Divine Embrace, we find peace, hope, release of sorrow, and strength to go on.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Our reading from Peter calls us to be like the Good Shepherd. Christ called Peter to this ministry, and he calls us as well. As we accompany and support one another on faith’s journey, let us do so with tender mercy in imitation of Christ.
Poetry: The Good Shepherd – William Denser Littlewood (1831-1886)
Into a desolate land White with the drifted snow, Into a weary land Our truant footsteps go: Yet doth Thy care, O Father, Ever Thy wanderers keep; Still doth Thy love, O Shepherd, Follow Thy sheep.
Over the pathless wild Do I not see Him come? Him who shall bear me back, Him who shall lead me home? Listen! between the storm-gusts Unto the straining ear, Comes not the cheering whisper,— "Jesus is near."
Over me He is bending! Now I can safely rest, Found at the last, and clinging Close to the Shepherd's breast: So let me lie till the fold-bells Sound on the homeward track, And the rejoicing angels Welcome us back!
Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.
Luke 11: 30-31
Just like the Ninevites in Jonah’s time, we are called to turn our hearts fully to God. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, many prophets were sent with this message. But we have been given One greater than any of these prophets. Jesus is the ultimate Sign of God’s desire for our faith, love, and hope. We are called to live according to his Word.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,
We might ask ourselves how free we are of the need to demand signs from God. When we live in deep relationship with another person, we trust their good will and loving intention toward us. We don’t have to ask them every five minutes if they still love us. We don’t have to pick apart their actions to test their intentions. We trust that they want only the best for us. How much more we can trust God who sent God’s own Beloved Son to redeem us!
Music: Two hymns today.
Son of God – by Starfield
God’s Own Son, Most Holy – by Ryan Flanagan
Verse 1: (From Christian Worship: a Lutheran hymnal #17) God’s own son, most holy Came a servant lowly Came to live among us Came to suffer for us Bore the cross to save us Hope and freedom gave us
Verse 2: (From The 1982 Hymnal: Episcopal, #53) Still he comes within us Still his voice would win us From the sins that hurt us Would the truth convert us Not in torment hold us But in love enfold us
Chorus: (Derived from 4th verse Common Service Book Lutheran #10 and Lutheran Service Book ) Come, O come, Lord Jesus From our sins release us Let us here confess you God’s own Son
Verse 3 Thus, if we have known him Not ashamed to own him Nor have loved him coldly But will trust him boldly He will then receive us Heal us and forgive us
Chorus Come, O come, Lord Jesus From our sins release us Let us here confess you God’s own Son, most holy Keep our hearts believing That we, grace receiving Ever may confess you God’s own Son, most holy
Verse 4 (From: The Chorale Book for England #26, changed to new English first person plural) But through many a trial Deepest self denial Long and brave endurance Must we win assurance That his own he makes us And no more forsakes us
Lavish Mercy 