Change Happens

(Posted April 3, 2024)

Probably one of the most important lessons that comes into focus for those of us who’ve been on the planet for some years is that life is all about change.

Impermanence is a sign that growth is taking place. However when we’re young, we’re convinced that things will last forever. Our parents will be by our side forever. The crush on that boy or girl in our school will last forever. Our youthful strength and beauty will be ours forever. After all, why wouldn’t they?

If You’re Fighting Change, Choose Your Battles Carefully

But it also seems that our obsession with permanence isn’t restricted to our youth. Just spend ten minutes watching TV these days. We spend huge amounts of our money for products and procedures to keep things the way we think they should be, forever. We erase eye bags that tell our age. We try to combat wrinkles as if they were some dangerous form of cancer. And Gray hair? God forbid that those white strands show up in public.

When recently two of the NASA astronauts ended up stuck on the International Space Station for nine months longer than their original hitch, Astronaut Suni Williams gained criticism from the world below her when her jet black hair slowly turned white. It was as if people on earth thought a beautician and hair dye were kept in space. Oddly enough, her flying partner Butch Wilmore didn’t face the same kind of criticism, since his hair was natural. Also, he was a guy. She is 62. He is 59.

Change: An Invitation to Be a New Person

The truth is, God is quite proud of the ability to make things new. Through the prophet Isaiah this week we hear God’s voice:

“Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

As we seemingly speed through this Lenten season, we realize that these disciples we’ve read about have been given the invitation to become new people.

They’ve quite literally left the old, familiar, comforting objects of their past and leapt into the sea of the unknown. They followed a young Rabbi who dangerously disturbs the comfortable with his interpretation of the law, and who he befriends:

• The fishermen have left their nets.
• The Samaritan woman has left her water jug.

They have been transformed into proclaimers of “a new thing.”

Here, in this week’s Gospel, Jesus’ friend Mary ominously foresees the future, and washes his feet with the costly ointment meant for death and embalming. Judas, with his opposing motives of avarice and admiration of Jesus, objects.

Come join us as we continue on the road into Jerusalem, from horror to Halleluiah.