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About this post: We want to stay connected! This blog post is part of a series of daily devotionals for this season. Read them, share them, and pray that they bring God's peace and love to our communities. To sign up to receive text notification of these posts, text zpc to 39970. We welcome your comments and questions each day.

About the author: Shawn Price has been part of the ZPC family since 2004 and is married to the wonderful Lisa Price. Together they have two amazing children, Evey and Grayson. Shawn has served in many ZPC ministries, including being a deacon.

Today's Scripture: Matthew 26:6-13

As someone who is generally pretty measured and practical, this passage tended to confuse me, and if I'm being honest, kind of annoyed me. I mean, none of it makes any sense. The woman certainly would have an appreciation of how much the ointment was worth and how wasteful she was being. Jesus makes a surprising comment about how the poor will always be there as if there is no point in trying to help, which is not exactly his typical message. Having a full bottle of ointment or perfume dumped on you sounds horrible and I get a headache just thinking about the sensory overload from it happening to me! So again, it doesn't make any sense, and you know things are off if the most "normal" thing in a passage is about how Jesus was hanging out with a leper. Thankfully though, Jesus knows that being sensible isn't always best and tells his disciples that this substantial act of love/gratitude is preparing the way for what comes next.

I have learned the most about what this means from the Great Banquet here at ZPC but at first, it too didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Spending 72 hours at church with communication cut from home, work, etc was a big ask and something almost unheard of doing these days in our connected and busy world. Sitting around and talking about concepts I felt I would already have a reasonable understanding of didn't seem like a practical use of this time either. And finally, as someone who is pretty introverted, being "stuck" in a group of people for a weekend is somewhat terrifying. I pushed back on attending the Great Banquet for years for these reasons, but thankfully I wasn't given up on and I finally relented and begrudgingly went.

My experience as a guest was positive and I was glad I went, but serving as a team member for some of these weekends was when it truly began to shine. At its core, the weekend is about abundance, whether it's love, grace, or food. It's definitely a whole jar of ointment type of experience and being part of this process has allowed me to witness Jesus working in peoples' lives in incredible ways. That's because the Great Banquet isn't about the weekend itself, it's about preparing us for what comes next. The Lord always has a plan, even when we can't see it and it doesn't make sense; I'm thankful that he chooses to include us and use us on that journey.

Activity:

Find a way to perform an outpouring of love on a family member, friend, person caring for others during the pandemic we are currently facing, or someone else. A couple of ideas could be giving the person a call or writing a letter to express how meaningful they are, or sending a care package to someone who you think needs it. Use your imagination and let the Lord work through you. Also consider attending the Great Banquet if you've never attended and if you have, consider requesting to serve on a future team. You can find out more about the Great Banquet at http://www.zpc.org/great-banquet/.

Prayer:

Lord,
Thank you for always being in control and using us for your well-prepared plans, even if we are not always able to make sense of them. Please use us to demonstrate your abundant love and grace to everyone we meet.
Amen

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