John 12:1-8
Fifth Sunday of Lent March 13, 2016
Come to our Wednesday night soup suppers and you will find that there is nothing like breaking bread together. Over a bowl of soup, things that weigh down or fill up our hearts are likely to come out. One person will ask another about upcoming surgery. Our college students will be asked how classes are going, and what they hope to do when they graduate. Maybe people will simply talk about the weather. Whatever the topic, in these conversations is the Word made flesh. Whether we recognize Jesus’ presence or not. Because Jesus became flesh, there is no human activity that is too ordinary to be holy.
Sharing meals creates bonds and memories. Family and friends coming for dinner can be the best. That’s when people feel free to be themselves. Gatherings around meals are where traditions begin and are lived out. It’s the place where stories start. One of my family’s favorite stories is the time my mother made pecan pie. After dinner, for dessert, my mother brought out the pie and tried to cut it. It was challenging, so my father tried. Then he got a steak knife, then the carving knife. The story goes that he got the ax from the garage. When that wouldn’t work, they used the pie as a door stop. This is why I prefer cookies.
Family meals reveal the dynamics of the family system. This is how we have come to know Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Luke’s gospel tells us that when Jesus visited them at their home, Martha was busy running around trying to get everything ready. Mary was living in the moment, sitting and listening to Jesus. Mary was a “P” on the Myers-Briggs Personality Scale. We all remember Martha complained to Jesus about Mary not helping. There’s one in every family.
We know this family also because when Lazarus fell ill, the sisters sent word to Jesus. We learn that Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, but by the time he got around to being there, Lazarus had died. His body had decayed in his tomb for four days. Martha went to meet Jesus, while Mary stayed home. Jesus told her that those who believe in will never die, and Martha confessed her faith that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus commanded Lazarus to come out of the tomb, and Lazarus came out still smelling of death. Reviving corpses was the final straw for the religious leaders. They planned to put Jesus to death.
With the chief priests hunting for him, Jesus returned to the home of his dear friends. It was six days before the festival of Passover. Of course, they have a meal together. Of course, Martha was in charge and busy, busy, busy. She put dinner on the table and sat down next to her brother, Lazarus, who was still processing his time in the tomb and his resuscitation by Jesus. Maybe, like Jesus would after his resurrection, Lazarus’ body still bore the marks of his death. Jesus was seated next to Judas, who wanted to use Jesus’ power and influence for his own purposes. Peter was an hour late. He forgot to spring forward. Chances are that James and John, along with the other disciples were there, too. More work for Martha. This is when the craziness started, when everyone gathered together.
Mary held in her hands a pound of perfume made from a highly fragrant essential oil. Worth over a year’s salary, I’ve heard it said that this much essential oil would produce 10,000 bottles of Old Spice cologne. This essential oil, or nard as the Bible calls it, is mentioned in the Song of Solomon[1] as perfume worn by a bride. It is a sign of love. Mary’s love for Jesus was strong enough for her to ignore cultural respectability and let her hair down. She kneeled, and poured the perfumed oil on Jesus’ feet. Mary did not anoint his head, as one would a king, but his feet. She then rubbed the oil into his feet with her hair. Mary’s hair would carry this fragrance with her wherever she went. The perfume, her hair, her kneeling, touching him, –it was all so extraordinary and extravagant.[2]
The strangeness of this gathering continued when Judas, the one who would sell Jesus out for some silver, complained. “Why wasn’t this perfume sold? A family of five could live for a year on the proceeds!” “Leave her alone!” Jesus said. “She bought it so that she will have it for my burial,” If this scene was not crazy enough, Jesus’ continued response is also not what what we would expect. “You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” In Jesus’ words are echoes of Deuteronomy (15:11), which instructs Israel to open their hands to the poor because there will never cease to be someone in need. Jesus was not saying to ignore those in need. We know that because we’ve heard his advocacy for them. Jesus was saying that his time was growing short, and if Mary were going to prepare him for burial, now would be the time.
In his greedy self-centeredness, Judas was counting the cost. Mary was not. Judas gave himself to things that could never love him. Mary acted out of her love. Her lavish act was in response to the unbounded love she received from Jesus. She sat at Jesus’ feet learning; now she was at Jesus’ feet washing them. Within the week, Jesus’ would be washing his disciples’ feet. What Mary has already done for him, Jesus will do for his disciples. Jesus will wash their feet, and tell them to serve and love one another. We will have the opportunity to wash and be washed during our worship service at St. Martin’s on Maundy Thursday. This is what discipleship looks like when we to turn to God.
Discipleship is our response to sitting at Jesus’ feet, to seeing life come out of death, and to being loved despite our sin and despite our shortcomings. We are loved by a God who came in human flesh, who could feel, taste and smell as we do. Jesus enjoyed meals with friends, and cried when Lazarus died. He ate with the one who betrayed him, and even washed his feet.
“That love [in our story] doesn’t seem to be devoid of emotion and passion and sensuality,” writes Debbie Blue.[3] “How excessive for God to go this far….How could God be so immodest and insensible, to not only become incarnate in the world, to chase after us in this way…to suffer and die naked on a cross? You would think that God would show a little more restraint than that, retain more dignity, do something more decent and pious and sensible than such a seemingly uncontained expression of passionate love.”
Our hunger for God, our thirst, our passion, our needs are met by a God who is wildly and crazy in love with us, despite our failings. If you want to know this love, try sitting at Jesus’ feet, and coming to His table. Our Lenten focus is Sabbath-keeping as a way to return to God, to rest in God, and to discover delight in God. To put this more succinctly, it is about accepting God’s love, and, to use Henri Nouwen’s phrasing, becoming the beloved.[4]
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] Song of Solomon 1:12 and 4:14.
[2] The story of a woman anointing Jesus with oil appears in all four Gospels. In Mark’s gospel, it is Jesus’ head that is anointed. John’s gospel is the only one to name the woman, and the only story to depict a woman who has an established relationship with Jesus.
[3] Blue, Debbie. Sensual Orthodoxy. St. Paul: Cathedral Hill Press, 2004. 101. Print.
[4] Henri Nouwen’s book Life of the Beloved (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000) delves into discovering and living into God’s love.