Sermon

March 25, 2007

Journey with Jesus: To the Table

John 12: 1-8

March 25, 2007

For five weeks now, we have been on a journey.  We have journeyed with Jesus through temptation, to Jerusalem, to repentance, to reconciliation, and now we journey to the table.  This is not the table in Jerusalem, but it looks very much like the table in Jerusalem. This week’s reading puts us within six days of Passover, and the time is significant.  Because it is almost Passover, we know Jesus is going to die.

The place is significant.  Jesus is in Bethany, on his way to Jerusalem.  Bethany is about as far from Jerusalem as it is from FUMC, The Colony, to the tip of Stewart’s Peninsula.  It is close – walking distance.  Bethany is also where Jesus had come to raise Lazarus from the dead.  According to John, Jesus knew that the penalty for raising Lazarus from the dead was death. Earlier in John, the Jews had thrown stones at Jesus because he had claimed to be alive before Abraham lived.  Then a little later in John, when Jesus claimed to be one with God, they took up stones again to stone him.  Now, just before today’s reading, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead.  The Pharisees and chief priests had called a meeting of the council and said, “This man is performing many signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”  Here Lazarus is now, raised from the dead, reclining around the table at Bethany with his sisters and with Jesus.  Lazarus is probably recounting what it was like being dead and how blinding the light was as he stumbled out of the tomb.  He has bathed, of course, but there is still a faint scent of myrrh about him, still a few twigs of cloves stuck in his hair.  The place is significant.  Because he is within walking distance of Jerusalem, we know Jesus is going to die. 

The table is significant.  It is a banquet table, very much like the table around which the disciples sit just days later at the Last Supper.  Judas is there – Judas, the dark intruder upon this scene of joy in the home of a grateful family; Judas, with the flaring temper, Judas, who disapproves of Mary’s extravagant gift, pretending that the money should be saved for the poor.  Because Jesus is sitting at a banquet table like the banquet table in Jerusalem, with followers who celebrate and one who betrays, we know he is going to die.

And, finally, we know that Jesus is going to die, because we have an anointing.  We have anointings like this in all four gospels.  In Luke, the anointing takes place long much earlier and is there to show that Jesus forgives the sinful woman.  In Matthew and Mark, though, the anointings are very similar to today’s, except the woman in each of those stories is unnamed.  That makes her extravagant gesture even more memorable.  In those gospels, the writer says, “Wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”  The anointing of Jesus’ feet by Mary here in the Gospel of John anticipates Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet just days later.  It also anticipates Jesus’ anointing and burial.  Jesus himself says that what Mary did was “for the day of my burial” – not that it was Mary’s intention to anoint Jesus for his burial.  Mary comes in the act of service and friendship.  If Jesus is going to die, at least he will not be left by himself to suffer alone.  Mary is paying attention.  She is the first to look down the road toward Jerusalem.

The power of the witness of Mary’s discipleship in this story is that she knows how to respond to Jesus without being told.  Her act shows forth the love that will be the hallmark of discipleship in John.  She thinks nothing of spending a year’s wages to purchase perfume that will fill the house with the scent of God’s love at the table that day.  What Jesus will do for his disciples and will ask them to do for one another, Mary does for him.  

For two years – from 2004-2006, we United Methodists in the North Texas Conference were privileged to have as our spiritual leader Bishop Rhymes Moncure.  Many of you saw him.  Some of you met him here.  In 2005, he set the example of discipleship, he showed us what to do for one another, when he knelt, at the ordination service for the new elders, and washed their feet.  He did that again in 2006, and it was no less inspiring, a reminder again of what the life of a disciple looks like.   In Mary, we are given a picture of the fullness of a life of discipleship.  In this moment between the stench of Lazarus’ four days in the tomb and the spicy scent of myrrh and aloes with which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will embalm Jesus’ body, the sweet aroma of God’s love is wafting in the air.  It coats Mary’s hair as she brushes it against Jesus’ feet and fills the house wherever she goes.  Has anyone caught a whiff of God’s love on us 21^st-century Christians lately?

When I asked this question in our Bible study class, one person had an immediate answer.  She said, “Yes, I have caught a whiff of God’s love lately.  It was when one of our members – who is on a fixed income spontaneously volunteered to drive a homeless man all the way to Ft. Worth to look for a job.”  Sonja told us several weeks ago that she was here one day weeks after that when that man returned, just to say “thank you” to all who had helped him – the woman who drove him to find a job, which he did, the person who took his dog – whom some of you know as “Cody” – and those others who so filled his surroundings with love that day that he believed he could do it – and did!  Another person who has filled a room with her perfume is Elizabeth Edwards.  Despite the announcement that her cancer has metasticized, she has elected to use whatever time she has left, to create a legacy for her children, a legacy of love for her country, a legacy of love for her husband, and a legacy of faith.  She has chosen to pour out her time extravagantly.  Jesus, in his hour, gave boldly the most extravagant gift of all – his life. 

We have a model which we are called to emulate – the life of Christ and his gift to us.  We get a picture of what that might look like in today’s scripture.  When occasions arise, we Christians speak and act in ways we think most appropriate.  When we follow that model of extravagance, however, we may never know what lives are influenced, what differences are made because God takes a word spoken, a gift given, a hand extended, an effort expended, and gives it a life and a power far beyond the intention and expectation that prompted it.  

We are all on the journey to Jerusalem.  (We have journeyed through temptation, to repentance, to reconciliation.)  Today, we find ourselves at the table, knowing that what lies ahead includes both the palm and the passion.  (That word will be proclaimed to us in song next Sunday by our choirs.)  As we walk along the path with Jesus, we can smell the perfume of life with which God has richly blessed us.  In the 21^st century, the gift of extravagance is not a pound of perfume purchased with a year’s wages but the gift of time.  As the day approaches when Jesus will enter Jerusalem, will you, will we, be extravagant with our time as Mary was extravagant with her perfume, as Jesus was extravagant with his life?  Amen.