Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

Sunday, March 21, 2010
Fifth Sunday in Lent

GOSPEL: John 12:1-8

 

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor? 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Responding to Love and Acceptance

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

If you were able to stand at the East Gate (called also the Golden Gate, also called the Beautiful Gate) of the old city of Jerusalem you would be standing at the gate through which (as we will hear next Sunday, Palm Sunday) Jesus came into the city in the days before his arrest, trial and death.  Of the 11 gates in the city of Jerusalem, it is the oldest.  It’s interesting to remember that in Jewish tradition the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) used to appear through this gate, and would appear again when the Meschiach (the Messiah) comes.

You can’t actually do that however.  You can’t stand in the opening of the gate because it was walled up in the 16^th Century by the Ottoman Turks.  But if you could and you were to look Eastward from that gate in the Old City, your eyes would see across the valley a ridge that is called the Mount of Olives.   And if you could see with your eyes a little bit farther, about 2 km distant and on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, you would see the village that is located in the West Bank today, and called in Arabic al-Eizariya (the “place of Lazarus”).  The village was in the time of Jesus called in Aramaic  עניא בית, Beth anya (“house of the figs”).  The Gospel Writers of the “New Testament” call it in the Greek, Βηθανία … Bethany.

The old story about a woman anointing Jesus takes place in this village.  The earliest Gospel, Mark and the latest Gospel, John link this story to the final days of Jesus.  Mark and Matthew tell us that the incident took place in Bethany, at the home of Simon the Leper.   Luke doesn’t identify the village or the home at all; and by the time of the writing of the Gospel of John some 70 years after the death of Jesus, the incident takes place in the home of Jesus’ friends, the brother and sisters called Lazarus, Mary and Martha.

Mark and Matthew tell us that the anointing of Jesus takes place after his entry through that East Gate into Jerusalem; Luke tells it as part of another debating encounter with the Pharisees, especially the one called Simon, and by the time John gets a hold of the story, it takes place before Jesus goes into the holy city.

In Mark and Matthew, the woman (without a name) anoints Jesus’ head.  Luke and John have the woman anointing Jesus’ feet and in Luke the woman wipes away tears, but in John she wipes away the oil.  And John gives her the name of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (whom Jesus had recently revivified from the dead).

Luke’s turn at the story indicates that the offense is that a woman (of some disrepute since she let down her hair and Jewish women kept their hair bound or wrapped and only Women of the Street would have let their hair down) … a woman is touching Jesus.

In Mark, Matthew and John the offense is the waste of resources, and in the last Gospel, Judas Iscariot becomes the prime objector who wants to sell the oil for a year’s salary and give the money to the poor, except that we learn he is not all that trustworthy, since he was a thief and really wants the money for his own investments.

In each of the Gospels, the story is quite sensual and very moving.  Take a look at the painting by Del Parson on the front of the bulletin (“At Her Master’s Feet”).   Parson has captured I think the whole sense of pathos, the urgency of future, the youthfulness of the woman, the caring and love and above all the acceptance of the moment that is seen, if we read and listen carefully enough, in the story itself, no matter which Gospel Teller tells the story.

So often the preaching on this incident (my own included) goes off into the side-panels of what kind of perfume was it, and what a true waste of money, and how horrible the person of Judas … but why can we not let the story stand for itself?  Why can we not see the real focus of the story which is the woman?  Let her response stand as it is, not “stroking the ego”[1] of Jesus, but rather of her response to God …  response of true Love and Acceptance.  And all that, in the midst of the poignancy of Life and Death (think of when this story is told in John’s telling of the Gospel).

How close Jesus is to death, and in that closeness it will be not the disciples, not the good and devout and so busy that they miss the point of it all … but the a few women who are left standing near Golgotha and who will walk slowly and loving to the tomb.

In that closeness where time and future plans are put aside, in the nearness of death, comes says Jesus from the pen of John, Love and Acceptance, the embracing of humanity, the relationship between human beings which reflects the relationship between God and all of us.

It is at the end and through it all how we are to be with one another, loving, accepting, holding, enfolding … no matter what … the outpouring of lavish kindness and deep recognition of the wounds we see in each other which need anointing in so many ways. 

If we can’t see that, if we are wrapped up in making things go our way, fussing about the insignificant matters of existence, fretting about the order of this and that and whether he or she is following the way it should be … if we find ourselves immersed and enmeshed in the smallness of living that is no living at all … if we cannot behold the touch, the caress, the love, the welcoming … if the room is not filled with the fragrance of unconditional acceptance … then the whole thing is wasted, and the whole message falls on deaf ears and much sadness falls on humanity and the world.

So let the fragrance fill the room, the church, our homes, our relationships, our community … let it permeate into the homeless shelters and the houses of the rich … let it infuse the coldness of hearts and the meanness of spirits … let the bottle of precious love and acceptance and healing break open and spread over feet and hands and bodies and hearts and souls and minds and spirits and let this be for us the whole meaning of the Story …

Let us pray.

God of life and death, meet us as we are, with whatever hope, despair, or longing fills our hearts. Bless our living and our loving; Bless our families both given and chosen. Bless our embodied rituals of adoration, our sacraments of sensuality. Hasten the transformation of our weeping into joy. Amen.

Deo Gratias (+)

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church
Santa Fe, NM