March 13, 2016

Fifth Sunday in Lent - Mary anoints Jesus

It has been a very warm week. I almost don’t want to think about how much winter we should have. I feel as if I talk about winter, all this good weather will be taken away. I ran out to my mailbox and got the mail yesterday afternoon. I was delighted that there were no bills! Actually, there was a bill, but it was much less than I thought it would be. Again, I am quick to equivocate. I am a little hesitant to believe the good news. I can’t really be that good, can it?

When we allow ourselves to be open to God’s good news, we are often overwhelmed. God gives to us so generously, so completely – we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We are quick to remember loss, or our fear of loss. We think of everything that could go wrong. We hold a baby and think about how hard it will be to raise them right. We get a new job and wonder if we will be up to the challenge. We find a new friend, or begin a new relationship – what if they find out what we are really like? It can’t be as good as it seems, can it?

We have moments in our lives when we glimpse God’s generosity. We are speechless. New parents often feel this way. They plan for a child and anticipate parenthood – then they hold their newborn child for the first time. They marvel, “What is this new life? How could I be so lucky?”

I think this may have been something that motivated Mary to offer her extraordinary gift. We have to get beyond the strangeness of it. We are hearing a part of a story, dropped into our own context. Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus had comforted Mary at the tomb. There was talk about danger and about how Jesus (and a very live Lazarus) challenged the status quo – and about how the leaders were plotting to do something about it.

Mary is grateful. She wants to thank Jesus. She wants to show her love for Jesus. She finds a very expensive jar of perfume and she anoints his feet and dries his feet with her hair. The house is filled with fragrance.

This makes everyone uncomfortable. It’s too much. It’s awkward. Are we being encouraged to think up similar expressions of love? Where do we start? What could we do? Judas speaks for us (also uncomfortable!). Shouldn’t we be giving this expensive gift to the poor?

Like Judas, we are not so concerned with the poor that we have to argue about better uses of funds. We also know that this story has often been used to ornament our buildings while ignoring the poor. So we should keep the needs of our neighbors in mind – but this story isn’t about that. We are being invited to think about what Jesus gives to us and about what we give in return.

It is six days before the Passover. Jesus will die the day before Passover and he will rise the day after. The great offering for our salvation is being set in motion. Mary has no idea what Jesus will do for her – she is only responding to what he has already done. Perhaps we don’t really grasp all that Jesus has done for us. Perhaps that is why we shrink from her generosity.

God is always giving to us generously. We don’t always see it. We might even object and point to all the ways that we feel lack or loss. Yet even in our difficulties, God is always seeking our best. God is always inviting us into a new creation. God is always offering us a new beginning.

Many of us have been working through the workbook from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist called, “Growing a Rule of Life.” The deeper we go, the more ways that we discover how much we have to do. We have been invited to plant a garden – perhaps a place where we can meet God. The work is not to be exceptional. The work is to create something that lives, something that nourishes us.

The garden can be a place of peace and joy, and it takes a lot of work. There is a cycle of death and life. The old plants nourish the soil that sustains new life. Old plantings must be pulled down to make space for new ones. We have to set aside old ways to make room for new possibilities.

We grieve what we lose even as we plan with hope. There is no guarantee that what we plant will prosper. Faith is about living with hope in the promises of God – not in trusting the certainty of our own plans. So we plant our seeds and trust in God’s goodness. Some of our work produces a glorious result – some is unproductive. We rejoice in the power of God to produce new life in us, no matter how well we succeed.

This is our joy. God works in us no matter how much we prosper. God renews us no matter what we think we deserve. Whatever God works in us, it is right that we turn back to God and offer ourselves in gratitude. We can step outside of the expectations of our world and praise our God who loves us always.