Sermons

Mar 25 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

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5th Sunday of Lent March 25 2007
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12:1-8

Many years ago in San Francisco, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese set out a plan to build a new, modern cathedral. It was very expensive, and this was the mid-1960’s in San Francisco, and so naturally there were protesters. I will always remember angry faces in the nightly news asking How can the church justify spending millions on this monument when the poor are hungry?

I don’t think they were thinking of themselves as following the in the footsteps of Judas Iscariot, but they were. Mary, why was this perfume you just poured all over Jesus’ feet not sold and the money given to the poor? A reasonable question; it’s easy to relate to Judas here.

On the other hand, it’s also easy for some to use Jesus’ words to justify indifference to the less privileged. The poor you will always have with you; forget about those losers. It’s every man for himself!

What’s going on here? Was Judas right? Was Jesus indifferent to the poor?

First of all, it is always dangerous to take one sentence of scripture and make it universal, ignoring the context. Remember that Jesus and his friends were constantly helping the disadvantaged and marginalized. That was their life. One evening of extravagance doesn’t erase that or justify a whole lifestyle of unconcern for those who suffer.

Secondly, and this is my main point today, I think this story is really about the tension between an active life of service to others and those times of devotion and soul-nurture that we all need.

Jesus was at the home of three of his best friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. They were all siblings who lived in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. You’ll recall another story about another dinner Jesus and his disciples had at their home. Martha was doing all the work. She tried to get Jesus to scold her sister Mary for sitting idly at his feet and listening to him.

Can you blame Martha? She was the dutiful and probably older sister. Always thinking about who might be hungry, what needed cleaning, how she might make Jesus and his disciples more comfortable. Perhaps some of you are like that. Today’s gospel story notes that once again, Martha was serving the disciples dinner. Always busy, busy, busy.

And Mary? Once again, she played the dreamer, neglecting all the work that had to be done, just sitting around listening to Jesus. But tonight she did something outrageous. She expressed her devotion by taking a whole pound of expensive perfume and rubbing Jesus’ bare feet with it, then wiping them with her hair. An extravagant, intimate, even shocking act, right there in front of everybody. No wonder Judas protested. No wonder Martha seethed.

Then Jesus said Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. Jesus would soon be gone. This was a night for intimacy, for devotion.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the duties of our life – work, home, family, commitments – that like Martha, we think that we can’t afford to slow down, to nurture our own soul, to waste time with friends as Mary did on those evenings with her Lord. Running around, helping everyone else, making sure the kids and the elderly parents and the spouse and the boss and all the people we work with are happy and taken care of, we can lose ourselves. We can lose God. We can lose our enjoyment of life. And we can become resentful of others, like Martha.

To Martha and to Judas and to you and me, Jesus says Come to me, all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Stop your striving for a bit. Spend some moments in prayer; remember God. Martha, the dinner can wait. Judas, the poor will still be there when we’re done with our evening. Don’t worry about being a little extravagant with money now and then. There will be more money to give away tomorrow. Savor this night we share, because we won’t be together forever.

The life of faith is not supposed to be a joyless duty, at least according to Jesus. Yes, he poured himself out to others in healing and teaching, but he also went off by himself into the hills. What did he do there? He probably napped, gazed up at the clouds, and chewed on a blade of grass. He prayed. He walked away from people who said that they needed him, people who needed healing and guidance, people he could have stuck with and helped 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He walked away from all these needs in order to stay grounded in God. The poor you will always have with you, but now is the time to be with God.

Jesus also went to dinners at friends’ houses, drank good wine now and then, danced, and once in awhile, they did something really outrageous, like pouring expensive perfume all over each other. Life is a gift, given to us to enjoy. The poor you will always have with you, but now is the time to celebrate life.

We usually think of Lent as a grim time of sacrifice, penance, committing ourselves to greater self-emptying in the service of others. But perhaps you can also think of it as a time to return to what feeds your soul and helps you to enjoy life. Perhaps you can abandon some of those duties, even some of those people who say they need you, and go off by yourself somewhere to chew on a blade of spring grass and sit at the feet of the Lord.

Start going into work a little later so you can take time for prayer; tell your boss I gave you permission. Forget about the demands of your job and take that vacation time you’ve got coming to you. Forget about making that extra donation to charity, and spend it lavishly on yourself and your favorite other instead. Life is short, and you won’t have each other forever.

That brings up one last thing, a little detail in the story, in fact, the last line. Jesus says You do not always have me. Now we think of this in relation to his imminent death, but these words also point to something beyond that. We sometimes take God’s constant presence and availability to us for granted. We sometimes take the good things in life for granted.

We assume that there will always be time for these things. We think that after we do all our duties, after we take care of everyone and everything, then we will have earned the luxury of prayer, of celebration. We’ll always have the chance to return to God, we’ll always have time for friends, for loved ones, for the enjoyment of life, right?

It doesn’t work that way. We’re never done with duty. There will always be more that we haven’t yet done for others. And there is a danger that we’ll forget how to feed our souls, we’ll forget how to enjoy life. We may lose God and the enjoyment of life if we always put them in second place. You may not always have me, Jesus said. So today, before you forget how, return to whatever feeds your soul and brings you joy. Today is the day for God, for life.