"Martha's Story": A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on John 11 on the 5th Sunday in Lent.

"Martha's Story"

John 11:1-45

My name is Martha.  My sister Mary and I live in the village of Bethany, which is about two miles from Jerusalem.  Our brother Lazarus lives here too.  Lazarus-- oh, there’s so much to tell.  I’m trying to sort things out… trying to comprehend all that has been happening.  It’s a long story. Where to begin?

            As you may know, one of our dearest friends is Jesus, an itinerant preacher and teacher from Nazareth. Whenever he is in the area, we are honored to welcome him into our home, to give him and his close disciples a place to rest and have a good meal.   

            Some months ago, Jesus had been going around in Galilee.  He was purposely staying away from Judea, because some of our religious authorities had been plotting against him--looking for an opportunity to kill him.  When it was almost time for the festival of Booths, Jesus went secretly to Jerusalem.

            Some of our religious leaders were looking for Jesus at the festival and asking people where he was. I heard that there was a lot of whispering going on in the crowds about him, and there was controversy about who Jesus is   and about his teachings.

            On the Sabbath, Jesus healed a man who had been born blind, by putting mud on the man’s eyes.  When the man washed the mud out of his eyes, he could see! 

            Our religious leaders were divided because of the things Jesus was doing and teaching.

            Later, during winter, at the time of the festival of the Dedication, Jesus was walking in the temple. Some religious leaders gathered around him and demanded he tell them plainly: “Are you the Messiah-- or not?

            They didn’t like his answer. They picked up stones, preparing to stone him. They accused him of blasphemy, saying that he was claiming to be God. They tried again to arrest him, but he escaped.

            Jesus went across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing people earlier, and he stayed there.  We heard that many of the people who were there believed in him.

            Jesus had been across the Jordan for a time when my brother became very ill.  We were very worried, so we sent a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

            If you’ve ever had a loved one who was gravely ill, you can understand our fear and desperation when we saw Lazarus getting worse.  We had faith in Jesus’ power to heal, and we hoped that he would come back and heal Lazarus,

            But he didn’t come.  And then Lazarus died.  Our friends and neighbors gathered to mourn with us. We prepared his body for burial, and we placed him in the tomb. 

            Our hearts ached with grief-- the grief of losing Lazarus and also the grief that our beloved friend didn’t come.  Jesus stayed across the Jordan two days after he got our message about Lazarus being ill.  Two days!

            Later, a disciple told us that Jesus waited in order to glorify God.  I don’t understand that.

            When Jesus told the disciples that he was ready to come to Bethany, they didn’t want him to come because of the danger.  But by that time Jesus was determined.

            By the time Jesus got here, Lazarus had died!   The mourners had been with us, and he had already been in the tomb four days.

            When I heard that Jesus was coming, I went and met him, while Mary stayed at home with our guests.  I let him know how full of grief and anger and disappointment I was.  I said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”

            Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.”

            I answered, “Yes, Jesus. I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

            But then Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

            I began to understand that Jesus meant something more, something more immediate-- not just an end-times promise, but something that makes a difference here and now.[1]

            I said to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

            Then I went back and called Mary.  I took her aside and told her that the Teacher had arrived and was asking for her. She went to him quickly.  The mourners followed her, because they thought she was going to the tomb, to weep there.  When Mary got to where Jesus was, she knelt at his feet and said, as I had, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

            Jesus was deeply moved when he saw Mary and the others weeping.  He asked, “Where have you laid him?”  They said, “Lord, come and see.”

            Jesus began to weep, and some people said, “See how Jesus loved him!”  But some of them said, “He opened the eyes of a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept this man from dying?”

            When Jesus came to the tomb, he said, “Take away the stone.”

            We weren’t expecting that.  Lazarus was dead.  I have to say that I had given up hope by this time.  Our Jewish faith teaches us that the soul leaves a person’s body on the third day after death.[2] 

            I said, “Lord, he has been dead in the tomb for four days.  Already there is a stench!”

            But Jesus asked me, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

            So, they rolled away the stone. Jesus said a prayer. Then he cried out with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out!” 

            What a sight that was!  Lazarus came stumbling out of the tomb, with his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth.

            Then Jesus said to us, “Take off the grave clothes.  Unbind him, and let him go.”

            Many of the people who were with us that day believed in Jesus. But the chief priests and the Pharisees were afraid that if he kept getting more followers, the Romans would come and destroy our temple and our nation.  They called a meeting of the council, and they decided that Jesus must be put to death.

            Because of this, Jesus could no longer walk about freely, and he and his close disciples went to the town of Ephraim, near the wilderness.  That’s where he was until he came to Bethany.

            Of course, we prepared a dinner for him that night.  I was serving, as usual, and Lazarus was seated at the table with Jesus and the guests.

            What Mary did next I can’t really explain.  She brought out a clay jar of pure nard, which is a very costly perfume.  She loosened her hair in a room full of men, which is something we never do.  She anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

            Would I have done what Mary did?  I don’t think so.  I tend to be the sensible, practical sister.  I’m not as demonstrative as Mary.  She’s more spontaneous and free…and very intense.

            Yet in her way Mary acted out the great love and gratitude we have for Jesus for everything he is and does--and especially for restoring our brother to life.  When she dropped to her knees and poured the ointment on Jesus’ feet, she was anointing him for his burial.

            It was an extravagant act of love.  I think she was doing something more than any of us can fully understand.

            Mary’s perfume covered the stench of death on Lazarus, and it still lingers in our house… and in Mary’s hair.

            Passover is near, and Jesus has told us that his “hour” is near. 

I keep thinking about everything that has happened these past days.  There’s so much I don’t understand.  When Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb when he had been dead and buried-- what does this sign mean?   When Lazarus came out of the tomb, with the grave cloths on, what did Jesus mean when he told us all to “unbind him and let him go”? 

            What does it mean-- what Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life?”   I have so many questions.

             Our religious leaders are plotting to arrest and kill Jesus.   I’ve heard that they’re also plotting to kill my brother, because people see him as proof that Jesus is the Messiah.   

            Passover is coming soon.  I feel like something very important and life-changing is about to happen.  There is a sense of expectation in the city.  People are so excited since they learned Jesus is here for the Passover.

            It is hard for me to feel faithful or hopeful right now.  Yet I know that I have been changed by what I have seen and heard.  So--for now--I will cling to Jesus’ promise, even though I don’t understand it completely: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

            Thanks be to God!     

Re. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

April 2, 2017

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[1] David Lose, “Heartache, Miracle, Invitation.” http://www.davidlose.net/

[2] Karoline Lewis, Commentary on John 11:1-45 https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=42

"An Extravagant Love": A sermon on John 12:1-11 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"An Extravagant Love"

John 12:1-11 

I’ve been reminded this week as I worked on the gospel lesson that this is a “fragrant text.”  And that angle of considering the story intrigued me, as I thought about how fragrances can affect how we experience things and remember them.

         Think about it--  about scents that evoke pleasant or painful memories.   Maybe it’s the smell of chlorine, that brings back memories of summers spent at the swimming pool when you were a kid. 

         Those of us who are gardeners look forward to the fragrance of lilac or lavender or hyacinths when they bloom.  Those of us who showed up at the Lenten study got to smell homemade soup and Keith’s amazing three-cheese mac-and-cheese.  Each of us has different comfort foods that evoke feelings of pleasure:  fresh baked apple pie or a favorite dish our mother made.

         Scientists say that while words go to the thinking part of the brain, smells go to the emotion part if the brain—the amygdala.  That’s why the smell of Grandma’s bread baking brings her back to us for a moment, and for some, why a bit of incense is “the smell of the divine.”[1]

         The fragrance of pure nard wouldn’t have evoked warm memories for Mary and Martha’s dinner guests.  It would have reminded them of loved ones’ deceased bodies, prepared for burial.  That would have been a very fresh memory, because they’d been through that very recently with their brother Lazarus. 

         In the previous chapter of John’s gospel, Lazarus was very ill, and his sisters Mary and Martha had sent a message to Jesus.  Though Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was, before he headed to Bethany.  When he got there, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days, and the mourners were there to console Mary and Martha. 

         Jesus went to the tomb and said, “Take away the stone.”  Martha—always a practical woman—said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”  But they took away the stone that closed the tomb, and Jesus prayed and then called, “Lazarus, come out!” 

         Imagine the scene, as Lazarus came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of grave cloths, and his face wrapped in a cloth.  Jesus told the people, “Unbind him, and let him go.”[2]

         Now, some of the people who witnessed Lazarus coming out of the tomb went to the Pharisees,  and the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said,  “What are we to do?   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.” 

         Caiaphus, the chief priest, prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation.  From that time on, the leaders of the religious establishment plotted to put Jesus to death.  So Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but stayed with his disciples in a region near the wilderness. 

         The religious leaders kept looking for Jesus and were wondering, “What do you think?  Surely he won’t come to the Passover festival—will he? 

Six days before the Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany, to the home of Lazarus.  Once again the house is filled with family and friends, and the table is covered with food.  Martha is hard at work serving.  Lazarus is reclining with Jesus.        

         John doesn’t give us details about the fragrances at the dinner party.  But we can imagine that there may have been a mingling of death-related smells in the room.  Lazarus is at the dinner table with Jesus—Lazarus who was in the tomb four days before Jesus called him out—about whom his sister said, “But Lord, there’s a stench!”

          

         Mary slips away and comes back, holding a clay jar in her hands.  Without a word she kneels at Jesus' feet and breaks it open, and the sharp smell of nard fills the room.  She does a series of  remarkable things: 

         In a room full of men, Mary loosens her hair--  which a respectable woman never did in that culture.  She pours balm on Jesus' feet, which also is not done.   Then she touches him-- a single woman caressing the feet of a rabbi.   Also not done, not even among friends.  Then she wipes the salve off again-- with her hair.  It is totally inexplicable-- the bizarre end to an all-around bizarre act.

        

         Judas is quick to point out how extravagant and excessive Mary’s action is.    "Why wasn't this ointment sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"  That's what Judas wants to know.  A day laborer and his family could live on that much money for a year, and here she has poured it all out on your feet!"

         But Jesus doesn’t see it that way.  "Leave her alone,"  Jesus says, brushing all objections aside.  "She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.  You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

         Now that is about as odd a thing to say as anything Mary did.  Jesus, who was always concerned about the needs of the poor and marginalized and putting their needs ahead of his own, suddenly pulling rank.  Leave her alone.  You will have the poor to look after until the end of time.  Just this once, let her look after me, because my time is running out.

         Mary’s action is a free and exuberant expression of love and gratitude.  In contrast, Judas sounds practical and calculating, and John tells us that Judas had selfish and dishonest motives as well.

         While Mary’s behavior may have seemed strange to those who were gathered in the house that night, it was no stranger than that of the prophets who went before her.  Ezekiel, who ate the scroll of the Lord as a sign that he carried the word of God around inside of him.  Jeremiah, who smashed the clay jar to show God's judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.  Isaiah, who walked around Jerusalem naked and barefoot as an oracle against the nations.            

         Prophets do these things.  They act out the truth that no one else can see.  Those who stand around watching either write them off as crazy...  or fall silent before the disturbing news they bring from God.

         When Mary stood before Jesus with that pound of pure nard, it probably could have gone either way.  She could have anointed his head and everyone there could have proclaimed him a king.  But she didn't do that.  When she moved toward him, she dropped to her knees and poured the salve on his feet, anointing him for his death. 

         This was the action of a faithful disciple:  washing Jesus’ feet.  Jesus received from Mary what he would soon offer to his disciples, wiping his feet with her hair, as Jesus will wipe his disciples’ feet with a towel. 

         Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with ointment so precious that its sale might have fed a poor family for a year.   Mary’s act was an extravagant act of love, a model of faithful discipleship—in contrast to Judas’s unfaithful response.  Judas represents the voice of reason and practicality.

         I think this story invites us to identify not just with Mary or Judas. In the figure of Mary, Christian discipleship is an act of adoration and gratitude to the One who is holy.  In her silent, prophetic act, she draws our attention not to herself--but to Jesus.  In the figure of Judas, Christian discipleship is God’s making righteous, or “justification” of those who have rejected or betrayed Jesus. The good news is the grace of  Jesus Christ includes them both, both the faithful and the unfaithful.  Both are included within the bright, transforming light the cross casts in a dark world. [3]

         “And the fragrance filled the room.” 

         One of my colleagues wonders if Mary had the Song of Solomon in her heart. [4]   We don’t normally associate acts of witness with the sense of smell-- but why not?   The smell of freshly baked bread given to another,  a basement full of Peace Camp kids in the heat of summer, the aromas of a meal prepared to share with those in need.

          Steven Shoemaker tells how Anne Smith, who began Charlotte Food Rescue, was hauling a station wagon full of donuts to a food shelter.  She stopped off to make a pitch to executives of what is now Bank of America.  As she rode the elevator to the top floor, someone said, “You smell like donuts!”   She laughed and told why, and by the time the elevator door opened, she had recruited somebody.  “The fragrance of love’s actions is carried on the wind to places we never see.”[5]

         How do we respond to Jesus’ self-emptying, extravagant love?  With a calculating, practical, careful way of life, like Judas?  

         Or does Christ call us to live lives of extravagant love?    

         The heroes in the scriptures are at their best when they live out their faith abundantly, extravagantly.  Noah building an ark when there isn’t a cloud in the sky.   Abraham and Sarah packing up everything they  owned and heading for God only knows where.  Joseph marrying a woman who is pregnant with a child who is not his.  Peter and John announcing to those who imprisoned them, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”   As Paul said, “We are fools for Christ’s sake.”

         Over history there have been other fools for Christ:  Saint Francis, giving up his material wealth, living among the poor.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer returning to Germany and witnessing to his faith, eventually dying for it, rather than staying safely in New York.   Desmond Tutu, challenging the powers that be, when he knew it could cost him.   Fools for Christ do not live a careful, calculating life--  but an abundant, extravagantly loving life.

         Mary’s love was uncalculating.  She was too caught up in her love and gratitude for Jesus to be concerned with her own scandalous behavior and extravagance. 

         Jesus said, I came that they might have life—life abundant.  We are called to a life of extravagant faithfulness.

         Common sense tells us, “Love your friends, the ones who will love you back.”  Our faith calls us to love our enemies.

         Common sense says, “Be kind to those who can help you.”   Our Christian faith calls us to care for “the least”, for those who are most in need. 

         If we follow Christ, we will not calculate what is easiest or what will look best.  If we follow Christ, we will not be stingy or calculating.

         Mary showed us that she was  beginning to understand that we don't need to hold back, out of fear.  Whatever we need, there will be enough to go around, for there is nothing frugal about the love of God,    or about the lives of those who are devoted to him.

         Where God is concerned, there is always more-- more than we can either ask or imagine-- gifts from our extravagant, lavish Lord."^[6]

         Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, when we begin our journey to the cross with Jesus.  I pray that we will find ourselves filled with the sharp, sweet fragrance of love.  May the sweet aroma of extravagant love be so powerful around and on us that what we want—more than anything else—is to fill the world with that same sweet smell of extravagant love.   To do so is to live as Christ would have us live.

         Amen!

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[1] The Rev. Dr. Blair Monie, “A Lingering Fragrance.” A sermon posted March 13, 2016 at www.day1.org

[2] John 11:1-44

[3] I am grateful here to George W. Stroup’s insights, in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Vol. 2, Lent through Eastertide, location 5070 in the Kindle edition.

[4] Song of Solomon 1:12

[5] H. Stephen Shoemaker, in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2: Lent Through Eastertide, Lent 5c, Location 5187.

^[6]Barbara Brown Taylor, "The Prophet Mary," in Bread of Angels (Cowley, 1997), p. 61.