I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, March 4 as part of our exploration of the Gospel of John. The text is John 12:1-9; read it here.
Love and death are sitting at the same table.
Love and death.
And Jesus holds them together.
I read a commentator this week who wrote that this story continues a pattern that is apparent in John’s Gospel:
“the pairing of wholeness and corruption.”*
We can see elements of this pairing in almost every story we’ve read in the Gospel.
Wholeness and corruption side by side.
For instance:
The hunger and poverty
of the five thousand followers who gather on the hillside,
paired with the fullness of that broken bread that feeds them all.
Or:
The chaotic, jumbled life of the Samaritan woman at the well,
paired with the strength and certainty of her recognition of Jesus.
Or:
The grief and pain and stench of Lazarus’ loss,
paired with his restored life,
the freshness of new breath.
And now just days later they all sit around a table.
The meal is for Jesus,
and Martha is serving.
And there at the table is Lazarus
who was dead for four days,
but now is alive.
And amongst the chatter of friends
and the smell of good food
there is suddenly another smell…
the thick, heady smell of the anointing oils
that are used at burial.
The wholeness of the meal.
The corruption of the grave.
The wholeness of her offering,
the corruption of the response from those around her.
All of it held together by Jesus.
One of the reasons the Gospel of John is such a strange gospel
is that the Gospel of John does not have a Eucharist.
At least, not at first glance.
The word Eucharist is a Greek word,
that means “thanksgiving.”
And usually it refers to what we’re doing right now:
gathering at a table to break bread and share the cup.
But the writer of John never told that particular story.
Instead, sometimes it feels as if
he just took all that Eucharistic stuff
and spread it all over his gospel.
Like when Jesus feeds the 5,000 out on the hill,
he takes bread and breaks it and gives it to them.
It feels like the Eucharist.
And now this story,
a meal given for Jesus,
with Martha serving,
and Mary kneeling before him,
anointing his feet,
drying them with her hair.
It feels like the Eucharist too.
Here’s what I notice about this story:
One.
It is inappropriate.
Mary’s actions fall way outside the limits of polite.
She’s a woman on her hands and knees
in a front of a man who is not her husband
in the midst of a dinner at her home.
It was just as strange in the first century
as it would be if someone in this room were to do such a thing
right here.
Two.
It is extravagant.
The nard that Mary spills out on Jesus’ feet
is worth the equivalent of a year’s salary for a manual laborer.
Her actions are beyond extravagant –
they are actually unreasonable.
Three.
She acts out of desire.
She does not do what she does because she has been told to,
or because she has been asked to.
She does not do it because she feels that she should or she must.
She does it because she is compelled to.
She does it because she wants to.
It is a Eucharist:
a thanksgiving.
An outpouring
that comes from a place of desire deep within her
that moves her to act.
You all have this in you.
A desire so deep and so strong
that it moves you to do that are wild and unreasonable.
The year my sister got divorced
I bought an airline ticket to England
without a thought to money or timing.
I just needed to be there with her.
Because I love her.
And it’s the same desire
that brings Mary to Jesus
to cover his feet with oil.
She just needs to do it.
Because she loves him.
There’s a word that shows up in church a lot
that I don’t like.
And that word is “should.”
I really should go to church.
Or,
I really should serve on that committee.
We’ve been talking in recent meetings
about a governance system for St. Lydia’s,
about desire.
And what happens to a community
when the motivation to serve
is not based on “should,”
but based instead on desire,
on love,
on relationship.
What does it look like when a community of people
bring healing and justice to one another and those around us
not because “that’s what churches are supposed to do,”
but because we are acting
out of our desire?
Out of love.
Out of relationship?
Because we are making our Eucharist?
Pouring out ourselves for another:
an act of wholeness in the midst of corruption.
Love and death at the same table.
Trusting Christ to hold both together.
This past weekend Rachel and I
participated in a conference run by Just Food
that was all about sustainable and just food practices.
The place was filled with bright, motivated people
who were all doing their part to heal the world,
and Rachel and I were so excited by it,
and so moved by all the goodness and movement that was happening.
And then the next day we came to church and were both kind of depressed.
She was thinking the same thing I was, it turned out.
How can there be so many people trying so hard to fix the world,
and still, it’s so broken.
And we have such a long way to go.
It was overwhelming.
Overwhelming perhaps because I thought for a moment
that we might vanquish the corruption.
And though we Christians tell a story about a love that is stronger than death,
death never dies.
Death holds his place at the table.
There is not one hint of “should” in Mary’s Eucharist.
She fills the room with the smell of the grave.
She touches him with her hands and her hair.
She does it because she loves him.
Perhaps desire is what brought you to this table.
And perhaps desire is what brings you back.
This table will not make you better.
This table will not make death disappear.
This table will not make you good or polite and it won’t make you nice.
It will unwrap the desire that drew you here in the first place,
It will uncover what is wild and unreasonable within you.
It will compel you to make your Eucharist,
your thanksgiving,
just as Mary did,
fragrant and shocking.
It will teach you how to love.
*Matt Skinner, Associate Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary. Click here to read his commentary.
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