“Mary’s Abundance”
John 12:1-8
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
3/13/16
It is six days
before Passover, and Jesus is at Lazarus’ home.
The
ever-silent Lazarus is up and taking nourishment, again.
Both of
Lazarus’ sisters are there. Martha is fussing about, again – serving dinner and
taking care of everyone.
Thank God for Marthas. Some of them
may never really understand why they
do all they do. They may never truly feel gratitude
in doing all they do. But they get things done. And the rest of us let the
Marthas wear themselves out with their examples of humble faithfulness. At
their funerals, we praise them for their servant hearts, and all the while wondering,
“Oh no! Who’s going to organize the kitchen now?”
Then there is
Mary. “Bless her heart,” say all the Marthas. “Mary doesn’t know which end of a
stick of butter to grease a cake pan with.”
Mary is a contemplative. This night
she shows up with a bottle of expensive perfume. Instead of using it to cook
with, Mary opens the bottle, and in front of everyone, she pours the entire
contents onto Jesus’ feet, then wipes those feet with the very hair of her
head.
Now, bear with
me a minute. My mama is from Alabama. My daddy is from Mississippi. My wife and
I are both from Georgia. Our children were born in Georgia and raised mostly in
North Carolina. I went to college in South Carolina. I went to seminaries in
both Virginia and Georgia. I have served churches in North Carolina and
Tennessee. My international experiences have been brief visits to Africa,
Eastern Europe, and Pittsburg. If I offer a critique of southern culture, it
comes from one who is thoroughly and gratefully southern.
The fine southern ladies and
gentlemen who raised me tended toward a conspicuous politeness. That persona
was not at all false. Like any façade, it was simply incomplete. It served as a
kind of protective shield. It is how people from “good families” maintain
respectable reputations in a world of temptation. For better or worse, we all
project personas. And for better or worse, we all maintain those personas by
repressing other realities about ourselves.
All that is just to say that, as a
child in Sunday school, I was never taught that when the Bible refers to feet, it is usually alluding to the
masculine propagative appurtenance.
Southerners, who have been “raised
right,” know how to use a thesaurus, too. It’s how we avoid uncalled for
transparency.
Sure, sometimes feet are just feet,
but in the metaphorically sophisticated world of John’s gospel, almost
everything has multiple layers of meaning. Mary’s actions, profoundly intimate
and suggestive, express the daring testimony of a woman who has begun to
comprehend Jesus’ identity, the possibilities of relationship with him, and the
fact that trouble is brewing. Anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her
hair seems to be Mary’s way of saying, “Jesus, I love you above all others. And
I want to live in such a way that your life continues through mine.”
John sets up a contrast: As a
follower of Jesus, Mary chooses to see the creation as a place of fullness and
possibility.
As a follower of Jesus, Judas
chooses to see the creation as a place of dwindling scarcity.
As followers of Jesus in a
dis-eased world, our work includes discovering and developing our innermost
Mary. Through her unambiguously intimate act of baring the purest, most
provocative, most Love-tortured depths of her heart, soul, mind, and body, Mary
points us toward a life of abundance. She helps us to recognize and fall in
Love with the deep, indwelling extravagance of Jesus.
If we claim to follow Jesus, especially if we claim to follow Jesus,
we must also confess and confront our inner Judas. Judas focuses on scarcity,
on what we do not have, and what we
stand to lose. Living by calculated fear, envy, and vengeance, Judas always
betrays Jesus for the sake of protecting the purse strings, the comforts of
privilege, and the advantages of power.
Part of our human struggle is holding
Mary and Judas together – in our individual hearts and in our institutions.
When we ignore Mary, we become Marthas – helpful but superficial. Ignoring
Judas has more serious consequences. When ignored, Judas will search out and
exploit our frailties and fears. Camouflaged in rational argument, he directs
us toward real concerns in ways that make Love appear unrealistic, a happy
delusion. And he is really good at this.
“You cannot be prosperous and safe
without being in control,” Judas says. “So take control! Where will you be,
where will your church and your country be if you don’t act decisively to
ensure its survival?” (Judas almost always connects spiritual well-being to
political power.)
“You’ll never feed, clothe, or
house anyone,” he says. “You’ll never be able to ‘love your neighbor’ if you’re
not alive enough and free enough to do it!”
It is scary just how much sense
Judas makes. But aren’t these the precise arguments Satan uses to tempt Jesus?
So, what are we to do? I think
John’s point is that life and freedom look more like the scandal of Mary’s
prodigal, self-revealing extravagance than the devious façade of Judas’
self-preserving reason.
Demonstrating the characteristic paradox
of the Household of God, Mary does indeed take control – by surrendering
herself to Love. She is sustained through her apparently unsustainable outpouring
of gratitude, affection, and commitment.
“Those who want to save their life
will lose it,” says Jesus, “and those who lose their life for my sake…will save
it.” (Mark
8:35)
I have to give our Catholic
brothers and sisters credit. They grasp Mary’s significance in ways we do not. Without
Mary’s liveliness and vigor, the church deteriorates into the spiritually
numbing routines of Martha and the cynical, mercenary programs of Judas.
Rabbi Heschel writes: “When faith
is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit…when
faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks
only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its
message becomes meaningless.”1
It’s all about you, says Judas. We’re all going to die, so do whatever you
must to win.
It’s
all about you, says Martha. It’s all
about going to heaven when you die. So, do right things. Think right thoughts.
Don’t get lost.
It’s all about Communion with God, says Mary.
In this all-too-brief and painful life,
in this all-too-gloriously beautiful creation we breathe eternity every time we
share in the holy and abundant gift of Love.
Receive
it. Wed yourself to it.
Pour
it out with generous abandon.
Without
it, you are already dead.
With
it, you are already alive forever.
Charge/Benediction:
In his novel Jayber
Crow, Wendell Berry’s main character observes that, “…love, sooner or
later, forces us out of time...of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and
all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love
is always more than a little strange here...It is in the world, but is not
altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us
here.”2
1From Abraham Joshua Heschel’s, God in Search of Man:
A Philosophy of Judaism, http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5545.Abraham_Joshua_Heschel
No comments:
Post a Comment