Peace Be With You (Sermon)

“Peace Be With You”

John 20:19-29

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

4/24/22

 

¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (NRSV)

 

         “Peace be with you.” In John’s gospel, these are Jesus’ first post-resurrection words to his male disciples.

It seems to me that the word peace has lost much of its original scope and depth. While it can refer to a sense of personal tranquility, just as often it gets relegated to a lack of geopolitical conflict. In Hebrew, the word for peace is shalom. In Greek, it’s eiréné. In first-century Aramaic, the language of Jesus, it was something like shlama. In the ancient languages, to invoke peace on others was to wish upon them a blessing for which mere words were inadequate. The word peaceevoked the ultimate Mystery from which all things have come and to which all things will go. Jesus was offering his disciples something far more significant than a peace treaty.

Having said that, the context for this story does hold significance. Jesus lived—and even more so did John write—during an era known as the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. If it felt peaceful, though, it was only because Rome had subjugated so much of the known world that, for a time, the empire faced no credible threat from the outside. It also brutally silenced virtually all criticism from the inside. That meant that those who held the wealth and the power could define what was true and just depending on what benefited them. So, it was under the authority of Rome’s version of “peace” that Jesus was crucified. Presbyterian pastor and educator Marjorie Thompson calls that kind of peace “enforced peace.”¹ And in no small way, peace imposed through threat of violence allowed and even inspired us to kill God Incarnate.

When the risen Christ says to the disciples, “Peace be with you,” he’s offering something entirely different from the enforced peace of Rome.

Biblically and spiritually speaking, peace is a realm of wholeness, community, and joy. It’s a presence that saturates us. It’s a purpose and a confidence that guide us—even in the midst of fear. When Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” he declares his resurrection presence to the men who betrayed him and abandoned him—men who, at the moment, feel anything but peaceful. And yet, from the realm of Resurrection, unfettered by time, or space, or human frailty, Jesus announces his eternal presence with and his forgiving love for his disciples and for all Creation.

When we share the peace of Christ, we share the same gift Jesus shares with the disciples on Easter evening. And even now, that gift is nothing less than the eternal Christ himself.

Yes, it’s a learned discipline to hold and to be held by the peace of Christ. That makes it easy to deny Resurrection, to say, like Thomas, Seeing is believing, so prove it! And that’s understandable. Experiences of the risen Christ are always subjective. They defy objective proof. (I say that with apologies to everyone who has seen Jesus in the scorch marks on their tortillas or their toast.)

The subjectivity of Mystery also makes it easy to reduce Easter to an individualistic doctrine, something one must accept in order to feel assured of a reservation in the safety of a post-mortem heaven. That turns resurrection faith into a rigidly-controlled institution in which people are contained and homogenized, a system which may be defended by worldly means for selfish purposes. And that kind of religion may fit well into “enforced peace,” but how does it proclaim the realm of Resurrection? How does it share the peace of Christ? How can a self-serving institution embody, as Jesus does, God’s holy justice and advocate for the oppressed without oppressing the oppressor?

Easter offers a way of being in the world that is always new because that same world is always telling us that we—individually and corporately—will be lost unless we impose our will upon others. Easter tells us, and shows us, that true peace is the gift of following Jesus in demonstrating love and compassion toward ourselves, our neighbors, and toward all of Creation. It’s the gift of praying, Your will, not mine.

The Book of Joy is Douglas Abrams’ thoughtful record of a weeklong conversation between Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. And these two profoundly influential spiritual leaders say over and over, in as many ways as they can, using as many stories as they can, that there is truly hope for the world when human beings and human communities discover joy by committing themselves to compassion.

In the final chapter, Abrams asks both men to sum up the week’s conversation. Tutu responds saying, “If we think we want to get joy for ourselves, we realize that it’s very short-sighted, short-lived. Joy is the reward, really, of seeking to give joy to others.”² And the Dalai Lama says that: “…true joyfulness comes from helping others…” and “…the only way to truly change our world is to teach compassion.”³

The remarkable thing about these deceptively simple words is that they are spoken by men who carry deep scars of oppression. Archbishop Tutu lived under and openly contested the cruelty of apartheid in South Africa until that violently racist system fell in 1994. And the Dalai Lama has been in exile since 1959 when China invaded Tibet. Tibetans have been escaping China’s authoritarian control and abuses ever since. And yet both of these men committed themselves to lives of compassion for all people, including those responsible for oppression.

Like Jesus showing up in that locked room to men who had forsaken him when he needed them most, both Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama lived lives of true peace; and one continues to live that life. Such lives are holy words from God saying to the world, “Peace be with you,” all of you!

Here, we begin to understand Jesus’ cryptic words about forgiving and retaining sins. If I acknowledge that the peace of Christ is the very presence of the resurrected Jesus, and if, for whatever reason, I do not share it with you, whoever you are, then I withhold from all of us a richer experience of God’s realm.

Christ’s peace can only be offered to; it cannot be imposed upon. So, it’s not a matter of whether or not others “accept Jesus.” It’s a matter of whether we, as disciples, are humble, grateful, and generous enough to trust that, like candlelight on Christmas Eve, the more we share Christ’s peace, the more there is for everyone.

When we do find the strength for that kind of generous compassion, we discover the deep blessedness of joy, and this blessedness is not associated with seeing, hearing, or touching Jesus in any conventional sense, but from loving and following the one whom we call the Prince of Peace.

Brothers and Sisters, from the ever-deepening depths of my self to the ever-deepening depths of your selves: The peace of Christ be with you all.

 

¹Marjorie Thompson, The Way of Blessedness, Upper Room Books, 2003. (From the Companions in Christ series) p. 86.

²The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. Avery, NY, 2016. p. 293.

³Ibid. pp. 295-296. 

A New Beginning to a Strange Ending (Sermon)

 “A New Beginning to a Strange Ending”

Mark 16:1-8

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

Easter Sunday

4/17/22

 

16When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ²And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”

⁴When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

⁶But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

⁸So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (NRSV)

 

         Jesus’ death was no great surprise. Indeed, it was predictable. Things would have been different for Jesus had he lived according to the ways and means of Caesar—the ways and means of weapons, wealth, and world domination. Had Jesus given into the temptations after his baptism and gained recognition for creating fear and enmity, or for belittling and persecuting opposition, or for flaunting wealth, Caesar would have seen in him an ally. For Caesar, there can never be too much fear and violence.

         Jesus held firm in the face of temptation, though. He refused to live by the sword or by an angry tongue. He refused to shun the weak, the sick, the outcast, the refugee. His life was defined by justice, by steadfast love and mercy. And those who allowed their lives to be shaped and re-shaped by his life became hard to threaten. Jesus had given them everything that mattered—belonging, dignity, purpose, and not for themselves alone. Jesus had given them his peace, his eternal Shalom—he had given them himself as a vision for all Creation.

         Caesar had no good answer for Jesus’ revolution of Shalom. To survive the threat of agape love, Caesar had to resort to the shock and awe of crucifixion. And that was natural enough for him. He’s been doing it for millennia.

         Biblically speaking, Caesar is more than a Roman emperor. Caesar, like Pharaoh, Jezebel, and Herod is a metaphor for human hearts turned toward greed and brutal power. All of these things make Caesar as predictable as he is destructive and timeless. And because Caesar’s means are effective—at least temporarily—by Sunday morning, Jesus’ followers have been reduced to three courageous women.

         As those women go to the tomb on Sunday morning, they assume that Caesar’s realm still reigns. Following the narrative of the ordinary, they expect simply to cover Jesus’ dead body with fragrant spices because everyone knows what happens to moldering organic matter. So, on their way, the women have one primary concern: Who will move the stone for them? When they reach the tomb, however, they have an encounter that is as extraordinary as it is brief. They discover that the stone has been moved, and “a young man” in white says that Jesus has been raised from the dead. He tells them that they’ll find Jesus in Galilee.

Then the women run away, too terrified to speak.

Most scholars recognize the women’s speechless retreat from the tomb as the original ending of Mark. In all likelihood, verses 9-20 were added much later, but isn’t “For they were afraid” a rather unsatisfying ending?

It seems to me that Mark’s abrupt ending makes more sense if we tie it back to the opening verse of Mark’s gospel: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” To me, those words feel laden with mystery, with breathless surprise, like someone asking himself or herself, Wait. What just happened?

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” are words inspired by the events of Easter. And they return us exactly where the young man dressed in white says to go, because eight verses later, after introducing us to John the Baptist, Mark says, “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Mark’s ending deliberately returns us to the beginning of the story. And isn’t that what Resurrection is all about—new beginnings and new life? Let’s be honest: An empty tomb proves nothing. And we’re not called to prove the resurrection, anyway. Indeed, we can’t do that. It takes a fully human life committed to God’s justice and mercy to bear witness to the risen Christ. Following him is all about returning to his extraordinary story, and telling it by living it, living in the realm of Resurrection, the realm of paradox, mystery, and promise—the very place that Caesar does not want us to live, because he has no control there.

Easter people don’t obsess over pearly gates and fiery pits. Even Caesar welcomes that kind of religion, because it’s based on rewards and punishments rather than grace. And fear-based religion makes for vassals who, in the name of Jesus, tolerate the same winner-take-all violence and injustice that crucified Jesus.

Resurrection faith transforms us into Easter people, people who follow Jesus in losing our lives, over and over, as we become more fully Christlike. And by that I mean we become more alive, more fully human, truer to the image of God within us.

While Easter people choose to live fearlessly and lovingly, we also confess that when Jesus’ radical ways become too demanding, or when they feel absurd, we may run away, terrified and speechless. But Jesus always welcomes us back, and not because we’ve groveled in guilt and promised to do better. He welcomes us back because forgiveness is who God is. Forgiveness is the opposite of weakness and resignation. Forgiveness is the very power of Resurrection transforming the world into the realm of God.

         I want to close with words written by Wendell Berry. This is an excerpt from a poem entitled “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” And I hope that you will hear in it a description of, and a call to the paradoxical yet well-voiced joy and hope of resurrection life.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.
Practice resurrection.¹

 

¹Wendell Berry, Collected Poems, 1957-1982, North Point Press, San Francisco, 1984. Pp 151-152.

Easter: Discovering Life In Christ (Sermon)

 “Easter: Discovering Life In Christ”

John 20:1-18

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

Easter Sunrise 2022

 

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ² So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

³ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴ The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷ and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹ for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples returned to their homes.

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹² and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

¹⁵ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (NRSV)

 

         On Sunday, Mary Magdalene rises before the sun. Maybe there is some starlight, but for the most part, her day begins with darkness swaddling her like a shroud.

         On Maundy Thursday, we talked about darkness as a negative thing. And yet, darkness is also a kind of equalizer. In the dark, we may know up from down, and we may still know our own left from our own right. But spin around a few times, and we might have to wait for daybreak to know east from west. And in the dark, we share our humanity entirely differently. It may be that we actually share our humanity more deeply.

         In his journal, Thomas Merton describes darkness as a kind of baptismal font. He writes of attending the night office during Holy Week when the choir sang without a single ray of light in the sanctuary. “I thought of the darkness as a luxury,” he said, “simplifying and unifying everything, hiding all the accidents that make one monk different from another monk, and submerging all distinctions in plain obscurity. Thus,” he says, “we are all one in the death of Christ.”

Merton then tells of singing the Benedictus, “the canticle of thanksgiving for the Light who is to be sent. Now He is sent,” says Merton. “He has come. He has descended into the far of night…” and gathered all things to himself.

         Merton imagines that in this gathering, “We will see one another with white garments, with palm branches in our hands. [And the] darkness,” he says, “is like a font from which we shall ascend washed and illumined, to see one another, no longer separate, but one in the Risen Christ.”¹

         “In Christ” is a kind of mantra in the New Testament epistles. A quick search reveals that from Romans through Revelation, in the NRSV, the phrase “in Christ” appears 90 times. And for Paul, in Christ refers to an inviting and inclusive mystery. He’s bearing witness to God bringing “all things” together—the whole of Creation—and uniting them in Christ.

According to John, as Mary arrives at the tomb, she sees three figures—two “angels” and a man she assumes is a gardener. After reading Merton’s journal, I imagine Mary still submerged in the darkness of grief, and yet hers is a cleansing and enlightening grief. And when she hears her name, all things come together in Christ, including the three figures she has seen. They gather into the wholeness that was, and is, and will always be the presence of God’s Christ. It is very much like the experience Cleopas and his friend have on the road to Emmaus later that day, when they recognize the Christ in a complete stranger.

         Now, that’s one way experience Easter—as a mysterious and unpredictable revelation of God’s irrepressible, whole-making grace in the world. Recognizing this oneness, this gathering of all things in Christ, is the redeeming gift of Resurrection. It’s also a challenging gift because the world isn’t always open to wholeness and union. Indeed, more often than not, much of the world resists the in Christness of the Creation because, among other reasons, living in Christ involves so much give and take, and in an anxious, divided, and competitive world, we often become consumed with taking rather than giving.

To discover and experience the in Christ life, we are invited to give up all the selfish habits of being that divide us, habits that obscure the image of God within us and that prevent us from seeing the image of God in others. Habits like pride, greed, fear, and vengeance. Habits that humankind manifests in attitudes like racism, consumerism, nationalism, and other violence-breeding distortions of our God-imaged humanity.

         We call it Holy Saturday—the day between Good Friday and Easter. For people of faith, Saturday is, spiritually and liturgically, a day of darkness. In the grief of that day, past and future dissolve into a kind of timeless present when we are washed of all selfish expectations, and when, by the illuminating darkness, God grants us the opportunity to recognize that God is gathering together all things in Christ.

Caryll Houselander was a British writer, artist, and Christian mystic in the first half of the 20^th century. Her most memorable mystical experience occurred on a subway in London when, in her heart and mind, she clearly saw “Christ in all people.”

“Quite suddenly,” she recalled, “I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them—but because he was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here in this underground train, not only the world as it was at that moment, not only [all] the people…of the world, but all those yet to come. I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here…in every passerby—Christ.”

         I imagine Houselander and her fellow travelers on that underground train buried in a kind of darkness. Sure, there were lights on the cars, but can’t you imagine heads bowed in dark silence, eyes open but seeing little and acknowledging less? All of them crowded beneath a shared pall of busyness, of anxiety about living in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s as the dark clouds of war gathered? So deeply did she see and experience her vision, that, through some uncommon grace, Caryll Houselander, like Mary on Easter morning, saw the Christ in each person and in all people together—all one in Christ.

Her vision lasted several days and shaped the rest of her life in relationship to all human beings.

Like Mary Magdalene, Caryll Houselander could not have held onto the Christ she saw in the people around her. He was not corporeal in the same way they were, but he was—and he is, even now—no less real, loving, and faithful.

My prayer for all of us is that we allow God’s Spirit to Easter us toward union with God in Christ every day. And one way to do that is to open ourselves to the font of simplifying and unifying darkness with the same expectation and hope with which we open ourselves to the Light. For in the darkness of our own difficult and disturbing days, we have the opportunity to do exactly as Jesus calls us to do, to lose our lives so that we might find them anew.

Please trust this, my friends: In the new light of Resurrection, we are being made one and whole through the shared embrace of God who is bringing together all things in Christ.

 

¹ A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals. Selected and edited by Jonathan Montaldo. Harper One, 2004. P. 99.

²https://catholicwomensforum.org/who-was-caryll-houselander-and-why-was-she-called-a-divine-eccentric/

The Fragrance of Christ (Sermon)

“The Fragrance of Christ”

John 12:1-8

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

4/3/22

 

         In John 11, Jesus resuscitates Lazarus and confirms the unique power of the one who called himself “the resurrection and the life.” In that same chapter, John describes the treacherous fallout of raising Lazarus—namely how it caused a small group of Jewish leaders to plot the deaths of both Jesus and Lazarus.

That’s an uncomfortable paradox: Jesus’ restoration of life provokes a scheme to cause death.¹ For some reason, life-giving holiness often generates an equally powerful and determined will to end the lives of those who demonstrate the radical love of life-affirming acceptance and life-giving grace. It’s discouraging how often genuine holiness provokes violent reactions from worldly powers-that-be. In John 11, those powers are represented by Caiaphas and his small circle of co-conspirators.

         It’s necessary to acknowledge that John’s gospel is often considered a source of anti-Semitism in Christianity. And indeed, John frequently refers to “the Jews” as Jesus’ principal opponents. It seems to me, though, that John is speaking primarily of those Jewish leaders who hold ecclesiastical and social influence, and who can whip the masses into a frenzy when they—the so-called leaders—feel their privilege being challenged. These leaders also know that when Jesus adds raising the dead to his already popular works of healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and welcoming outcasts, people will flock to him and throw their support and loyalty his way instead of toward folks like the high priests. For the most part, it’s this little clutch of Jewish leaders who feel threatened by Jesus, not the Jewish people in general.

Whether in first-century Judaism or in twenty-first-century Christianity, those who are most likely to feel threatened by Jesus and his followers are those who approach life most pragmatically. Dealing in absolutes and certainties rather than in the mysteries and possibilities of faith, they’re often the ones who, like Caiaphas and, for a time, Judas, keep their fingers on purse strings rather than heart strings, who remain more concerned about weapons than wisdom, and who spread more loathing than love.

And then there’s Mary.

 

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)

7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”  (NRSV)

 

The sister of both Lazarus and Martha, Mary is more interested in affection than etiquette. She is hungrier for growth than for groceries. And filled with such deep gratitude for Jesus, she pours an entire bottle of expensive perfume on his feet, and overwhelms the house with fragrance.

The pragmatists in the room act appalled.

What a waste! they say.

And I guess they have a point. Once all that perfume is poured out, it cannot be re-bottled. This extravagant act convinces me that Mary, with her keen spiritual awareness, comprehends what Jesus did for Lazarus. She knows that Jesus endangered his own life by restoring the life of her brother. So, her gesture becomes an act of lavish thanksgiving and blessing, not wastefulness. It declares Mary’s defiant love for and solidarity with Jesus. It’s an offering made completely and irreversibly to him. So, whatever Jesus’ lot will be, Mary is prepared to share it.

Mary’s actions challenge us to ask ourselves just how much power over us we grant to money and to the things it buys, whether that be expensive perfume or influence with people of influence. And if we’re completely honest, we’re likely to be a little embarrassed by our answers.

In his commentary on this passage, Presbyterian pastor Bill Carter tells the story of attending a clergy stewardship conference and listening to a presenter talk about generosity. Carter says that when “the presenter spoke about offering a gift directly to God…the [roomful of preachers] began to yawn. Then he pulled a $100 bill from his wallet, set it on fire in an ashtray, and prayed, ‘Lord, I offer this gift to you, and you alone.’

“The reaction was electric,” says Carter. The pastors “began to fidget in their chairs, watching that greenback go up in smoke as if it were perfume.” They whispered nervously about the legality of destroying money. They laughed uncomfortably about how wealthy the presenter must be if he could so casually waste a hundred dollars.

“‘Do you not understand?’ asked the speaker. I am offering it to God, and that means that it is going to cease to be useful for the rest of us.’”¹

         Mary’s all-in offering of perfume is often considered a foreshadowing of Jesus’ burial. And that is, indeed, something John wants us to understand. I also wonder if Mary’s offering creates a kind of fragrant link between the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus.

When we talk about Jesus raising Lazarus, we call it a resuscitation instead of a resurrection. And we do so because Lazarus, who returns to the same body will also return to the same grave.

Jesus’ resurrection is an entirely different thing. While we speak of the resurrection of the body, we also speak of an unimaginably new resurrection body. That distinction is consistent with Jesus’ reluctance to be touched by Mary when she sees him in the garden on Sunday morning. It’s also consistent with Paul’s affirmation that Jesus’ resurrection body is incomparably different from the body he inhabited during is earthly ministry. (1Corinthians 15:35-55)

Whatever a resurrection body may be—and no one on this side of the grave can know—it does seem safe to trust that it’s at least a body that will not return to the grave. Our previous bodies, then, like that $100 bill, will, at least eventually, cease to be of use to anyone.

         Lazarus’ resuscitated body can continue to be of use—if he gets over the jolt of having been forced to return to the world with all its suffering as well as all its beauty. Jesus’ resurrected body declares that his previous incarnation is over and done. Having poured his life out like Mary pouring out her bottle of perfume, Jesus can no longer be re-bottled. Having been poured out, he continues to be a fragrant offering turned loose in the Creation for the sake of all Creation.

         I think that’s our call—to live as the fragrance of Christ in and for the world. If so, then we ask ourselves: Do we, as Mary does, pour out our words and actions like a fragrant and extravagant offering? Do we, as Jesus does, go all-in on loving God by loving our neighbor and caring for the Creation?

Or do we, like Caiaphas and his terrified little junta, impose a graceless and self-serving pragmatism on the people and the environment around us?

         The table before us is set with a reminder of the extravagant grace of God’s outpouring in Jesus. The gift of the incarnate Christ is meant to set us free from dead-end devotion and loveless longing.

As we receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, may each of us sense God’s Spirit being poured into us, strengthening us, and empowering us to experience for ourselves and to embody for others the out-poured fragrance of God’s eternal Christ, who unites all things in himself through his all-inclusive, non-violent, Creation-transforming love.

 

¹JaeWon Lee Carter, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. p. 141.

 

²William Carter, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. p. 142.