Isaiah 43: 16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3: 4-14
John 12: 1-8

The Smell of Extravagant Love

What does home smell like?

They say that if you really want to sell your house you should find a way to have the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the kitchen when the would be buyers are looking it over. There is something about the smell of baking bread that makes people think of home; something about it that might make those people want to make your house their home!

What does Christmas smell like? Does it smell like a fir tree? Does it smell like apple cider with cinnamon? Or like mincemeat pie or plum pudding? Does it smell like a turkey cooking all day in the oven. Does it smell like wet mittens drying on the cast iron heater?

What does love smell like?

What does forgiveness smell like?

What does gratitude smell like?

Does it smell like burned toast and scorched bacon and eggs on Mother’s Day when you are still in bed and hear strange sounds coming from the kitchen?

Does it smell like Nard, a very expensive perfume? Now I must confess that I don’t buy perfume. I buy unscented laundry detergent and unscented toiletries. As much as possible, I try to avoid the areas around the perfume counters at department stores. I so have a bottle of perfume, the same bottle a classmate gave me as a present when we graduated from high school. I keep it because I like the bottle.

Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, poured a pound of nard on Jesus’ feet. I am told that a pound of Nard, in 2007 dollars, would cost about $20,000 - or about a year’s salary for someone on minimum wage. At that rate only the most wealthy could have afforded to smell like the love of Mary for Jesus. (Or only the most extravagant!) We don’t know where Mary found that kind of money. Even if she was a person of means, it would have been a very extravagant gesture. Some would have termed it wasteful. Indeed, someone did. Judas’ motives were questioned by the John who wrote this gospel, but no doubt others would have felt the same way!

Sometimes though you just have to pull out all the stops. Sometimes you just have to blow the budget, sometimes it’s that important. Mary knew that. Jesus knew that. Martha and the others had to learn that.

Why, I wonder would Mary do such a thing. Her actions, in and of themselves, were highly inappropriate. There were all sorts of things “wrong with this picture”. She was a woman and he was not a relative. In that time and place, when male guests were invited to a home, the men ate together and the women served them. A woman would not have been talking to an important teacher, let alone touching him, massaging his feet and spreading the ointment around with her hair, which should have been hidden under some sort of veil.

However, we know that Jesus regularly disregarded social conventions; such as the conventions about the Sabbath and about the roles of women in society. In Luke’s gospel, for example, he encouraged Mary to sit at his feet and learn from him as a student learns from a teacher - and encouraged it despite Martha’s protest that Mary had left her to do all the work by herself. It seems that Jesus has other concerns and other priorities.

What would you serve if Jesus came to dinner. Would you take out all the gourmet cookbooks you have or hire the best caterers and ask them to serve the best wine, the choicest cut of organic beef and the best vegetables a couple of exotic deserts- or would you just throw a few all-beef wieners on the BB’Q and stop by Dixie Lee A chicken restaurant specializing in deep fried for a tub of cole slaw and the Co-Op a grocery store for a tub of those broken chocolate bars for desert and couple bottles of 2 L no-name pop aka ‘soda’ to wash it all down with? Would you put out the best china or use the everyday dishes, or even serve the hot dogs on multi purpose paper towels. Would you dress up in your Sunday best or wear your rumpled, weekend, hanging around the house clothes?

Now, if you decided to serve the hot dogs would you make a point of telling Jesus that you gave the difference between the catered meal you wanted to serve and the hot dogs he was actually eating to the local food bank!

There is a place for simple living. We have polluted our planet almost to the point of extinction because of our excesses, but sometimes, extravagance is appropriate. There is a place for frugality, but sometimes you just have to spend “way too much on a gift”. There is a place for keeping your emotions at bay, but sometimes you have to express everything that you have kept in your heart.

One of the saddest things in life is to lose someone suddenly, and to realize that you meant to tell them how much you loved them but never got around to it. I think that Mary knew what that was like with her brother Lazarus and when Jesus came and raised him from the dead she was so grateful that she had to express her thanks in this important way. She know what death smelled like. She knew sorrow turned to joy and she knew who it was that had brought the smell of life and vitality back into their home. She just had so much she wanted to say but words could not express it. She realized that Jesus was going to be killed because he was ruffling too many feathers and she had to tell him all of this before it was too late. How do you say something like that? The time for reserve was over. The time for living by the attitude - “well Jesus knows how you feel without your having to say it”, was over. The time for extravagant gratitude was NOW. The time for heartfelt devotion was now. The time could well be short, and the time had come to act. When words fail, one must act.

Before we are as hard on Judas as the writer of John’s gospel was, we need to realize that there’s probably a little (or a lot) of Judas in us all. That’s one of the reasons the story of Judas is there at all.

As we journey toward the cross we are called to see how we, like Judas, betray the person of Jesus and the essence of the Good News that Jesus came to proclaim. When we see that and admit it to ourselves, we can repent and seek God’s help as we try to model our live on that of Jesus and trust in God’s grace and abundant love.

What other reason would Judas have for objecting? Maybe he was just jealous that he didn’t think of something like that himself. Maybe, despite what John has said, he really thought such an extravagant gift was a waste - and perhaps some of the disciples and others agreed with him and didn’t speak up. Within a community there are always differences of opinion with regard to the use of common funds and the direction of the mission of the group.

Now, some people will use Jesus response to Judas, “the poor you will always have with you”, as an excuse for not working at eradicating the systemic causes of poverty, or even not helping the poor at all. However, we must realize that Jesus was referring specifically to this situation. Jesus ministry among the poor and the vital work of the early church in this regard is well documented. Even now, 2000 years later, we DO have to look at what we do with our money: as individuals and as a family and as a church - in the light of the call of the Gospel. Do we use our money for ourselves, for nice things, or do we use it for mission, for helping others who have less? Is the answer the same in all circumstances?

This passage is about a particular set of circumstances. In the light of the journey toward Jerusalem, the circumstances dictate this response of abundant and overflowing gratitude. In this circumstance the smell of love is the smell of nard on hot tired feet. In other circumstances the smell of love is that of a hot bowl of soup and a warm roll delivered from the mobile food kitchen. In other circumstances the smell and look of love will be different again. In this situation, the disciples and many of Jesus’ followers just don’t understand; they just don’t get it. The end of this journey will be tragic. This journey will END in Jerusalem. Jesus knows that the powers that oppose his Way and his Good News will try to silence him, and will indeed succeed. (Of course we know about the power of God that manifested itself at Easter, but for the time being we have to walk this road to the cross as if it were the very first time.)

For all the time that Jesus has been with them he has shown them the abundant and overflowing love of God. Soon the powers of sin and death will nail him to the cross. What other response can there be? How can we be reserved and hide our feelings in the face of such love? The hymn with which we will end this service has this as the essence of the last verse; listen: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small: love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Isaac Watts, 1707

Amen!

Zechariah 9: 9-10
Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29
Luke 19: 28-40

“How Quickly things Change”

So, we have come to one of the most confusing and topsy-turvy weeks in the year, topsy turvy at least as far as the church is concerned.

The week begins with an air of triumph but ends with the heaviness of despair; the week opens in joy and closes in sorrow. This is one of those times where we can truly say, “What a difference a few days makes”.

While we have read only the lessons for “Palm Sunday” itself, we can never let this day pass by without the realization that the entry into Jerusalem was the beginning of the end; an end that would come very quickly.

Each of he gospel writers records this day a little differently; each has his own reasons for remembering these events and each sees different meanings in what transpired. Interestingly enough, the reading from Luke has no mention of palms but palms have become so much a part of the tradition that we usually refer to this Sunday as, “Palm Sunday” no matter what Gospel we read.

Lets look at the events of this first “Palm Sunday”. We have, at the outset an understanding that this was all “part of the plan”. After all, the animal was there waiting for him just as he said it would be.

Some time ago I was driving on the Shediac 4 lane toward Moncton. A large luxury car passed me, and took the Fredericton exit, almost like I was standing still. I looked at the licence plate and saw, not numbers and letters like you and I have on our cars, but a single crown. I came to the conclusion that the passenger in the car was none other than our Lieutenant- Governor, Herménégilde Chiasson. It was the kind of car I’d expect him to use. I certainly didn’t expect him to be driving a Pontiac Sunfire (maybe he does when he is incognito, I don’t know!)

We have expectations about the kinds of houses certain people live in, the kinds of clothes they wear and the kinds of cars they drive. We feel that the rich and powerful must look the part and those who want to rub shoulders and do business with the rich and powerful must look the part.

Jesus entry into Jerusalem was not what most people would expect of a king. Kings rode fine high spirited horses, not untried colts, or donkeys (as the other gospels make clear). Surprisingly, then Jesus the king who came in the name of God did not come into Jerusalem as anyone would expect a king to do. The religious leaders, instead of trying to curry favour with this new leader, as one would expect, tried to have him silence his own followers. It seems while most everyone loves a party; some didn’t like Jesus’ party.

I must say that the one thing that was like that of the entry of other kings was that the people spread cloaks on he road so that the animal on which the king rode could walk on them.

When I was in elementary school I was taught that one day when Queen Elizabeth I was out walking with Sir Walter Raleigh, they came to a mud puddle. Sir Walter put his coat on the ground so that she would not dirty her royal feet.

The biblical verses quoted by the crowd were traditionally associated with the Messiah. So the crowd was not just welcoming a king, but a king who had come to be the Messiah, the saving leader who had been expected for generations. They wanted someone to throw out the hated Romans. They wanted someone to make their nation great once again; as great as it was during the reign of King David. They wanted the king on the horse, or at least the kind of king that was suited to riding on horses.

Yet, even though he was the Messiah and they had it right - they were not prepared to change their expectations of what he had come to do. When Jesus was asked to silence the crowds, he spoke to the Pharisees and said that if he told them to be silent, the stones of the ground would shout out his identity. I find that a truly powerful image - the stones would shout out.

I wonder, how many times are we too easily silenced when asked to talk about our faith and what makes us tick as God’s people?

Then again, the whole journey of Holy Week is not just in the past; it is our journey. The journey of Holy Week is how we become silent; the whole journey of Holy Week is how we move from cries of Hosanna, to cries of “Crucify Him”.

I think it’s largely about expectations. The people who knew Jesus best had a hard enough time with the difference between what their assumptions about the Messiah were and who Jesus actually was - it is little wonder that the crowds who followed him were confused. He quoted the scriptures with which they were all familiar but it seems that he interpreted them in completely different ways. He talked about the power of peace and the paradox of service bringing freedom. He talked about the powerful being brought down and the weak being raised up.

The powerful didn’t like it, and they managed to turn the crowd on him. Soon enough of those who had gathered on the day of parades managed to convince the powers that be, that he was dangerous and had to be eliminated.

What I’d like to reflect on a little more is the image of the stones shouting out, and how, unfortunately, they are too easily silenced. As I said, the journey of Holy Week is also our journey. So the image of the stones falling silent is an image of how we fall silent under situations of conflict or pressure ort when we judge that the cost is too great.

We all know about peer pressure. We usually talk about it in terms of our young people trying to make their own decisions; and especially in terms of helping them to stay away from underage drinking, smoking and illegal drugs. If we are honest, we know that peer pressure is not just reserved for young people. We may look at a certain issue and form an opinion about how we should respond, but we change, at least at least what we say about it in public, when we hear what others think - and it may not be because we have actually changed our minds, but because we don’t want to be seen as different, or we don’t want to deal with the stigma of being different. So the stones fall silent.

One of the things that has received a great deal of press lately is the issue of global warming and our response to it. There are many solutions to this crisis faced by our entire planet and we all know that we have to pollute less, consume less and live more simply. But when it comes right down to our pocket books and our lifestyle, our response and the costs and changes we would have to incur we can easily change our tune and again we fall silent. The stones are silenced by the fears that the cost will be too great; the stones are silenced by the hope that the scientists are wrong or there will be another solution.

When we look at problems of global hunger, the AIDS crisis in Africa and a myriad of other issues, we fall silent when the changes that have to be made are too great, when the solutions are not as simple as we first thought.

When a colleague is being harassed at work or someone is a victim of outright discrimination, are we able to stand up and be counted, despite what that may cost us in terms of “popularity”?

Jesus was trying to get the people to see what the prophets had been trying to get the people to see for many generations - that they were chosen not to be special and privileged, but to be a light to the nations; they were chosen not to be served but to be servants.

We are a blessed and privileged people as residents of the developed first world, as Canadians, as residents of new Brunswick.

We are called, not to hoard our resources, and keep them only for ourselves, but to use them for the good of many. We are called to be stewards of all of God’s gifts.

One of the primary gifts we have been given is the gift of the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. The real test of this week is not what we are saying and doing when everyone else is shouting “hosanna” but where we find ourselves when the crowd had turned on him, when the way is hard and when the cross is looming in the distance.

Can we carry the cross with him, despite the cost? Can we stay by him till then end?

Amen