March 13, 2016 - Fifth Sunday in Lent - Mary Anointing Jesus at Bethany

Today the brightness and exuberance in the singing of the Creator Praise songs Lord, I Lift Your Name on High and My Life Is in You was a fine antidote to losing an hour from Daylight Savings Time and the morning's rain.

Today's Gospel reading was informed by last Sunday and Wednesday's readings and informs Palm Sunday looking forward.

This was the perspective Pastor Michelle started her sermon.  Jesus is a marked man. She also pointed out the reference back to Deuteronomy in how Jesus defended Mary's action with Deuteronomy's There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.  

At the heart of last Sunday's Prodigal parable was God's extravagant and undignified love as displayed by the father's loving actions when his son returns.  In this week is a story of God's extravagant love that is returned.  Pastor Michelle illuminated the reasons Mary's anointing of Jesus.

• Mary takes on the role of a prophet in anointing Jesus as king
• The anointing foreshadows the impending death of Jesus by anointing him
• Jesus can carry the memory of this sweet fragrance to give him strength 

An interesting note here is the Christian proclamation that Jesus is king or Lord as an empire counter-narrative.  This is helpful as a metaphor for the power of Jesus and reminding us the emperor in not God, as we discussed in Animate Bible after the service, but can complicate our understanding with a set of problems.

Jesus is not a typical king or lord with demands that are made and given when political power is at stake.  We can get confused since our relationship with Jesus is not a king-subject relationship as it is perceived with an earthly emperor. We would not expect an emperor to make an extravagant gift to a subject unless there was an extraordinary reason or an ulterior motive.  It would not make sense in our world.

The sermon went into how we process bad news more quickly than processing good news   This is "common sense" and our first reaction to what life throws at us.  We ask "Is this a threat to my life, my family, my country?" and answer that before we evaluate the merit of an act.  

Pastor Michelle also referenced Parker Palmer and his eloquent writing on vocation and speaking in the world, particularly regarding  his writing on what Jesus commands at the Last Supper "Love one another as I have loved you".  Mary's insight at Bethany, as demonstrated in what she wants to show Jesus, is extraordinary.  Particularly if you contrast that insight to the indifference of the other disciples.

Last week Pastor Michelle preached about how labeling a parable can domesticate it.  Here is a story that is so powerful that even the writer is trying to domesticate it in parenthetical judgments that first remind us that Judas will betray Jesus and next hat his motivation for criticizing Mary's extravagance was that he was a thief and wanted to steal from the common purse.

What if this criticism came from another disciple?  In appealing to our common sense, wouldn't we tend to agree with this observation?  Might we even be tempted to make this judgment ourselves?  

Perhaps the challenge, if we don't follow common sense, is knowing where to stop.  Spending three hundred denarii (or as Pastor Michelle converted it for us, a year's wages) for what might be called a fleeting act of devotion moves beyond a more sensible tithe (which, frankly, most of us find had to achieve in our lives) and this illustrates and is connected to the "foolishness" of the cross

This story around Mary's hair and the fragrance detailed here also makes me think of my Episcopal brothers and sisters.  The house being filled with the fragrance of the perfume reminds me of one of Al's sermons and numerous times where he wistfully commented to me that he missed the "smells and bells" of the Episcopal worship service.

There is something about smell that can bring back powerful memories or link a story into a past experience that is only linked by smell.  I remember when Creator's one Sunday an Animate group changed a worship practice by filling the narthex and sanctuary wiith the smell of apples from apple cider and an air freshener.  I recall that memory using the connection of that smell as an index.

Jesus is about to make a journey of trasformation into Jerusalem that will be full of hardships, darkness and peril.  At this point, just before the journey, he accepts Mary's gratitude for the life he has given to Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  He draws out the good within Marty with a love that washes away her guilt and shame.  He accepts her gift, not as a king or lord but as a friend.

Our sung response to the sermon is There's a Wideness in God's Mercy which beautifully captured the theme of the sermon, particularly with the line "We make this love too narrow by false limits of our own"..I appreciated the associations and the reminder of God's mercy and the Year of Mercy that I blogged about on Wednesday and have though about throughout last week.  There was another dimension, however, that was not captured in the song's text.

There is a depth to God's mercy as well.