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April 13, 2006
We Would See Jesus
John 12: 1-8, 20-21
Maundy Thursday
April 13th, 2006
We got back last night from our trip south to celebrate the life of my mother, and then to lay her beside my father in a grave in a cemetery between orange groves in mid-south Florida. The gravestone is so modest. The real memorial of their lives lives on elsewhere in the hearts of many whose lives they touched.
I had a lot of time to think as I sat behind the wheel of our Ford.
First, let me say how grateful Bonnie and I are to you for your out-pouring of affection to us in this solemn time of our lives. You have underwritten the Post Office budget for this year in buying so many stamps to mail the deluge of cards we received. We do thank you.
As I drove those 2500 miles or so in the past few days I pondered two of the stories of Jesus' life as His Passion-time drew near. Twice we see Jesus involved in demonstrations of care that are enormous clues to what is central to Christianity. The first of these demonstrations of care is described in the opening verses of John 12. Their Mary of Bethany lavishes on Jesus' feet an outpouring of costly ointment of pure nard. The second appears in John 13. There Jesus gets up from the table in the course of a meal and does something as unusual to His disciples as what Mary of Bethany did to Him. He, the Son of God, their Master, their teacher, their Lord, got down on his knees before each one and washed their feet. In both cases everyone watched aghast at what was going on.
In these two deeds the heart of the Christian life is demonstrated. In the first we see what it looks like to really love Jesus. In the second we see what it really looks like to serve in Jesus' name. Both demonstrations are anything but token acts. Martha, Lazarus, and everyone in the house at Bethany knew that Mary was devoting loving attention to Jesus. She stood near to him, opening and applying with her hands from His ankles to His toes this ointment that everyone knew was extremely expensive.
What she did was offensive to those with an eye to financial responsibility. It was also offensive to those who had a less exuberant idea of how to love Jesus.
What Jesus did to His disciples was offensive to Peter, we know, because he protested. But we have reason to suspect every one of the disciples felt something very awkward was happening, to have the Lord of Glory washing their dirty feet, drying them carefully with a towel. This was such an unseemly act that disciples of Jesus ever since have continued the tradition of embarrassment at it.
A few small sects of Christians have done as Jesus said to do, and the Pope too on Maundy Thursday. But nearly every one else has balked at taking the command of Jesus that we do for one another as He did, even though the grammar of these verses in John 13 could not be more clear. "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."
Some years ago I wrote an article on "The Ignored Sacrament" and sent it to that very Reformed publication, Theology Matters. I laid bare that our idea of a Sacrament is something Jesus specifically commanded His followers to do, e.g., Baptism and the Lord's Supper . . . and washing one another's feet! The article was mailed back to me by the Bible-thumping folk at Theology Matters with comments to the effect that they probably wouldn't publish a piece like this. We Reformed types don't do this. Why? Uh . . . They are not the only Reformed Protestants whose idea of the authority of Scripture has boundaries set by custom.
We have replaced the exuberant demonstrations of genuine affection given to us in the Gospels for tepid gestures that try to hide what actually seethes beneath the surface in our communities. If our exhibit of love for each other is what Christian life together really is, then there is little to advertise worth the notice. If singing words we mostly do not really mean in our hymns is the most exuberant form our love for God takes, it is unclear why we should proclaim the Gospel.
But we should proclaim the Gospel, and in doing so dare to discover among ourselves the way of life it offers. It is a life of unending gratitude. It is a life of obedience prompted by gratitude. It is a life of love that demands a focus. Since we cannot see and touch God, this love requires other people to absorb the love we long to give to God. This is the joyful Good News we have to offer, that is offered us in the Gospels.
Each of the Gospels has a parallel to the story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet with precious ointment. Matthew 26 and Mark 14 have an unnamed woman anointing Jesus' head rather than His feet in a home in Bethany near the time of His Passion. Mark, the first Gospel to be written, tells us that Simon the Leper invited Jesus for dinner, a kindly act of friendship. But it is the woman who steals the show. She comes to Jesus as He reclines on the couch, as was the custom in those days at dinner in well-to-do homes, and breaks open an alabaster flask containing "ointment of pure nard, very costly."
Alabaster is a stone-like material. She did not take off a lid from the flask, but broke open that sealed bottle. There was the sound of breaking as well as the smell of that ointment in the room. And Jesus sat there quietly, absorbing her affection as the men in the house stared in disbelief.
Matthew tells us much the same, leaving out that the ointment was "very costly." But we get the idea that it was expensive from the same report of His disciples protest at this extravagance. Both Gospels report that Jesus said of this woman's deed: "Wherever the Gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." Why? What do you suppose is so important about what she did that it should be reported everywhere and every time the Gospel is told?
I have the hunch that Jesus wanted it to be clear that telling Jesus, "I love you," for real involves a lot more than singing pretty songs about Him. It involves a lot more than saying we believe the warp and woof of our orthodox theologies, or offering token religious acts here and there, now and then, when it fits into our packed schedules. Really loving Jesus from the heart will prompt a costly deed that may even look offensive to those with a lesser regard for Him. And Jesus gave us a hint that maybe if we intend to serve Him, to care for Him, unless it is done with such exuberance, it hasn't really been done at all. From Matthew 25 we learn that the ones who are to receive this exuberant care comprise a circle very wide, including all those we see who are in need—the imprisoned, the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, all those "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." How consuming a thing it really is to be a Christian.
Luke's Gospel places a like encounter with a loving woman earlier in Jesus' ministry but adds details explaining why there was such an outpouring of affection to Jesus. There we're told it was a "woman of the city, who was a sinner." And look what this sinner woman of the city did: "standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment."
I can just see the Committee on Ministry of the Presbytery starting to squirm. Indeed, everyone watching this happen squirmed, except Jesus. As Jesus' host, Simon watched this uninhibited demonstration of affection on Jesus' feet he thought to himself: "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner." He said this to Himself, but his thoughts were plastered all over his face. Jesus said to Simon, "Simon, I've got something to say to you." And then Jesus told the parable of the two debtors, one who knew he owed a little and one who knew he owed a lot. The creditor forgave them both. Jesus asked Simon, "Simon, which debtor do you think loved the creditor more, the one whose small debt was erased or the one whose large dept was erased?" Of course, Simon replied that the latter had more reason to be grateful.
Then Jesus hit the punch line of His story with a jackhammer. "Simon, when I came into your house you gave me no water to wash my feet, but this woman wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment." Jesus went on to say something to Simon that echoes through time, if we will hear it.
Those who know how much they have been forgiven will be much more grateful than those who think they have little need for forgiveness. The reason why this story is to be told wherever the Gospel is explained is twofold: First, a reasonable faith in Jesus starts with massive gratitude. We have been forgiven enough sin that merits hell, and have been given in exchange, heaven. But the second point I think Jesus wanted us to notice was important too: If we know and believe we have been forgiven much it is normal to even be a bit extravagant in expressing our thanks. To whom? We can't see Jesus, so express this gratitude to those you can see. Let the Christian community seethe with affection. Let the Christian communities brim with the kind of life that happens when really thankful people get together.
For the most part how minimal, how token are the expressions of gratitude we offer. Who, watching us would say, "It is obvious that he/she is grateful to Jesus." Somehow the idea of exuberant thanks has become lost, but whenever we see it, it catches our notice.
One of my favorite movies expresses this extravagance of gratitude as the core of the story. "Babbett's Feast" tells of a French woman, a chef with the highest skill in culinary arts, who for reasons I didn't quite understand had to flee her country. She went to Denmark and was taken in to serve in a small Christian sect. For years she cooked and cleaned. Then she won a lottery for which she had bought a ticket when she lived in France. Suddenly she had a windfall of money. What would she do with it? For reasons I don't understand she asked to prepare a feast for this small sect. She used her newly found wealth to buy the most costly ingredients for a meal, to be served on exquisite china, silver ware and crystal glasses. The napkins were of the finest linen. The feast cost all she had won. As we watch the solemn guests of this little sect eat this meal slowly they realize that something extraordinary was before them. But what I noticed had little to do with the response of those who enjoyed the meal. It was the meal itself that struck me.
It struck me as an example of the quality of thanks we would be delighted to offer to God if we caught the idea of real gratitude. It struck me that since we can't see God, since we can't see Jesus, the only ones on whom we can shower this gratitude is one another, and on the needy of this world. If only we got the idea!
We need to rediscover the idea that apparently was lost not long after Christianity began in the days after the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene caught the idea, and I want to speak of her on Easter morning. What if we were to replace that undercurrent of mutual blame and discontent with one another with an outpouring of gratitude to God—extended to the only ones it is possible for us to see! "What if," two words we could so easily exchange for "This is how we are." And then what would be the appeal of the Gospel?
But the love that reflects true gratitude easily evaporates from our life together. In the first of seven letters the risen Christ addresses to churches in one of the early heartlands of Christianity, the Lord says, "I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men . . . but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first . . . If you do not change I will come to you and remove your lamp-stand from its place" (Revelation 2: 2-5).
I have the feeling that the Lord looks at our subtle orthodoxies and says, "I have this against you; you have lost the love you had at first." And, despite how we may have resisted the "acids of modernity" that have tampered with the careful orthodoxies that have evolved in the Apostolic train, we who live out such loveless Christianity might well expect to hear Him say to us, "I will come to you and remove your lamp-stand from its place."
How might we recover the love that once was the chief characteristic of the Christian faith and of the life together of Christians? How can we rediscover genuine gratitude? How can we unfetter our inhibitions in making it clear we love one another as the way to show God we love Him?
Some Greeks came to Phillip, one of Jesus' disciples, and said to Him, "We would see Jesus." This is what people have in mind that come to Faith Church from outside. They come here looking for Jesus. What do they see? Supposing they saw us reflecting the exuberant love of the women who anointed Jesus' feet with costly ointment? We cannot do it to Jesus, but we can reflect that love in the place where Jesus said we must—to one another. How are you doing? How are we doing? It is this that Maundy Thursday asks us to ask ourselves? "A new commandment," Jesus said, "I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you." How are we doing? How are you doing?
Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, whom Mary loved with a costly gift with unhidden affection, help us to love you in the way you would have us love you. Grant that we may see Jesus in the face of one another, and in the faces of those Jesus loved, whom others did not love. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Posted by faithpres at April 13, 2006 07:30 PM