Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
March 17, 2013
Year C: The Fifth Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
(Philippians 3:4b-14)
John 12:1-8
New Things
OK,
let’s start with a show of hands.
Grown-ups:
how many of you have already completed and filed your 2012 tax returns?
Sue
and I are almost there. Sue had done the prep work and on Monday we sat at the
dining room table and went through it all before handing over our tax stuff to
our accountant. And now we wait – hoping not to owe too much and maybe even
daring to hope for a small refund. We’ll see.
Tax
season can be a time for reflection. For some of us it may be a time to get mad
at the government. And for some of us it may be a time to reflect on how we
spend, save and invest our money. Like the start of a new year, for some of us
tax season may be a time when we make resolutions – maybe promising ourselves
to be more careful and more frugal with our money.
Tax
season can be a time when we decide to do a new thing.
And,
like us, sometimes God decides to do a new thing.
But
when God does a new thing, God never chooses to be more careful, never chooses
to be more frugal.
Just
the opposite. When God does a new thing God is always bolder and ever more
generous.
Throughout
the Bible there are stories of God deciding to do a new thing.
There’s
the story of creation itself. There’s the story of God making a covenant with
Abraham. There’s the story of God leading the Israelites out of bondage in
Egypt.
In
today’s Old Testament reading, God speaking through the Prophet Isaiah says, “I
am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
In
that case, God’s “new thing” was restoring Israel after defeat and exile in
Babylon.
Throughout
the Bible, over and over there are stories of God deciding to do a new thing.
And when God does a new thing, God is always bolder and ever more generous.
For
us Christians, God does the ultimate and greatest “new thing” in and through
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
It’s
hard to imagine that God could be any bolder and any more generous than
becoming one of us.
And,
when Jesus was rejected and killed, God paid a very heavy price for that boldness
and that generosity.
Over
the past month some of us read a book called, The Wisdom Jesus. In
that book the author argues that a big part of Jesus’ ministry and teaching was
“pushing us into new ways of seeing.”
And
it was often hard for the first disciples – and hard for us today – to wrap our
minds around the new thing God does in and through Jesus. It’s hard for us to
grasp this new way of seeing.
Think
about last week’s gospel: the parable of the Prodigal Son.
As
Lauren pointed out in her sermon, like so much of Jesus’ teaching, this
familiar story of a son wasting his inheritance, a loving father rushing to
welcome him home, and a resentful brother wondering he never got a
party, has a bottomless depth. We could preach about it and talk about it all
day.
In
The Wisdom Jesus, the author points out that in this story Jesus
challenges our basic assumptions and beliefs about ourselves and about the way
the world should work.
Here’s
the way we think: it’s not fair that the prodigal son who wasted it all
gets to have a big party. His brother is right to complain.
But,
through this story Jesus teaches us that God is bolder and more generous than
we ever imagined. God is certainly bolder and more generous than we deserve. God
doesn’t keep score. And God doesn’t want us to keep score, either.
Most
of the time we don’t really get that – or accept that.
And,
reading the New Testament, it seems that usually the first disciples usually
didn’t get that – or accept that God doesn’t keep score.
But,
in today’s gospel we meet an exception.
In
Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, we meet someone who gets it – who gets
that God is doing a new thing in and through Jesus.
In
Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, we meet someone who gets it – who gets
that God doesn’t want us to keep score – someone who gets that God wants us to
be bolder and more generous than we ever thought possible.
All
four gospels tell stories of Jesus being anointed by a woman – so most likely
there was a common tradition that was remembered by the first generations of
Christians.
In
John’s version, which we heard today, the anointing is a richly symbolic act.
John
places the story at the beginning of the end. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem
to meet his destiny but first he visits in Bethany with some of his closest
friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus –raised from the dead by Jesus not long
before.
Although
Lazarus has been brought back to life, death overshadows the whole scene.
Mary
anoints Jesus not as one would anoint a king but how one might anoint a corpse.
She
anoints him with very, very expensive perfume. Like most of us probably would,
Judas complains about the extravagance, arguing that the perfume would have
fetched 300 denarii – not much less than a year’s worth of wages. Judas rightly
complains that this money could have been shared with the poor.
But,
in this symbolic act Mary shows that she gets it – she gets who Jesus is – and
she gets that God wants us to be like God – God wants us to do a new
thing – God wants us to stop keeping score - God wants us to be bolder and more
generous than we ever thought possible.
One
last thing. I looked into it and I’m not allowed to change the Bible, but if I
could I think I’d delete – or add a little explanation to – the last line of
today’s gospel lesson.
Responding
to Judas’ complaint, Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you, but you do
not always have me.”
Unfortunately,
Jesus’ words have often been interpreted as being fatalistic – implying that
there’s nothing much that we can do about poverty.
But,
that can’t be what Jesus meant.
No.
Instead, Jesus is looking ahead to his death and the time when it will no
longer be possible to anoint his body.
But,
Jesus expects that the poor will always be with us – that we, his followers, will
always be close to the poor. And Jesus expects that we will do a new thing – that
we will stop keeping score - that we will be bolder and more generous than we
ever thought possible by serving and blessing the poor the way Mary served and
blessed Jesus with expensive perfume.
And
this past Wednesday some of us felt a little of that boldness and generosity
when we presented the people of Trinity Lutheran Church with the check from half
of our “Souper Bowl” collection.
We
were shocked to learn that they somehow run their amazing program on $50,000 a
year.
And
they were shocked when they saw our check for just under $4000 – about 8% of
their annual budget.
For
a moment, the fragrance of our generosity filled that parish hall in Dover just
as the sweet smell of Mary’s perfume filled that house in Bethany long ago.
Throughout
the Bible and throughout history God has decided to do a new thing.
And
when God does a new thing, God never chooses to be more careful and more
frugal.
Just
the opposite. When God does a new thing God is bolder and ever more generous.
We
see God’s boldness and generosity most clearly in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus.
And
we also see God’s boldness and generosity in disciples like Mary of Bethany who
boldly and generously served and blessed Jesus.
And,
every once in a while, we see God’s boldness and generosity in us – we see
God’s boldness and generosity in us when we serve and bless the poor – when we
choose to do a new thing.
Amen.
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