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March 25, 2007 Rev. Steve Gehlert What does God's love smell like? Like honeysuckle on a warm spring day? Like a salty ocean breeze? Like vegetables fresh from a garden? For the people in today's Gospel, God's love smells like their brother, Lazarus, who's just been raised to life after four days in a tomb. Now his friends and loved ones are gathered to share a dinner in celebration and thanking Jesus, who's come out of hiding to see his friend enjoying his new life. How do they feel that night as they gather? Perhaps Lazarus is recounting what it was like being dead and how blinding the light was as he stumbled out of the tomb. He's bathed, of course, but there's still a faint scent of myrrh and cloves about him, the spices that had been used to prepare his body for burial, to mask the scent of death, but which had been completely overwhelmed by the stench that hit them like a blast when the stone that covered the tomb was rolled away. But today other smells compete: those of fresh baked bread and of the fattened calf roasting. Soon they're at the table. Then, while everyone's eating and talking, Mary comes in quietly, carrying a bottle of fragrant oil. She walks over to Jesus and without a word kneels, uncorks the bottle and pours all of the oil over his feet. He closes his eyes and lets the cool oil soothe his dusty, calloused, aching feet. Soon the others are sniffing the air, wondering what strong, sweet smell is cutting through the aroma of beef and wine. The smell of death has been with these friends, but Mary shows us that God's persistent love smells even stronger, and that it'll triumph in the defeat of Jesus' death. I remember when, as a new, just out of seminary pastor in Wisconsin, I took my youth group to another church to serve a meal for people in need. The church asked volunteers to sit and eat with the guests, so that some of the stigma of coming for such a meal could be lessened and they could, hopefully, begin to build real fellowship. Some of my youth resisted; they were willing to help fix a meal and dish it out but it was another thing to sit and eat with these guests. Once the meal was prepared and it was time to eat, their resistance intensified. "How," they wondered, "could anybody sit down and eat with such people? On the way home, I heard several, obsessed as young guys often are, with bodily smells and functions, "Did you get a wiff of that guy?" That's when I first wondered what God's love smells like. It may be unpleasant sometimes, I thought, like someone who's not been able to bathe for days. Other times, it may be wonderful, but offend for other reasons. Mary found that out. Jesus was going to die; she knew she couldn't take away that journey. She wants to honor him and his sacrifice. So she does the only thing she can: bless the feet that will take him through it. She combines grief and hope in an act of service and friendship. She knows that his followers must accept what's going to happen, but that doesn't have to mean leaving him to suffer alone. She wants him to know that he won't be alone; that someone's love will be with him, cling to him like the scent of perfume. But when Judas gets a whiff of what Mary's done he complains, "Wouldn't it have been better for this to have been sold and the money given to the poor?" Surely Jesus, who always taught the disciples about caring for the poor and oppressed, will see it his way. But Jesus understands why Mary's done it. So he silences Judas, "Leave her alone. She's preparing me for my burial." He wants Judas to see Mary's confidence in the boundless power of love. He knows that piecemeal acts of charity won't dissipate the aroma of poverty - spiritual, emotional, physical and economic - that clings to us. Wherever there's poverty, everybody, rich or poor, stinks; stinks either from greed or from oppression. Jesus wants Judas, with his anger at Mary's honoring him with an extravagant gift, to see that there are times when we have to look beyond being right or morally superior to something deeper, to the soul's need to honor its purpose, which is ultimately to love. In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, widower Atticus Finch raises his young son and daughter amid the racism and classism of Depression-era Alabama. Jem and Scout face the taunting of neighbors and school peers when Atticus agrees to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. Mrs. Dubose, an elderly neighbor, sits on her front porch and torments the children with comments as they walk home from school. One day Jem takes revenge by bashing all of Mrs. Dubose's prized camellia bushes. Atticus punishes the children by having them go to her home and read aloud to her for two hours every afternoon for a month. Scout remembers, "An oppressive odor met us when we crossed the threshold, an odor I had met many times in rain-rotted gray houses . . . It always made me afraid, expectant, watchful." Each afternoon, they read while Mrs. Dubose sleeps and drools until an alarm clock rings, and then they dash outside to breathe fresh air. Finally the month is up, and soon afterward, Mrs. Dubose dies. The children are surprised when Atticus tells them that she was addicted to morphine, and that their reading sessions helped her to wean herself so she could die in freedom. He says, "I wanted you to see what real courage is . . . It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." Death is like that. It's not easy to accept that someone we love is about to die. Maybe Mary was able to face Jesus' death because she'd come to see death differently after he'd brought her brother Lazarus back from death. But the raising of Lazarus was, in fact, Jesus' undoing. That's when the religious leaders really became concerned about his power and began to plot his death. So Jesus had to be cautious, he could no longer go about in public. The leaders had given orders: Anyone who knew his whereabouts was to tell them, so he could be arrested. As the Passover grew near, people wondered, will Jesus come to Jerusalem or stay away? It was in that tense climate that Jesus came to visit his old friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. But this time, he's a hunted man. He knows he'll go on to Jerusalem for the Passover. And he knows he'll never leave. Mary, with her pound of pure nard, prepares his feet for the journey only he can take, and lets's Jesus know that she's going to see him through it, no matter what. We sometimes find ourselves in places like that. It might be in facing our own death. Or, it might be in facing the death of a loved one, or a career, or a marriage, or a particular period of our lives like high school or college. We know what it's like to find ourselves facing a road only we can walk - a journey from which there's no turning back. Giving birth is one of those journeys. The water breaks, contractions begin, and there's no way on earth a mother can change her mind. But, just as a mother giving birth, needs a coach, Jesus needs a friend; someone to show support as he faces his ordeal. So, he lets Mary soothe his tired feet and ease his weary soul. When we're in pain, allowing someone to minister to us takes courage. We may think that should bear our burdens alone, that it's better to keep "a stiff upper lip." We may have learned that our faith calls us to be servants. Jesus does call us to serve, but he also shows us how to be served. When we only allow ourselves to be servants, we miss part of the gospel. In fact, we can even abuse our role as servant, making serving others into a position of power, doling out things that others need, that they depend on us to get, and they know it. That's why, it may often be, that in allowing ourselves to be in community with, even served by, those in need, those we're tempted to think "beneath us" that we give the greatest service. That's what my Wisconsin youth group needed to learn. So Jesus allows Mary to soothe his feet. A few days later, at his Passover meal with his disciples, Jesus washes their feet. When Peter protests, Jesus reminds him that in order to serve, one must learn how to be served. In this moment, Jesus shows us that to be God's servant means knowing when to do unto others, and when to let others do unto you. Jesus said, "You always will have the poor with you, but you won't always have me." If he was speaking about his physical presence, he was right. We don't have him here with us in the flesh. But we know that, in spirit, Jesus is with us always to strengthen and guide us. He won't take our journey away from us, no matter how easy or hard it may be; but he does walk with us. His presence is meant to be a balm to our souls to give us the courage to walk the path before us. Mary pours out her whole bottle of perfume without regret because she knows it is only a trifle compared to the magnitude of God's love that she sees in the Messiah before her. Mary knows that Lazarus will die again, and she knows that Jesus will die, but she believes with even greater passion that Jesus can bring victory over death. Though she anoints him for burial, she also wipes the oil away, because it will not be necessary to cover up the smell of death. While Martha had said, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days," Mary smells things differently around Jesus. She smells the fragrance of new life, and her joy over it releases that sweet smell to fill the house, the church and the world with the abundant fragrance of Christ's love. In this moment between the stench of Lazarus's time in the tomb and the spicy scent of myrrh and aloe with which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will embalm Jesus's body, the sweet aroma of God's love is wafting in the air. It clings to Mary's hair as she brushes it against Jesus' feet and fills the house wherever she goes. Has anyone caught a whiff of God's love on us 21st-century Christians lately? |
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