The Gospel isn’t meant to be gulped down on Sunday morning, but gnawed on through the week so it really becomes a part of us. You’ve got to work at it, like a dog with a good bone! Here’s the Gospel for this coming Sunday — The Fifth Sunday in Lent — with food for thought about the quality of our spirit when we follow it with persistence and faithfulness. Gnaw away!
Fifth Sunday in Lent – John 12:1-8
Six days before Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, the village of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they gave a banquet in Jesus’ honor, at which Martha served. Lazarus was one of those at the table. Mary brought a pound of costly ointment, pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair. The house was full of the scent of the ointment.
Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples – the one who was to betray Jesus – protested, “Why wasn’t this ointment sold? It could have brought nearly a year’s wages, and the money been given to poor people!” Judas didn’t say this because he was concerned for poor people, but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the common fund and would help himself to it.
So Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You have poor people with you always. But you won’t always have me.”
The Backstory – What’s Going On Here?
As we journey closer to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we jump into John’s Gospel — and he is where we are, right on the edge of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. It is like being in the middle of a whirlwind … and this passage is the eye of the storm.
Jesus has been showing his power in greater and greater dimensions … culminating in [John 11 with his proclamation of “I am the resurrection and the life” and the raising of Lazarus. In the language of the time, Jesus is now not only positioning himself cosmically as the Lord of life and death, he is assuredly a very real threat to the authorities, and so we see the seeds of Good Friday being sowed as the Pharisees plot his death (11:45-53). Jesus no longer can go about openly, so he found safe harbor with Mary and Martha. There, Mary anoints Jesus … something that is done to prepare a body for burial.
Jesus is now ready to head into Jerusalem … not to assume a throne, but to die on the cross.
A few things to chew on:
*ee cummings said “the intelligent man always follows the lost cause, realizing that all others are merely effects.” The poor have always been with us. No matter what we do it always seems so. Eradicating poverty seems like the ultimate lost cause. But Jesus’ witness and cummings’ words are true — not only because we have hope that causes once lost are not always lost but because something happens to the quality of our spirit when we follow it with persistence and faithfulness.
As Kelly Brown Douglas said earlier this Lent at All Saints Church, in going to the cross, Christ declared his complete solidarity with the “crucified classes” of the world. Those who are being killed quickly and slowly all day every day. We seek to meet Christ and to serve Christ in the poor, the sick, the weak and the lonely because it is what we are called to do and because of who we become when we dedicate ourselves to the cause. And we fail. We fail repeatedly and miserably. And every time we do, like Christ that day, we pick ourselves up again and keep walking.
Maybe the poor will always be with us. But we keep fighting poverty anyway. We do it because we believe — and because it is the persistence, the faithfulness, the following of the lost cause, if you will, wherein lies the prize.
*Have you ever loved someone so much you wanted to give them the world? That’s how Mary felt about Jesus. Mary takes probably the most costly thing she will ever own … a pound of expensive perfume — and pours it extravagantly on Jesus’ feet. That is the model we are given for loving Christ … and not just the historical person of Jesus, but where Christ is present — in one another. Jesus tells us to “love one another as I have loved you” and gives us washing his friends’ feet and going to the cross forgiving his killers as an example. Mary truly gets it. It’s about taking the best we have and pouring it extravagantly all over one another. What can you do this week that is even one act of impractical, extravagant love.
Something that seems crazy and invites the ridicule of sensible people?
Something that tells someone whom God loves that you want to give them the world?
Try This:
When we bury someone, there is a finality about it. Even though at the grave we sing our song of “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia,” we sing it with tears in our eyes and a tremor in our voice. A few moments before, in a part of the service called “the commendation,” we entrust our loved one to God. It has always struck me at once as one of the most deeply moving and completely nonsensical rituals we have. Moving because here is someone we have adored and we are saying, even as we crave to hold them, “God, take her, she is yours.” Nonsensical because — she always was, always is, and always will be God’s! What we really are saying is … God, we are going to try to let go now and trust that you will do what we have trusted you will do all along … which is care for our sister.
Jesus was letting Martha and Mary and Judas know that he was about to die. But that they could embrace that with love and not with fear. They could anoint him for burial with extravagance and send him on his way because “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
This week, spend a few minutes at the beginning of each day lifting up the people dearest to you in prayer — and letting them go. Commend them to God. Ask God to care for them but even more than that, ask God to shape your heart to trust that God has never and will never stop caring for them … and for you … forever.
Impractical Christianity
Judas and many others were looking for Jesus to be a very practical messiah. They were looking for Jesus to come into Jerusalem and literally and physically bring about the year of Jubilee — to free them from their Roman captors, to erase the debts, to bring hope to the poor (which, most of them saw to be themselves).
Jesus, it turns out, was a most impractical messiah. He recommends that valuable asset — costly perfume — not be sold and the money used for practical purposes, but instead it be poured on his feet. He prepares to go to Jerusalem not to rule, but to die.
What does it mean to follow this Jesus … this impractical messiah?
It’s challenging. It’s challenging because we are taught to value practicality over almost everything else. We are taught that faithfulness = rationality … even though Jesus himself flew in the face of all the rationality his time (or any time) had to offer.
There’s a lot of talk today about how we need to make Christianity relevant – to show people what practical application it has in their lives. That’s exactly what we DON’T need to be doing. Because Jesus at his heart is an Impractical Messiah.
We don’t follow Jesus because it will win us friends, fame or fortune — because probably if we do it well, it will do the opposite. We don’t follow Jesus because he offers Hallmarkish nuggets to live by that will work like a self-help book … because probably if we follow him we will find ourselves more in need of help than ever!
We follow Jesus because in this age where we are told that we should only trust what we should measure, we are impractical enough to believe that the cross is still more powerful than the throne, that giving ourselves away in love with no thought of anything in return is an awesome thing to do and that there truly is no wound that love cannot heal.
Following Jesus is the most impractical endeavor any of us will every undertake. We need to remember that the next time we’re trying to make our church budgets balance perfectly and we’re trying to find the perfect algorithm to increase church attendance.
Practical Christianity is an oxymorom. Relevance isn’t our goal … following Jesus to the cross and beyond to the incredible liberation of love is.
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Collect for Sunday
Pray this throughout the week as you gnaw on this Gospel.
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
