Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house.
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“I feel you. Do you feel me?”

I can still hear the Rev. Traci Blackmon’s voice ringing in my ears.

I can still see her face against his, hands on his shoulders, eyes piercing into his eyes.

It was nearly five years ago, and I can see it, I can hear it as if they were standing right here in front of me.

It was near midnight on October 8, 2014, and a few hours before, 18-year old Vonderrit Myers, Jr. had been shot eight times – six in the back – and killed by an off-duty St. Louis City Police Officer. A crowd gathers at the scene and when they begin to move, the clergy who are there split up. Some go with the crowd. Others – Traci and me – go with Vonderrit Myers, Sr. to the city morgue to be with him as he identifies the body of his son.

We stand outside for what seems like an eternity until the father emerges, the nightmare he had lived with since the day his son was born slowly becoming real. Head hanging to the ground, he almost whispers the words we already know:

“It’s him.”

And then… the pain begins to turn to rage. I could see it happen. He begins to fume … and tremble. What begins as a cry becomes a wail. What starts as a murmur grows into a shout as he says:

“It’s him. It’s my son. Somebody is going to pay for this. I’ve got a gun, and somebody is going to pay for him tonight!”

I am paralyzed. I cannot imagine his rage and know he has every right to it. I will not tell him to calm down. And… this is headed nowhere good. Not only do I not know what to do, I know whatever it is, I’m not the one who can do it.

And then Traci steps up to him. Traci steps up to him and grabs him by his shoulders, and puts her face right up to his face … her eyes to his eyes.
He is trembling. And she is trembling. And she holds him. And he looks at her and she says:

“I feel you. I feel you. I feel you. OK?”

He nods.

“Now I need you to feel me.”

His eyes are glued to hers.

“You have a job right now. You have to be a husband tonight. Your wife has lost her son, and she needs her husband. No one can do that but you. You have to go be with her. That’s where you have to be tonight. She needs you.”

“And tomorrow morning, I’m going to be at your house first thing. I’m going to be there and I’m going to stay there with you for as long as it takes.”

Tears fill the father’s eyes.
Tears fill Traci’s eyes.
And she says again.

“I feel you. Do you feel me?”

Vonderrit Myers, Sr. nods his head, and they embrace. And they cry. And then Vonderrit Myers, Sr. leaves the body of his son and goes to spend the longest night of his life at home with his wife.

And first thing the next morning, Traci is there. And she stays until they don’t need her to stay any more.

This morning’s Gospel reading seems like a non sequitor. A side road, even a distraction on the way to next week when we enter Jerusalem with Jesus and walk toward the devastation of the cross and the hope of the empty tomb.

The passage right before this story tells us the religious authorities were plotting to kill Jesus … and yet here he was in Bethany, on the doorstep of Jerusalem, getting ready to walk right into the heart of the power that is threatening to destroy him.

What must Jesus have been feeling sitting at that dinner table, the conversation buzzing all around him. Everyone looking to him for answers. Everyone looking to him for hope. Surrounded by friends and admirers … and yet deeply, deeply alone.

And then Mary does something extraordinary.

Mary comes in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anoints and massages Jesus feet, and then wipes them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils fills the house.

The great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore writes: “Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”

What Mary does is completely illogical and unreasonable.

Of course it is. Because what Mary does … is love.

Love is an endless mystery. It has the power to stop a raging, grieving man in his completely understandable quest for revenge and send him home in that same love to comfort and be comforted by his grieving wife.

Love is an endless mystery. And what these two Gospel stories tell us … the Gospel according to Mary and the Gospel according to Traci … is that we cannot explain it, we can only experience it, we can only offer it, we can only share it. Personally. Bodily. Extravagantly.

Love is a mystery and love is personal.

Vonderrit Myers, Jr. was killed that night because we live in a world where we see each other as categories and classes instead of as beloved, personal human beings. Because in that moment, he was not Vonderrit … he was a category – young, big, black man — that officer had deemed to be, had been trained to see not as beloved, not as a person but as a threat to his power and safety.

Vonderrit Myers, Sr. was not killed that night because one woman saw him not as a class or a category but as Vonderrit … as a grieving, raging father who felt powerless in the wake of the senseless killing of his son. Because in that moment, she was able to see him as a person and help him find his power, the power to love and comfort his wife. Because in that moment, she was able to say not “I fear you” but “I feel you … do you feel me.”

There was nothing Mary could have said to Jesus that would take away his worries and his fears that night. That was not the point. The point was she could let him know that she saw him. She could not carry his burdens for him, but she could let him know that at least in that moment, he didn’t need to carry them alone.

She could say to Jesus, “I feel you. Do you feel me?”

When she knelt at his feet and broke open that oil, it must have been as if they were the only two people on the planet … the same way I felt watching Traci and Vonderrit Myers, Sr. It was as if the rest of creation had fallen away and the only existence was the power of what was happening between them.

That’s love. And as a people called to love. As a people anointed to love. As a community that aspires to put love at the center of all we do … this is the love to which we aspire.

Jesus says, “The poor will always be with you.” Of course, that’s true. As long as we see those among us living in poverty as “the poor” and not as individual human beings with names and lives and loves and stories, we might have the means but we will never have the motivation, we will never have the love to end poverty.

And so, we ask ourselves. Are we meeting and seeing each other not as categories to be considered or problems to be solved but as individuals? Are we calling each other by name and looking each other in the eye? Are we meeting in that place where we can honestly say: “I feel you. Do you feel me?”

Love is a mystery, and love is embodied.

Our bodies are scrapbooks and roadmaps. They carry everything that we have been through. Love. Joy. Pain. Abuse. Grace and trauma – we carry it all in our bodies.

Our bodies don’t just like touch. Our bodies need touch. Infants who get everything but touch literally die.

That is why physical and sexual abuse is so deeply devastating. Because it is taking something we need to survive – the touch of another human being – and turning it against us, turning it into an instrument of devastation that not only wounds but deeply damages the potential any future touch has to do what touch is supposed to do and that is to love and to heal.

We need touch. Traci couldn’t just stand a few feet away and say “I feel you. Do you feel me.” She had to do it. She had to feel him and he had to feel her. She knew in that moment as his body trembled and as her body trembled, that she needed to hold onto him so he could feel that they were shaking together.

Mary knew where Jesus’ feet had been, how tired they were, how sore they were, how they were carrying the fear, the pain, the dread, all the hard stuff of humanity … and she knew in that moment that he needed to feel that touch so he knew he wasn’t alone.

Mary’s touch was passionate, even erotic. massaging Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair. It was a deep expression of love and presence. Of giving one’s self to another. Of why loving matters in the first place.

We need touch. As we are granted consent, we need to give it. As we are able, we need to receive it. Our hands, our bodies, we are meant for touch.

Mary’s hands were a place of safety.
Traci’s hands were a place of strength.
Our hands are a place of love.

Love is a mystery and love is extravagant.

We are no strangers to extravagance. We know that extravagance gets the job done … only we have learned that selectively in this country.

We spend more on defense than the next seven countries combined.

The average American CEO is paid 271 times that of the average worker.

We have no problem pouring out our best oils to protect our privilege, generate revenue and help the rich get richer.

But what does it mean to pour out our best oils to soothe suffering?

What does it mean to pour out our best oils to love … one person, one beloved child of God at a time.

Mary loved Jesus with the costliest of perfume. Traci loved the grieving family with an abundance of her precious time.

The wounds we have are deep. They convince us of our powerlessness, of our worthlessness. They feed our hopelessness. Extravagant love reminds us that we have power … and worth … and hope. There are wounds that love cannot cure… and … there is no wound so deep to which extravagant love – one person at a time – cannot bring deep healing, even if that healing is in the form of companions on the journey to the cross.

“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”

We follow a Jesus who, in the face of abject poverty and overwhelming oppression that often sparked violence, hopelessness or both … instead loved deeply, extravagantly, corporeally … one person at a time.

Becca Stevens writes: “Our efforts seem feeble compared to the suffering and problems of the world created by poverty.… What does it mean to pour oils on one person when more than three billion people are living in poverty? In comparison with the enormity of the issues, our response to pull out some oil and offer it as a gift seems almost funny. Small deeds in a big world are always humbling.”

So why do we love this way? Because when we do this … when we recognize as Mary did, as Traci did, as Mother Teresa did that we can do no great things only small things with great love … when we hold each other, when we breathe deep the personal, embodied, extravagant fragrance of love we realize that every time we love personally, physically, extravagantly the fragrance fills the whole house.

Think of one time where someone has offered you this kind of love. When someone has met you in a place of deep trouble and offered nothing but themselves and their love. Personal. Embodied. Extravagant. Can you remember? Can you remember how it made you feel?

Now imagine what impact All Saints Church could have if every one of us, every beloved child of God in the orbit of this community even once a week did just one intentional, personal, corporeal, extravagant act of love. Just once a week, met a sister, brother or gender nonconforming sibling in their place of marginalization, poverty, pain and grief … with nothing but ourselves and our love. If we took our best oils and poured them out to soothe the suffering of the world one beloved child of God at a time.

That is the Gospel of Mary, of Traci, of Jesus. That is love lived out loud. Personally. Corporeally. Extravagantly.

Imagine how we have and how can change and heal the world one person at a time just by loving in this way. By pouring out our best oils to love one another. By holding each other and looking deep into each other’s eyes as together we tremble and say:

“I feel you. Do you feel me?”

Amen.