Steps of Faith
Lent 5, Year C-- John
12:1-8
March 17, 2013
Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion
I kind of like feet.
Not in a weird way, not
obsessively, but I think in the way of a
girl who had size 10 and a half feet from the time she was
fourteen years old and got razzed about it. Nope, from a practical matter, there was nothing I could do
about how long my feet were, and besides, in the extensive list of
things about my body I could be unhappy about, either at age 14 or now, they certainly weren’t the worst
thing.
But beyond that, I think feet
can tell you a lot about a person. Structurally, they hold up
our weight as we balance on a latticework of tiny, delicate bones. They anchor us to this good
earth and keep us grounded, and on a warm summer’s
morning we can feel the pulse and hum
of the earth vibrate through our
feet as we stand in the cool, sweet
grass.
And then there’s the fact
that my feet make me think of my dad. When he was feeling really
content,
he would sit on the floor
watching football with me and he would reach out and
just hold one of my feet. It was weird, and quirky, and it’s one of the things I
miss most about my dad. I mean, any father can hold
your hand, but it takes a special dad to
hold your foot. It’s not exactly the stuff
that Beatles songs are made of— I mean, “I Wanna Hold Your
Foot” isn’t that catchy— but it means love to me.
You know, I never get to wash
anyone’s feet any more. There have been little,
sweet, kicking pairs of feet I have washed and kissed, but they have all grown up
now and have run away from me. If I were to even try to
touch them now, there would be horror and revulsion from the too-cool owners of
those feet.
Once we leave infancy, we don’t really touch our own
feet very often, much less other people’s
feet,
because while they are
humble, feet also can make us
self-conscious. Our lives are reflected in
our feet,
so they can get callused, they can get bumpy, they can get grimy,
and they certainly can get
smelly and dirty, whether you wear shoes or
not.
This is why the incidents of
foot washing in the Bible are so memorable to us. You have to really love
someone to want to wash their feet, much less caress those feet and pour expensive perfume
all over them.
Feet are a conduit of love in
today’s gospel. Now, it’s clear that the same
action can be interpreted in
different ways by different people. In this case, the meaning at
the time was obviously different for Mary, for Jesus, and for Judas. And as we look at this action ourselves across the centuries and cultures, it also means different things for us. That’s the thing about
scripture: there are so many layers of meaning in each story.
This silent act does three
things in particular that strike me: First, it proclaims Mary’s
love for Jesus as her Messiah and Lord. Second, it also anoints and
proclaims that Mary recognizes that
Jesus is set apart, and she is conferring a
blessing and consecration upon him in the midst of her family, much like an ordination of a
deacon, priest, or bishop comes from within the community. Third, as Jesus receives this
act and is challenged over
allowing it, he explains that she is
preparing his body for burial by anointing his feet.
It is right that his feet be
anointed:
they have important business
to complete.
These same feet are going to
carry Jesus to the outskirts of Jerusalem and on to his passion. At this moment, Jesus’ feet
straddle the line between earth and heaven, between his ministry and his death
upon a cross, and Mary is making those feet
ready. Before he is betrayed and
handed over to the authorities, Jesus himself is going to
show his love for his disciples by washing all of their feet, as a sign that great love
also demands great humility and a sense of servanthood.
So what caused Mary to do
this strange thing? At the center of this story
is a family- adult siblings who love each
other and depend upon each other. This family wanted to throw a
party, and they had probably the
best reason to throw a party ever in the history of the
world. The sisters had seen their
brother die, and they had seen their
brother live again, and it was all thanks to
Jesus. In the Mediterranean world
they lived in, this was the difference between Martha and Mary being
on the brink of destitution and remaining secure and protected. Besides the fact that Martha
and Mary loved their brother, there is the fact that as
unmarried women, they had to have a male
protector— either a father, a husband,
or a brother— to be able to live an
independent life.
This is a special family, and
they are described in quite a remarkable way. It is said in chapter 11
that Jesus loved Mary and
Martha and Lazarus. We often hear of people
loving Jesus, and Jesus is depicted as
loving those around him in a general way. But Lazarus, Martha, and Mary
are the only people specifically named as being people Jesus loved
and considered friends. Further, they lived in
Bethany, which was just two miles from
Jerusalem, and we all know what is going
to happen in Jerusalem, and most of us know the liturgical
calendar. Lent is drawing close to
Easter. Jesus is going to go from
raising his friend, and making this family whole
again, to being condemned and
executed in a most brutal way.
When Jesus finally arrived in
Bethany, he literally was going into
the lion’s den. In fact, when he told his
disciples that he was going to Bethany
to see about this family, one of them sighed and
groaned something to the effect of, “Well we might as well go
along, so we can die alongside him.” It is here on the outskirts
of Jerusalem, on the rim of imperial power, at the very doorstep of those who consider him a
potential rebel and almost-certain blasphemer, that Jesus performs the final
of the seven signs in the gospel of John by calling out to Lazarus
from the grave. It is from here, in Bethany, that Jesus is going to enter
Jerusalem to palms and hosannas from
the people, which we will commemorate
next Sunday. And it is one short step from
that adulation to that same crowd demanding
Jesus’s death.
Make no mistake.
Jesus’s gift of love and
mercy for this family is going to lead directly to
the cross. And the party in the gospel
today is the brief intake of breath and steadying of nerves before we take a plunge over
a precipice into a deep abyss.
But that despair will not
hold.
God has done a new thing for
us, as Isaiah proclaims, new every morning when we
decide to take those steps not just as disciples but as
friends alongside Jesus.
So who are the people who
fill out the scene before us? There are three siblings:
Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary. None of them speak in our
little story, but they all witness to the
power of love in their own way. There are also some
disciples, but the only one who speaks
here is Judas Iscariot, and John makes sure that he
gives us foreknowledge so that we have no sympathy
for anything Judas does or says.
Lazarus is the reason for the
celebration. Lazarus is Jesus’ friend, someone Jesus actually weeps
over,
and he has just been given
the greatest gift anyone can receive. Jesus has done this by
calling out to Lazarus, and orders him out of that
tomb and into life as if he was ordering him to walk across the room. This reminds us of John 10, where Jesus describes himself
as a shepherd, and states that he will call
his sheep by name and lead them out. In just this way, Jesus
called Lazarus by name and called him out of death
and into a new life. And Jesus is most certainly
leading us with him to Calvary,
not just this week or this
month but every day. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” And so it is with us. We can listen to the voice of
Jesus and allow ourselves to be led as well and be unafraid to seize the
hope of life.
What are we being led from? It is also a death— being dead to the love of God
as it is expressed through
our savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus speaks, calling to us
out of overpowering love from the cross and, like Lazarus, our hearts
begin to beat sure and true, and we rise as
if from a dream. Lazarus never speaks—he does
not need to. He just has to respond to the
call of one who knows him by name.
Every throb of his restored pulse
sings hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
We peer into the background
of our scene, and that’s where Martha is. In the verses right before
today’s gospel reading, even as her brother lies dead
in his tomb, even when she could subside
into despair, Martha stated exactly what
the authorities were afraid of: her belief that Jesus was the
Messiah and Son of God, the one coming into the
world. Martha is the one who
declares that. Jesus is the point at which
the Godly realm intersects with the created
world, for the specific purpose of bringing resurrection and
life into the world. Martha is the voice of faith,
unshakable faith, even as she is filled with
mourning.
Who knows if she understands,
but she BELIEVES.
So in OUR story she doesn’t
need to speak but serves— the verb that is used is diakoneo, which can mean both “servant”
and “minister” in Greek. Lots of attention always gets
focused on Mary— but Martha’s part of the
story reminds us that those who love Jesus
live in a spirit of humble service to others.
And here’s Mary. She seems like the younger
sister. It is obvious that where her
brother is silent
and her sister is sober and
practical, Mary is enthusiastic and
effusive. Mary is not a person who
suppresses her feelings. She loves Jesus, and so she uses an incredibly
valuable, aromatic ointment to cleanse and anoint Jesus’s feet. The scent of her gift fills
the entire house with a scent that meant sacrifice to all
who breathed it in, since the same substance was
used to make incense in the Temple. Now, this is the second time
Jesus has been anointed— he was also anointed for his
ministry at his baptism. Thus before each of the two
stages in John’s gospel, Jesus is anointed and
consecrated and set apart for the coming events.
This is the second time Mary
has probably anointed someone for burial in just one week. Last week, she had probably
anointed her brother’s body after his death. This time, as John’s gospel
makes very clear, Jesus is being anointed for
his burial. In addition, there are TWO
extravagant gifts
we have to contemplate at
this point:
Mary’s excessive display of
devotion and worship today and
Jesus’s determination and
acceptance of his coming sacrifice on the cross in just a few days’ time.
Lazarus, Martha, and Mary: but Jesus through through
friendship is a member of this family too. The only one who chooses to stand
outside this circle is Judas. Judas criticizes the love
that Mary demonstrates so powerfully here because he does not understand that
love. That is a choice he made.
Judas complained about the
waste of the perfume that Mary used, but really, wasn’t he
complaining about the extravagant, prodigal,
profligate love she was showing to her
friend, her Lord, her Messiah?
But love is never a waste. I believe that even during
Judas’s plotting, Jesus still loves Judas, and that’s a love that
certainly can envelop you,
and me,
and every one of us, no
matter how unworthy we feel.
That love is not wasted, no,
but its sweet scent slips
sideways into the breeze
and penetrates through the
cracks of our broken hearts
broken in the struggle to
ignore the shepherd’s call.
And there, at the center of
it all, is Jesus, OUR Messiah. The Incarnation of God into
the world-- yes, but the incarnation of God
directly into our own lives, who calls each of us by name. He calls us to come out of
death into new life, a real life. A life enlivened by faith responding to Jesus’s love for
us. A life that responds to the
extravagant gift that Jesus has provided to us.
Jesus IS the resurrection and
the life. This is the ultimate gift of
love that Jesus through the cross
gives to us. A life that many might judge
foolish, but is the only life to live
if we want to live through God.
When we wash each other’s
feet on Maundy Thursday here at church, we sing “Ubi caritas, et
amor… ubi caritas, deus ibi est.,” which is Latin for “Where there’s charity, where
there’s love, God is there as well.”
God is with Lazarus as he stumbles from the grave into the light of new life, and God is with us as we
stumble our way through life— life not as we planned it, but life as it IS, confusing and terrifying and joyful
and filled with grace.
God is with Martha when she proclaims with such
certainty that Jesus is the Messiah and when she then trusted in
that faith to step back and serve God through serving
others.
God is with Mary when her love bursts forth
through rules of propriety and seizes by the throat all
those who see and think her foolish.
God is with us
as we stumble
on our tiny baby feet of
faith
in the light of new life,
our journey walking and
working
alongside our Savior as
faithful servants
and beloved friends.
Amen.
