Sermon from April 3, 2022 at Community of Hope UCC in Madison WI
Let’s say my name is Lazarus. We are here with my sisters, Martha and Mary. You know them. Martha is the busy one. Mary is the one who likes to listen and learn.
We are very honored to have our friend Jesus with us today. He often stops by when he is in the area of Bethany, that village just two miles east of Jerusalem. And he is the reason I am here with you. I had died – yes, I know this is hard to understand – but then Jesus came and brought me back to life!
For many people, that was amazing. But for the religious leaders in Jerusalem, that just reinforced their worry that if they did not do something about this Jesus fellow getting a following among the ordinary people, then Rome would crack down on Israel.
Caiaphas, the high priest, told them, “It is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” So that was when they decided to have Jesus killed – decided because he restored life to me.
It turns out, they also wanted to kill me, since they saw my restored life as the reason so many Jews were becoming followers of Jesus.
Anyway, back to our meal together. Yes, there was fear lingering in the background. We all knew that Jesus was a marked man at this point. But we were just glad to have him and some of his friends with us.
One of those friends was named Judas. Perhaps you have heard of him. He ultimately would cast his lot with those who wanted Jesus killed. By this point, he was more than a little on edge.
I’d like to invite you to join us for this meal. You could come as yourself – you’ll have a chance to actually do that later this morning in this place. Or you could imagine you are one of the people in this story.
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Well, thank you, Lazarus, for getting us into the moment.
There are so many rich themes in this short story. And at the end, it will link back to that brief reading we heard from the prophet Isaiah.
There is the story of what happened at the meal and what that might mean for us.
There is the story of Judas and his … shall we say perhaps…his concern for the poor.
There is the question of whether we can celebrate when there is injustice and sadness around us.
And then we might ask, how can we live out the best of this story?
One of the things that we know about Jesus is that he liked to eat. He ate with many different kinds of folks – folks that others would be reluctant to hang out with, folks that sometimes were his opponents.
This meal, with some of his closest friends – and with the one who would betray him – has some amazingly close links to the Passover meal Jesus would be having the next week.
In the Gospel according to John, he uses the Greek word diepnon for dinner only two times – once for this meal and once for the Last Supper.
The central moment in this story is when Mary takes this very expensive perfume – nard – and anoints Jesus’ feet and then wipes his feet with her hair. There’s a lot to unpack from that one act.
First of all, it was the job of a slave to tend to a visitor’s dusty and tired feet, not one of the hosts of the meal. And women did not let down their hair – well-kept hair was a sign of a woman’s dignity.
Yet here is Mary, breaking all the rules to show her appreciation and love for Jesus. It was a lavish, intimate, sensual moment.
This foreshadowed what Jesus would do at the Last Supper. The Gospel according to John describes the scene this way: Jesus took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself and began to wash his followers’ feet, drying them with the towel.
He told them, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
Mary had set the example of service to others. Then Jesus carried that forward.
Now the story moves on to Judas.
Why was Judas with Jesus for this meal anyway? We don’t know, although we do know that Jesus never shied away from breaking bread with people who might be skeptical of him.
And when Jesus was washing the feet of his followers at that Passover meal, he washed Judas’ feet along with all the others. It was not until later that he confronted Judas about his plan to betray Jesus. And then Judas’ supposed care for the poor came up again.
After Mary does her extravagant act of anointing Jesus’ feet, using nard that would be worth a whole year’s wages, Judas asked why the perfume was not sold and the money given to the poor. John suspects Judas’ motives, suggesting he was a thief, but Jesus defends Mary and then says two puzzling things.
One is that she might keep some of the nard for the day of his burial. Remember, the specter of Jesus’ execution hung over this meal. She was in effect anointing him before his death even though that would normally happen after someone died.
But the bigger puzzle is around these words of Jesus: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Does that mean we are not supposed to care about the poor? That they should take care of themselves, maybe pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
Nope. No way.
This is really an allusion to the book of Deuteronomy in the Torah. Chapter 15 gives instructions for the forgiveness of all debts every seventh year. It was an ancient way to close the wealth gap. And it acknowledges that ending poverty is not easy, even with that system of generous economic forgiveness.
So Deuteronomy adds these words: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ ”
In terms we tend to use these days, the Jewish tradition that Jesus was familiar with called for both justice and charity.
But in this story, Jesus also recognizes that even in the midst of threats, fears, injustice, worry, there can still be time to celebrate. Let me take a brief detour to a contemporary story about this.
Scott Girard in a reporter for the Cap Times. Six years ago, his brother died after a long battle with cancer. That day of March 20, 2016, he had walked with his family as they escorted his brother’s body out of Hospice.
That evening, he and his family were watching the Badger men’s basketball team in the playoffs. The game was tied and time was running out when Brian Koenig hit a three-point shot at the buzzer, sending the Badgers to the Sweet Sixteen.
Scott wrote about that moment a year later: “I ran across the living room — having already been standing in nervousness at the moment, of course — to hug-tackle my sister on the couch in celebration before returning to the other couch to do the same to my girlfriend.
After the frenzy of about 15 seconds, I sat back down on the couch and a feeling of guilt swept over me.”
He thought about his brother’s death only hours before. He asked: “How could I have even been smiling on this day, I thought, let alone jumping for joy and cheering?”
And he concluded with the lesson he drew over time from that moment: “There is never anything wrong with joy, even in the darkest moments. It’s probably more important than ever in those times to find a reason to smile, if only briefly.”
That sounded to me like what Jesus was telling Judas – and perhaps the rest of us. Yes, care for those in need. There will always be those in need. But also celebrate those moments when God’s presence is there in a smile or a laugh or a hug – or in expensive perfume being poured on your aching feet.
At that Passover meal, when Jesus confronted Judas about the impending betrayal, he told him quietly, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” The rest did not understand what he had said and some thought Jesus had told Judas to go out and give something to the poor. Funny how that comes around again.
What, then, might we take from this meal we have been sharing with Lazarus and Martha and Mary and Jesus and Judas – and maybe others?
Remember the questions about Mary anointing Jesus’ feet, drying them with her hair, then Jesus washing the feet of his followers? They did not stand on their status. They took a step down to raise the status of another.
How do we live out this call to service, growing out of our commitment to be followers of Jesus? How do we do that in ways that might diminish rather than elevate our own status?
One of the things I have learned in the past few years is how those of us who have some degree of privilege in our lives, some status in our community, some comfort in our position in society need to be willing to step back a bit, to listen to the people who are on the margins, to not just give them a place at the table – be it a dinner table or a boardroom table – but to create space for them to set the table, to lead the planning.
The technical term for that, I believe, is being an ally.
It sounds simple. It’s not. We all have a lot of experience and knowledge and resources we’d like to bring to bear. And those all matter. So does humility. So does being willing to get down on our knees, to let down our hair, to hold the towel.
Another takeaway for me is that message of seeking both charity and justice as we approach the economic disparities in our society.
Jesus was not proclaiming that poverty is a permanent state of being. He was drawing on that rich Jewish tradition of jubilee – of forgiving debts, of giving up a bit of what we think is rightfully ours – in order to have a more equitable society. That’s part of our challenge. And then we still need to reach out to those in need.
Let’s loop back to that first reading from Isaiah. The Jewish people are nearing the end of their time in exile in Babylon. Through Isaiah, God tells them not to get stuck considering the things of old because God is about to do a new thing.
That’s part of what was happening at that dinner. Judas was clinging to the things of the past. Mary saw what new things God was doing through Jesus, new things that involved both life and death but that were filled with rivers in the desert, with a way through the wilderness.
Wherever we are in our lives right now, wherever we see the world in the midst of all the hard things around us, ultimately our story is a story of hope, that God will be doing new things through what each of us do.
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