April 7, 2019: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
What a wonderful Sunday we had last week with our bishop, right? There is something so joyous about the way in which our bishop bridges us to the larger church, and we feel that most especially when we are able to welcome her here to worship alongside us. She engaged with your vestry, and all of you, to think about the gifts you have been have been given…and what you do with them.
I heard a similar message when I went to the last of the Breaking Bread with the Bishop events this past Thursday. These are ways she is able to spend time with more people than just those she can reach on a given Sunday. And as she was leading the group to consider the gifts God has given them, she knew that we can sometimes feel uncomfortable talking about our gifts, so she said to consider one we all have – breath! God gives us breath – we just took one…we will take another one soon.
I was struck by that, because she is on to something here. Whenever we get talking about God, which is, by the way, the definition of theology – God talk – we tend to think we have to couch everything in some sort of complex language or profundity. Perhaps that is because we are trying to speak about something that is beyond our ability to describe or define. So, we can sometimes look at a question about the gifts we have been given by God, or the gifts we have to give to God, as needing to be awe inspiring. But the truth is that our very breath is a gift from God, and there are more gifts like them – and more gifts that we have to give back to God in ways we may not realize we do every day, or perhaps have not been offering because we didn’t see it as being valuable.
And that brings me to the gospel today. It is the story of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with nard. Now, it’s important to not overlook what it is she is using to anoint his feet. Nard, or “spikenard,” as it is sometimes referred, is made from the Indian Nardostachys Jatamansi. In ancient days it was used for perfume. In its pure form, it was very expensive, costing nearly a year of wages, which is why it was sometimes mixed with inferior oils. That is why the gospels explicitly insist on letting us all know this is the real stuff so that we understand the cost of the gift – as we heard today “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of purenard.” It is also why Judas is furious with Jesus for allowing it, and not selling the nard for money to aid the poor.
Not for nothing, I can see Juda’s point – and I have a problem too with this last to be written gospel ascribing intention to Judas’s statements. We just don’t know what his intentions were, but the words of the authors of this gospel in trying to accuse Judas do remind us of the way our society seems to have these purity tests of people we hold up for scrutiny. I wonder sometimes if we do this to others because we are a bit uncomfortable with ourselves, and so it is best if we can direct scrutiny someone else. At any rate, before we accuse Judas here, we might want to check the version of this story in Matthew, as in that narrative, it wasn’t just Judas but allthe disciples who objected to this use of expensive nard. So let’s let old Judas off the hook here for this one.
Now, we have already met Mary and her sister Martha, and of course their brother Lazarus, who by the way is looking and smelling much better than the last time Jesus rolled into town when Jesus woke him up from the big sleep after he had been dead for a couple of days. You might also remember too that Martha objected to Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet before, but she is not saying anything here – not this time. Why? She clearly knew what was going on.
The thing is – everyone knew what was happening. Yes, houses weren’t the McMansions some have now, and yes, they were pretty “open-concept.” But that isn’t really why. The thing is, what Mary is doing is filling the room – that perfume would have been powerful, almost intoxicating. They were not only seeing what was happening, they were breathing it in, experiencing it using what is perhaps the most powerful of our senses – the sense of smell.
As you know, I have been doing a VBlog, which is, for those not addicted to the internet like the rest of us, a way to publish visually, what might have been written in an earlier era. And in Lent, I have been focusing on the way in which our liturgy engages our senses – particularly those of sight, touch, hearing. But of all of our senses, it is smell that will bring forward the most evocative of responses from our memories, isn’t it? As the author Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, “Smells are surer than sights or sounds to make your heartstrings crack.”
You know it’s true too, don’t you?
Close your eyes for a moment…go on now, close them…and think about what smell makes you most happy. How far back in your memory does that smell take you? Are you a child opening a box of crayons, or waiting in anticipation of a bite of that cookie fresh out of the oven, or perhaps remembering the fresh pine of the family Christmas tree?
Okay, you can open your eyes.
Where did that take you? Can you still smell whatever it was – even if only in your mind?
I will tell you that anyone who has ventured into my office will find Play-Doh somewhere around. I love the stuff – always had it in my offices through the years, even before becoming a priest. Why? Some might say I’m a kid at heart (perhaps another way to say I never grew up) – they’d be right. But the thing is, I love the way it feels in my hand, and the way it smells. And yeah, I also love the smell of a brand new box of Crayola Crayons too. It makes me smile, no matter what kind of day I may be having.
That’s the thing about smell, it has a way of awakening in us things long buried, of permeating our outer layers and seeping into the nooks and crannies of our soul in a way that the other senses do not, and lingering in our memories for years. That’s one of the things about a strong scent like perfume too is that long after it is washed from our skin, we still can smell it, right? It seems it just oozes into our very being and lingers there for a time. The same is true for garlic and curry, and even some unpleasant smells – but let’s not go there for now. So, thinking about how we can allow a scent to transport us to a time and a place, how powerfully scent can permeate our very being, let’s put ourselves in that moment, in that house, with Jesus and Mary and all the others.
Mary opens this jar of spikenard, gently working this costly oil onto the feet of Jesus, releasing that perfume into the hearts of all there – especially Jesus. And one has to wonder if this wasn’t something more than a single act of extravagant love being literally poured out for Jesus.
And make no mistake about it – that is what Mary, and for that matter Martha and Lazarus, are offering, given the impact of the cost to them all – extravagant love – love beyond measure – all within this humble act of service. Maybe that is why Martha didn’t say a word about what Mary was doing this time – that was her gift to Jesus – the one that Martha had proclaimed as the Messiah. But thinking about how that scent must have permeated every pore, one has to wonder if Jesus had the memory of this in his heart when just a few days later he knelt down himself to wash the feet of his disciples.
And what about later, as he was beaten, betrayed, and left to die on the cross – was he able to smell the nard oozing from his pores, mixed with his sweat and blood. I like to think so. I like to think that in that moment of deep pain he was able to remember, if only in brief glimpses, the love offered, the love he graciously received. And perhaps most of all that in the days just before he was to die, he had been in a home with people who loved him, who fed and nurtured him, who gave him perhaps the greatest gift of all – more expensive than all the nard Mary used – the gift of time –with, and for, Jesus.
I was speaking to a friend of mine who is a monk, and as we were discussing this passage he said that it is this gospel story that is often used in monastic communities – the nard being prayer from a contemplative point of view, as they fill the house of the church with the fragrance of their prayer. And then he added, ““The costliest thing we give Jesus is our time.”
“The costliest thing we give Jesus is our time.”
Indeed.
We can make our faith so very complicated sometimes, but the bishop is right – maybe the best way to think about who we are, who God is, and what we do with all of that is to just take a breath. Start with that gift of God, and remember that we all have gifts we are called to offer others, to offer God, and that perhaps the greatest of these is the gift of love, given in time, or what some might call the ministry of presence – with one another, and with God.
Palm Sunday, just a week from today, begins the most important week in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. In a very real sense we are at that moment in the house with Jesus, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Judas – with the entry into Jerusalem and all that will mean just around the corner. We may not have a year of wages to give over to Jesus in the form of expensive perfume, but we have something even more important, even more valuable.
This is the nard with which we anoint Jesus – that we will be present with him in no less a way than that scent was as he carried his cross through the streets of Jerusalem.
This is the nard with which we anoint Jesus – that we will be present with one another as Mary, Martha, and Lazarus was with Jesus, as we gather in Holy Week, filling this house with the fragrance of our prayer.
This is the nard with which we anoint Jesus – that we will offer ourselves over to receive the extravagant love of God, and that we will anoint the stranger, who we will receive as Christ himself, with that same love.
“The costliest thing we give Jesus is our time.”
We have a great gift to give to God – the nard of our prayer to fill this church, the nard of our time given over to him and to one another, the nard of our love poured out for him who is the one in need outside these doors.
God has given you the gift of breath.
As we enter into Holy Week, what are you willing to give to the one who gave you life?
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
April 7, 2019
Lent 5 – Year C
1st Reading – Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
2nd Reading – Philippians 3:4b-14
Gospel – John 12:1-8
