“I
am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Those are the words of the prophet Isaiah to Israel in Exile in the 6th
century BC. Remember from your Bible classes, Jerusalem has been sacked and the
ruling elite of Israel had been exiled to Babylonia. Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann
defines exile as “the loss of the known world.” Everything that they knew was
gone- their careers, their homes, family members, and the sacred Temple in
Jerusalem. It even seemed as if God was absent, because the Babylonians practiced
polytheism, being led by the god Marduk. And the way that the Babylonians
worshiped was by participating in rituals which reenacted stories about their
gods. Their worship focused on the same, old stories.
And so the God of Israel tells Isaiah to be
looking for a new thing, in contrast to the old reenactments of the Babylonian
gods. The God of Israel is not stagnant, and is not a statue to be worshipped,
but instead is a living God who will act to save the people. It is a truly
inspiring message of hope- “I am about to do a new thing.” And God did, as
eventually they would return home to Israel and build a new Temple. And though
Isaiah wrote to a different audience in a different time, the question is still
a good one. God is doing a new thing; do you perceive it?
As Jesus says in the chapter following what we
heard today- “When the Spirit of truth comes, it will guide you into all the
truth.” Or as we read in Revelation, the one sitting on the throne says “See, I
am making all things new.” One of my favorite prayers comes from the Ordination
service and in part, it prays “let the whole world see and know that things
which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old
are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by
him through whom all things were made.” The question before us this morning is “do
you perceive it?”
Today is the feast day of St. Patrick of Ireland. He
was born in 390 to a Christian family on the British mainland, and at age 16 he
was captured and sold into slavery as a shepherd in Ireland. Five years later
he escaped and returned to Britain. Patrick was then ordained as a priest, and
later a bishop. Then, in roughly 431, he was called to return to Ireland as a
missionary, some say in a vision and others say by the Pope. Tradition says
that he landed not far from where he served as slave. And he did grand
missionary work there. I think what allowed St. Patrick to do this was his firm
belief that God was doing a new thing.
Returning the place of his capture, perhaps even
running into his former masters, was no easy task. He knew all about the Irish,
and probably regarded them as brutal savages for what they did to him. And yet,
he was open to God and perceived that God would be able to do a new thing
through him.
This ability to see the new things that God is
doing in our lives is a helpful lens as we approach this well-known story about
Jesus, Mary, and Judas found in the Gospel according to John. The first thing
that needs to be pointed out is that the Passion in John differs from the other
gospel accounts. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Judas hands Jesus over to the
authorities, betraying him. That event never happens in John. In John, Jesus
remains in power throughout the entire Passion narrative and he turns himself in.
So Judas is not the one who betrayed Jesus. When John refers to Judas as “the
one who would betray Jesus,” he is not speaking of handing him over, but
instead of being blind to what new thing Jesus is doing. In John, discipleship
is measured against the measuring stick of faith; and Judas doesn’t quite
measure up, so that is his betrayal- not handing Jesus over, but giving up on
him.
And with this attitude of giving up on Jesus,
Judas closes himself off to the grace of God that unfolds before him. Mary
though saw something new and holy in this encounter with Jesus. I know it seems
like a somewhat odd story- wiping someone’s feet with oil and your own hair.
But the Bible is from another culture, so her actions don’t shock us as much as
they should. What Mary did was absolutely unacceptable and scandalous in her
culture.
A man having his feet washed by a woman was a
rather intimate act; certainly it would have raised a few eyebrows.
Furthermore, the perfume that was used wasn’t some cheap stuff. It was worth
300 denarii, or roughly the yearly income for the average worker. It was simply
too much, it was over the top, it was silly.
And we must consider why Mary just
so happened to have so much perfume on hand. It was likely the very same perfume
that they had planned to use to anoint her brother Lazarus, who had died, but
was now sitting at the table eating with them after Jesus had miraculously
brought him back to life.
And this too was a scandalous event- the raising
of a dead man. In fact, right after word of it gets to the Pharisees the Bible
says that it was such as scandal that “from that day on they planned to put him
to death.” And when Mary uses that perfume on Jesus, it reminds everyone of the
scandals that always seem to follow Jesus.
And then Mary untied her hair and let it down to
dry Jesus’ feet. That simply isn’t done. No self-respecting woman, let alone a
host, would do such a thing. In all of her actions with Jesus, she does too
much, she goes over the top; there is an abundance of scandal. And part of the
reason for her abundant grace and love offered to Jesus is in return for the abundant
power and glory that Jesus has shown them by bringing her brother back to life.
It is a response to the abundance that Jesus showed in feeding of the 5,000.
And it is a foreshadowing of the abundant love with which Jesus will give himself
up on the cross.
Mary knew that there was an abundance of God
present with her, and so she responded in a fitting, but scandalous way. She
perceived that something new was happening in their midst, and it needed to be
addressed; it needed to be adored. There are two competing theologies out
there. On one hand we have the theology of scarcity, and it says things like “there
just isn’t enough time to get it all done,” “if I just had a little more money,”
“what I really need more of.” In the theology of scarcity, the world is a place
of supply and demand where we have to compete to get to the top. But there is
another way, the theology of abundance which calls us to realize that we will
be given our daily bread, that God will provide, that there is enough love to
heal our world. Judas clearly operates out of a theology of scarcity because he
doesn’t realize that there is an endless supply of love and grace in this world.
Mary though has a theology of abundance and knows that because God does new
things, that there will always be enough. So she is free to act and shows great
grace in her action. Do you operate out of a theology of scarcity or of
abundance?
And much in the same way that we’ll read next
Sunday during the Palm Sunday procession, people who witness this scandalous
abundance want it to stop. Next week, during the parade into Jerusalem, the
Pharisees will tell Jesus to stop his disciples from making such a commotion
and he responds by saying “if they were silent, the stones would shout out.” In
today’s story, Mary is the stone that is shouting out, though Judas tries to
stop her.
To Judas, what Mary does is unreasonable. This
show of abundance is just too wasteful to tolerate. Such a demonstrative act is
making him too uncomfortable to stand it. And so to end this travesty, he refutes
Mary and suggests that instead, this costly perfume should have been sold and the
money given the poor. Now I know that the text says that he was doing this out
of his selfish desire to steal from the common purse, but that is very likely a
later addition to the text. John doesn’t know what Judas was thinking when he
said that, nor do we, so we would do well not to go down that rabbit hole.
Judas is responding not out of greed, but out of an inability to see that God
was doing a new thing right in front of his eyes.
Jesus responds by supporting Mary, noting that his
Passion is quickly approaching and it is fitting that his body be prepared for
burial. And then he says “You always have the poor with you, but you do not
always have me.” The misinterpretation of that one line has done a lot of harm
over the years. It has led to a laissez faire attitude towards the poor, a defeatist
and hopeless attitude towards solving poverty, and has given too many people a
clean conscience when they turn a blind eye to those in need.
In his response, Jesus was alluding to Deuteronomy
15:11 which says “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.’” Everyone in the room would have known exactly what Jesus was talking
about; he didn’t finish the sentence because everyone knew what follows. Jesus
is not saying that the poor will always be with us, so don’t worry about it. He
is saying that the poor will always be with us because we are selfish, and
therefore we will always have the need to open our hand to the poor.
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas remarked that the poor
that we always have with us is Jesus, who always identified with the poor, and
himself was poor. The Rev. Dr. Colin Miller lives and works at the Community of
the Franciscan Way in Durham, North Carolina. And he reminds us to thank God
for the poor. It is often assumed that those with money are the patrons to the poor,
giving them what they need. But he invites us to consider that perhaps the poor
are patrons to those of us who have means. Without the poor, he wonders, who
would call us out of ourselves, with whom would we share our treasure, where
would we find the salvation of our souls without the poor to serve? Instead of
us serving the poor, what if the poor serve us by allowing us to meet Christ
and calling us to focus on giving more than receiving. This is a new way of
thinking.
Poverty is certainly an old problem, and for too
long we have treated it that way. We have forgotten that indeed, God can do a new
thing, even with poverty. But we are going in the wrong direction. In 2012, the
top 100 billionaires in the world added $240 billion dollars to their wealth (source),
which would have been enough to eliminate poverty four times over. There is a
video circulating the internet right now that shows the story of wealth and
poverty with images (video). The takeaway message of the video is that Americans’
perception of the gap between the poor and the wealthy is nowhere near reality.
Over 90% of Americans admit that the gap is wider than it should be, but the
reality is that the gap is much larger than anyone realizes.
The Roman Catholic social worker Peter Maurin
wrote a poem called “Better and Better Off,” saying:
The world would be better off, if people tried to become better. And people would become better if they stopped trying to be better off. For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off. But when everybody tries to become better, everybody is better off. Everybody would be rich if nobody tried to be richer. And nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what they ought to be if everybody tried to be what they want the other person to be.
Poverty
is not an impossible problem to solve, but it will take a new approach. It will
take getting away from the ideas that “you get what you deserve,” or that the
poor receive “handouts” from the rich instead of what they are entitled to as
human beings who bear the image of God. We must remember that we will be judged
not on the efficacy of our prayers or worship, but on how we treat the least of
these. We must recall that grace is unearned and free. And most importantly, we
have to open ourselves to the moving of God’s Spirit that is doing a new thing.
In
our debates about debt ceilings, sequestrations, budgets, welfare programs-
what if we thought in new ways? What if we realized that uncontrolled and ever
expanding debt is doing no one a favor? What if we realized that a balanced
budget is just an idol, and one that shouldn’t be put on the backs of those
most in need? What if in our tax discussions we remembered that Jesus said “From
everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required?” What if we acted
as if we are all called to work for our mutual welfare? What if we remembered
that despite our fears and greed, that God operates out of a theology of
abundance? What if we tore down the old systems of oppression and injustice and
rededicated ourselves to a new vision of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness for all? What if we could find the strength and courage to open our
eyes and see that God is doing a new thing? What if we sought first the Kingdom
of God instead of the kingdoms of power, prestige, wealth, political party, or
philosophical ideology?
If
we could, I think we’d encounter an extravagant and abundant life. We might
then discover the truth of Jesus’ words that he “came that we might have life,
and have it abundantly.” We might find more Marys in our midst instead of so
many Judases. Now I realize that this is a scandalous message. As the great
preacher Peter Gomes once said, “the Good News to some will almost inevitably be
bad news to others.”
This
encounter between Jesus, Mary, and Judas is a story of new possibilities and abundant
love and grace. Mary was open to it, and Judas was stuck in what was
comfortable and familiar. This story is a foreshadowing of what we will find in
a week on Palm Sunday. God comes offering abundant joy, love, and redemption,
especially to the poor. Jesus upsets the oppressive structures of the day with
his scandalous Gospel of extravagant abundance. It happened with Judas, and it
will happen with the Pharisees. His good news was indeed bad news to those who
were being challenged in their old and complacent ways, and he will be killed
for it. Our hope next Sunday is the same as our hope this Sunday- that no
amount of blindness or fear can stop the abundant love of God from gracing our
lives. God is doing a new thing, can you perceive it?
