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March 21, 2010 Sermon

A Faithful Journey (Isaiah 43: 16-21; John 12: 1-8)

Rev. Sally Harris

We have come to this place with our sorrows and our dreams…
May the words of our story bring hope to our vision…
May the spirit of our story be found in these words. Amen

I could see it coming – like a train that began a slow journey across a flat land and then the ascent up the mountains and suddenly a curve and you could feel the train wreck before it happened… or like a soft falling of snow that spreads a magic carpet along the mountainside but then the snow piled and a rock shook loose and suddenly the side of the mountain slides into the ocean… an avalanche of beauty… and danger… then gone…

Yes I could see it coming – in this One named Jesus… the one who began a slow journey across the land of time and then the mountains of resistance to the love he brought and the joy he sang and the justice he proclaimed… if you had eyes you could see around the curve – the wreckage that was about to take place between heaven and earth… So beautiful he was that children gathered around him just to be near him and weary folks gathered to hear simple stories that made them ponder the sacred mysteries of eternity and we gathered, his friends, around him because we believed he knew the way… the way through the wilderness… the way of justice and peace and abundance. His life was an extravagant gesture of grace and healing for those who received no such gifts from the powers that rule this world – the power of money and things, the power to wound, striking out, destroying all that was lovely – forgetting the flowers that were strewn even on the lonely road of wilderness travel…

This One named Jesus brought a refreshing breeze and like the soft beautiful snow that spreads a magic carpet along the mountainside… his clarity and fearlessness, his love and justice piled upon the loose rock of fear and greed and suddenly the mountain of possibility slide into the ocean… an avalanche of beauty… and danger…

I didn’t know how to love him… I don’t think any of us did. Some created master plans for his take-over of the government – illusions I think of grandeur – others sought to market his abilities all in the guise of taking care of the poor and others simply wanted to protect his way of life – simple things, stories and dinners, gatherings and conversations, preaching and healing, community and communion. We didn’t know what to do… so we carried on as if it would go on forever. But deep in our hearts we knew that his way through the wilderness was on a collusion course with the way of the world.

But my we loved the stories of the times when God was real. Times of deliverance and clarity. Times when all was right with the world. Listening to such stories, remembering them helped us to have hope for those times we knew were coming. Trusting that this same God would continue extravagant gestures. We trusted what the prophet wrote:

Thus says God, who makes a way in the sea... Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I am not quite sure when I decided to do this new thing that was sure to create a nightmare of public disgrace. You see what I did by world and religious propriety was very wrong. For a woman to uncover her head in public was shocking. For her to uncover her head to someone who wasn’t her husband was risqué. For her to wipe a man’s feet with her hair was positively outrageous. Such an act did indeed set off a firestorm of innuendo and gossip that could have brought down the whole movement. This kind of behaviour could have created real damage to Jesus’ image. And then to top it all off, I took a bottle of nard, worth a year’s salary, and poured it out – anointing God’s beloved.

I don’t blame the treasurer, Judas. He must have wept to see so much money needlessly wasted. Most certainly the public would wonder what kind of a group Jesus was running if they heard he was lavishly anointed for burial while he was still alive. Who would want to support a group who wastes their money doing such strange things?

It was scandalous on many accounts. To his credit, Judas was a gentleman. He didn’t mention how shockingly bizarre all this was. He wanted to hush it up. But the money… well he couldn’t let that go; especially when they were always close to deficit budgeting. And then there were the endless needs of the poor. Imagine what you could do with a year’s salary. Judas was right. He was right, but for all the wrong reasons. In the eyes of the reasonable and the respectable, what I did was wrong.

Yet Jesus taught us that the way, God offers in the wilderness is not so easily figured out. Jesus challenged our imagination, called forth an intimacy that produced in me such a reckless act of worship – an anointing with the very best I could find for the very best who found me. Perhaps the stories of an extravagant God had found its way within me. Indeed the words of the prophet Isaiah informed my actions: Let your imagination take you to new visions for God is not only providing a cup of cool water in the wilderness but is now promising water that will flow so lavishly that even wild creatures will cease to prey... and begin to pray. The wild animals will honor the jackals, the ostriches for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert

I heard this story once of a woman who fell in love with a rare person… a person of soul and sea. One evening of a full moon this person went out in a boat – shoving off the shore, to catch a fish. As the night wore on, the woman named Mercy, began to worry that some ill had befallen her love. She looked across the water for signs but found nothing. She walked to the cove where they had first met and began to call out, promising her heart. The moon seeing Mercy’s sadness, began to sing forcing the waves inland, strong and firm, bringing the rare person, the person of soul and sea back to the shoreline.
[adapted from Ami McKay] An extraordinary gesture for an extraordinary person… and so… I called – knowing this One, Jesus was setting off the shore into the sea. I had no words to fill the air but I had a fragrance that no one could forget. A fragrance to embrace this person of soul and to prepare him for his journey out to sea…

And so..

I broke the clasp and tilted the jar:
All was din and dinner chatter.
My perfume filled the air.
Suddenly the voices scattered.

This is my life broken in two.
This is my heart poured out on you.

Silent tears fell with utmost care
Setting free the secrets hidden there:
Never thought I'd have the courage,
Never thought I'd loose my hair

Not a word by me was spoken.
Not a word by him replied.
Yet my heart heard every nuance
as my soul with love revived. [adapted from M. Gayle MacDonald]

And still I don’t know how to love him…

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