Lent 5C

I am about to do a new thing. Do not consider the things of old.  Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?  This is what we hear from Isaiah, written hundreds of year before Christ. And yet it was fitting during Christ’s life and the portion we heard today, and it’s fitting today.  I am about to do a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?

Here we sit, one week before the greatest, most powerful and most meaningful week as liturgical Christians. Next Sunday, we celebrate Palm Sunday, with Christ’s victorious entrance into Jerusalem, and the quick vicious turn the public takes as we yell “Crucify Him”.  We move to the big three days of one service.  Maundy Thursday, with the foot washing, Christ’s new commandment to love each other.  Because this is only part one of a three part, three day solemn celebration, we leave that night in silence. There is no dismissal. The service just abruptly ends and we leave the barren alter.

We return for Good Friday. As the second of three parts of one service, this service has no beginning or no ending.  The service began Thursday night, and Friday, we come in and things begin abruptly with no tidy opening, or a closing. The alter is stripped of everything, including the bread and wine. It feels barren.  And we leave.  

Finally Saturday night, we end this three part three day service with the Great Vigil.  If you haven’t been, I’d encourage you to give it a try. This service begins in darkness, and it’s very different from all other services.  We begin outside, lighting a fire and carrying the light of Christ into the darkened church – dark and barren. We hear several readings that take us through the story of salvation, and end with light flooding the space and a wonderful Eucharist – Christ is Risen! 

I offer this preview of Holy Week because it is a highlight of our calendar, with the Maundy Thursday – Good Friday – Great Vigil being the culmination of that.

Part of the reason it’s so spectacular is because of all of the subtle and not so subtle cues. All of the opportunities to enter into the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection – with liturgy that is designed to connect to all of our senses -  sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. 

Today’s Gospel is full of these sensory cues.   The story goes that Mary has anointed Jesus feet with expensive and very fragrant perfume, she lets her hair down, and anoints his feet with the oil and wipes it with her hair. The place is full of the smell of perfume.  There is also the odor of humanity.  All of these people together, the food, the smell of the earth.  Finally there is the odor of death.  This story immediately follows the death of Lazarus, Jesus friend and Mary’s brother.  He has died, and Jesus has raised him from the dead, despite the warning from his sisters that he had been dead for days and the smell of death was strong.   

I’ve read that the sense of smell is the sense that most closely connects to memory.  We smell something, and it’s easy to be transported to the time and place where that smell became so good.  I can tell you that in my house this is definitely true.  There is a flower, alyssum, which has a distinct sweet smell.  It was found all over the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, where my husband lived as a child.  Every time he smells alyssum, he gets this distant look, and either tells me that this smells like the Bamiyan Valley, or just offers a contented smile.  He’s transported to that valley, every time, even though it was 50 years ago.

The perfume Mary used would have been familiar. Its sweet odor would have filled the room.  Inescapably. And when those in the room smelled it, they may have associated it with one of its primary purposes. It’s a fragrance that’s used to anoint bodies after death. Perhaps that same fragrance was used it to anoint the body of their brother Lazarus just before. Their sense of smell connects the perfume to death.  So here is Mary, a week before Jesus’ death, anointing his feet with perfume.  That strong connection between smell and memory existed. Maybe they were transported in their minds to another time and place.  To a memory of death.

Mary uses this very expensive perfume to anoint Jesus before his death. It represented about a year’s wage. This would have been apparent.  It was extravagant.  And odd.  Odd not only because of its cost, but also because it was very presumptuous for this woman to anoint Jesus, and dry his feet with her hair, which should not be let down in mixed company.

The senses of the people in this scene are being challenged. What they smell and see is out of the normal. I can imagine them all shifting in their seats, while their brains try to make sense of the events that are unfolding. They could be thinking that this is an incredibly awkward and weird thing to do.

Leave it to Judas to see that, and call it out.  He pointed out her wasteful, inappropriate and embarrassing ways. “The perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor”.  There’s a parenthetical comment in the Gospel that he comments not because he really cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.  Regardless of his motives, he pointed out what I can imagine several were thinking. Mary’s unabashed worship is extravagant, evocative and embarrassing. 

Jesus’ response? Leave her alone! The poor will always be with you.  Jesus responds by cutting down his seemingly defensible position. Yes, the poor will always be there, but - I will not.  Jesus is encouraging them to worship, to pray, to anoint, to notice – to be drawn in to the Holy mysteries before them, without getting distracted by needs out in the world. Jesus is saying that this extravagant, evocative and embarrassing thing is the right thing to do, because Jesus will not be there for long.  

Every time I hear this passage I struggle.  In a world of need and hurt and pain, is Jesus really saying that we should ignore the needs of the poor and rather waste resources?  No.  Rather, he’s saying something critical about attentiveness and worship. 

Mary is worshiping and anointing Jesus. It would have been seen as strange gesture, a woman, wiping her publicly displayed hair on his feet after the anointing with nard.  How tempting to distance oneself from the embarrassing. Maybe Judas was trying to point out how embarrassing it was, by exclaiming that HE would not be doing that. HE would give the money to the poor.  Others may have been nodding in agreement, again to distance themselves from the embarrassing.   Or maybe, they understood the pre-death anointing – the symbolism of using that particular fragrance. If so, how frightening and how disarming. With all that the apostles had been through, and particularly with what Mary and Lazarus had recently experienced with Lazarus’ death, how much easier to dismiss or deny what was happening.

Jesus is urging everyone to worship. To be attentive. To pay attention to their senses, and the connections and memories that are stirred up. To rest in God’s presence. 

This feels very fitting to me, this week before Holy Week.  I believe we are asked to worship in community with Christ in ways that are extravagant, embarrassing and evocative. 

We all have a lot to do.  We have jobs, families, responsibilities.  We have sleep to catch up on.  We have family to see, hams to cook, brunches to attend.  But like Jesus, I’d suggest that those things will always be there.  You will always work obligations, family commitments, cleaning to do and people to feed.  Starting with Palm Sunday, continuing through the three day service of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Great Vigil, and concluding with Eucharist on Easter Sunday, Christ is with us in a very powerful way.  Or at least he can be, if we’re attentive, we slow down, and we’re present.  

Palm Sunday, notice the palms.  The weight, fresh scent, sharp edges.  Listen and enter into the Passion story as we all take turns to read parts.   

Maundy Thursday, sense Christ’s heaviness and joy as he shares his last meal with his friends, as he commands them to love each other, and then washes the feet of his friends. Feel the warm water and someone else’s touch as we wash each other’s feet. Listen to the readings as the alter is emptied of all that we’re used to, and see how empty everything looks and feels.  Imagine the disciples all fleeing, leaving Jesus alone as we slip out in silence. 

Good Friday, hear the loss and feel the confusion and abandonment of his disciples, Christ’s pain and death.  And yet liturgically, this service does not conclude. Again we slip out in silence, because this service is not over – there is more to come tomorrow.

At the Great Vigil, watch the new fire built and brought into the dark church and the deacon chants “The Light of Christ”, and the congregation tentatively but hopefully responds “Thanks be to God”.  After the emotional previous two nights, it’s easier to see this big candle as “the light of Christ”, entering the darkened parish and entering into our darkened souls. It’s dramatic. 

Listen to a series of readings that take us from the creation through some high points in the salvation stories.  Celebrate a light-filled, incense-infused Eucharist after a dramatic and challenging week. We get to renew our own Baptismal Covenant, committing once again to seek and serve Christ in all people. Celebrate the Eucharist with the risen Christ, with good news of the resurrection and renewal of all of us.   Understand that liturgical Christians around the world and for the past 2000 years have read these readings, sung these chants, and celebrated the first light of Easter as you do.

Finally, Easter Sunday morning, celebrate the Eucharist with the risen Christ, again renew your Baptismal covenant, and relish in the extravagant songs and stories of life, light, healing and forgiveness.

Holy week begs to be attended, to be noticed, to be entered into.  The sights, the sounds, the smells, the words you say and the words you hear all help draw you in. Your senses are challenged. Things are awkward and extravagant, like Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet. Instead of dismissing them or distancing yourself from them, rest and be transported by the strength of your senses, and of your memory. 

Something new is happening.  As we celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection, we are given the opportunity to die to the worldly concerns, and be resurrected in a new life with Christ. The collect for today sums this up. It reads, “Among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found’.

Regardless of how well you’ve kept Lent, try to keep a good Holy Week. Pray daily.  Attend communal worship. Don’t be distracted by worldly needs or desires.  They will always be with you.  But for this week, Christ is with you in a very special way.  Don’t miss it.