| Mark 14:1-11 "When No One Shares the Dream" |
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| Written by Rev. Don Lee | |
| Saturday, 11 March 2006 | |
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In an interview, Bono of the rock group U2 was asked, “Money, Irishness, or God” which one couldn’t you live without? Bono responded by repeating a prayer he prayed when he was 16, unemployed, and unsure of his future. "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life but if there's a God out there, and I believe there is, and You want me to do something, then I'm ready. I don't have any plans for myself and I'm available for work." Within a few months Bon-o had joined U2 and started dating his future wife. He answered the interviewer’s question this way, “So -- I couldn't let go of my faith. But what's more interesting is that I don't think God will let go of me. I love it when people on bar stools rub their chins and say do you believe in God? That's so presumptuous. A much more important question is does God believe in us? The interviewer responded, “It sounds like you believe you were chosen.” Bon-o replied: No, no, no, I don't believe that. I do think God gets a laugh out of using some very poor materials…I volunteered is what I'm telling you."--Q Magazine (www.thunderstruck.org) I think that’s a healthy way of looking at the Christian life. We have volunteered…to follow Jesus! Of course, following Jesus isn’t always a popular thing to do. Our Scripture reading comes from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 14, verse 1-11. As you are able, please stand for the reading of the Gospel. It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; 2for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’ 3 While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. 6But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’ 10 Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. 11When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. The count down has begun. Passover approaches, and Jesus races toward his destiny in Jerusalem. Mark tells us that the religious leaders are looking for a way to get Jesus alone to arrest him. He is in Bethany, the guest of Simon. A woman approaches Jesus with a jar of fragrant ointment. We are told the ointment is valued at 300 denarri, or 300 times worth the usual day’s wages for a laborer. You might expect her to unstop the bottle, tip it a couple times to extract a small amount of the ointment. No, she breaks open the jar, and katecheen autou tes kephales, pours it over Jesus’ head. In the Ancient Middle East, Kings were anointed by prophets and priests in this way. Oil was also used to anoint the dead. Jesus’ disciples would have known this. The latter is how Jesus will interpret this woman’s actions. Looking like a drowned rat and reeking of perfume, Jesus sits in silent reflection while his disciples totally lose it! They berate the woman saying (my paraphrase), “You wasteful, horrible woman! You would steal the bread from the mouths of the poor to demonstrate your own presumed righteousness! You have offended both God and the poor.” In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ feet are anointed with tears and ointment, by a woman seeking forgiveness (Luke 7:44). While there are clear differences in the stories, I think the question Jesus raises in that story is apropos, “Do you see this woman…” That the guests have not “seen” the woman in our story is clearly evident by their response. Author Reggie McNeal comments, “Religious people don’t see people; they see causes, behaviors, stereotypes, people “other” than them. p.28 The Present Future Verse 6, But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. Levitical law required good works or “kalon ergon.” toward the poor. But Jesus says, ‘She has performed for me, a “kalon ergon,” a good work. Some might argue that helping the poor is “serving Jesus,” and I’d usually agree with that EXCEPT HERE Jesus says they are NOT the same! Blows my theology clean out of the water! But doesn’t Jesus say elsewhere, “Whatever you’ve done for the least of these you’ve done for me?” How can serving the poor not be serving Jesus? The answer is in Jesus’ response. Jesus points out that the Law makes everyone responsible for helping the poor. Verse 7, “You will always have the poor…” He’s quoting Deuteronomy 15:11, There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. Our Shared humanity makes everyone, both inside and outside the church responsible for honoring the poor with “kalon ergon,” good works. Christ’ universal Church is given the distinct privilege of doing not only “kalon ergon,” for those in need, but “kalon ergon,” for Jesus, the un-churched seeing no need for such things as corporate worship and prayer, the Sacraments, Confirmation, Bible study, and the fellowship of believers. Jesus’ disciples ought to be the first to recognize this truth! We need to resist the temptation to define social justice as worship. Why? Because if social justice is worship then our church ought to close its doors and hand over the prophetic mantle to social service agencies that can do social justice much better then we can. Here Jesus says, “It is everyone’s responsibility to honor the poor, but my [true] disciples also honor me.” Dana Reeve, wife of Christopher Reeve tragically died of lung cancer this week at the age of 44. You know the story. When her husband broke his neck during a riding accident, and was paralyzed, Dana became his full time caregiver. She bathed him, clothed him, fed him. She was his greatest fan and strongest cheerleader. Dana became, in a very real way, her husband’s hands. When he died, Dana succeeded her late husband as Chair of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, a foundation committed to finding treatments and cures for paralysis and improving the quality of life for those living with disabilities. His mission had become her mission! Why did she do all this? LOVE. No question. What does this have to do with our Gospel story? I think this unnamed wastefully, extravagantly, poured her precious oil upon Jesus out of pure, unadulterated love. There’s another word for her actions. Worship. Worship is how we express our love TO God. Service, on the other hand is how we express our love FOR God. And we owe it to our children to carefully teach them the difference between the two. This is the “if…then” of the Christian faith. “IF you love me, says Jesus, THEN feed my sheep,” -John 21:17 When our love for Jesus inspires us to care for the poor, the outcast, the suffering, we are God’s hands! Our church goes on mission trip to New Orleans “for the love of God.” We feed the poor “for the love of God.” We do CHAP, Harvey’s Kids, Interfaith, the Prayer Shawl ministry, “for the love of God.” We support Christ’ Foundry “for the love of God.” So irritated by the woman’s actions those at the table with Jesus do not recognize the honor she is giving him. Instead they attempt to paint the woman as wasteful instead of as having great faith. They are saying, “It’s one thing to worship Jesus. It’s altogether something else to throw good money away.” Now that’s a convicting word… This unnamed woman reminds us that Jesus deserves to have our worship wastefully, extravagantly, poured on him… out of pure, unadulterated love! Verse 8, “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.” Eschen epoi~sen, translated “She had done what she could” can also be translated, "she made sense out of the situation." http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/GMark/GMark14.html Isn’t that what the Church is suppose to do? To make sense out of the situation? To put things into a kingdom perspective? To see God where others do not? And finally, Judas’ promised betrayal provides a stark contrast between his actions and the woman’s. Judas, a member of the church betrays Jesus for a comparably trivial amount of money. This woman shows true faithfulness by being extravagant in her worship of God by refusing to hold anything back! Now I know I’ve been guilty at one time or another of being extravagant. But am I extravagant in my worship toward God? Are you? Here’s the good news! When we take our eyes off the crowd and instead focus upon what God thinks and wants, we may not win any popularity contests, but we are not alone. In Luke Veronis’ book, “The Sign of the Cross” the author writes about Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was a prisoner in a Siberian prison camp before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The backbreaking labor, slow starvation, and intense suffering had taken its toll. One day, Solzhenitsyn gave up. He sat down, knowing at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he refused, beat him to death. He had seen it happen many times. As he waited for the inevitable, head down in despair, he sense the presence someone next to him. He looked up and saw a skinny elderly prisoner squatting next to him. The man said nothing, only used a stick to trace the sign of the cross in the dirt. The man then stood up and went back to work. Solzhenitsyn stared at the cross drawn in the dirt, and began to see things differently. While he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire, he realized there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. That simple cross in the dirt told him he did not struggle alone, and so he did not struggle in vain. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Occasionally in life one develops a conviction so precious and meaningful that he [ or she] will stand on it ‘til the end.’ “Love me,” says Jesus, “then feed my sheep…” This world is just a shadow of what is to come; God’s dream of a more just and loving world. As we continue our Journey through the Shadowlands, Jesus reminds us that because God believes in us, we do not travel alone, so we do not struggle in vain! |
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