[Propertalk] Lent 5c Reflection

[Allison Dean]

Another rare reflection probably going to be preached via hospital radio
tomorrow as the noise of drills and hammers construct a temporary hospital
chapel below our current one in preparation for a move the week after
Easter.  Barbara Brown-Taylor and Kathryn Matthews were the inspiration for
me this week.  Comments and thoughts welcome as it is a bit different from
what I would normally prepare.

Allison Cline-Dean,
Lead Chaplain,
East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
Based at Colchester Hospital, Colchester, Essex, UK

Isn’t it odd how scents can trigger memories?  Remember the smell last
summer when the first rain came down after the six weeks of heatwave – the
odour as the rain hit the ground?  Earthy, damp, unmistakable, wonderful.  It
was a long, generous rain for parched ground and crops as well as for
children wanting to jump in puddles!   And then there are perfumes and
after-shave colognes.  When I smell Chanel No. 5 I think of a certain
person who is no longer with us – a crusty, to the point lady with a heart
of gold and she loved Chanel No. 5.  She would not leave the house to go
and clean the school without a spritz of her Chanel – she was subtle in the
application yet the fragrance left a trail as she walked by.   As we recall
certain scents that trigger memories, our gospel invites us to experience
God’s extravagant generosity as portrayed by Mary anointing Jesus’ feet
with the fragrant nard.

This story is also used by the other Gospel writers but in different ways
and in different contexts.  John is the only writer who states that the
woman is Mary.  These 12 verses are the turning point in John’s gospel.  This
is where Jesus, the popular itinerant rabbi leaves the world behind and
heads for Jerusalem where in six days time he will be brought before Pilate
and eventually crucified.  Jesus knows that when he came to Bethany to
raise Lazarus from the dead that he left the safety of the lands across the
river and put himself in the position where various officials can plot his
arrest.  He has jumped from the fat into the fire – he knows he is no
longer in a safe place.

Yet before Jesus heads for Jerusalem he attends a dinner party thrown by
Martha in Bethany, just on the edge of Jerusalem, to celebrate Lazarus’
raising from the dead.  It was a lavish party because the men were
reclining at tables.  This was not just a simple dinner amongst friends
around a table with people seated on chairs or sitting on the floor.  No!  This
is a dinner where there is the equivalent of a chaise longue for each guest.
Martha would be bustling around the kitchen ensuring that the very best
food and wine was being prepared and served.  This was a celebration.  This
was a lavish banquet with an abundance of food – Martha’s way of thanking
Jesus for bringing her brother Lazarus back from the dead.  The men
reclining gives us a foretaste of the Last Supper in a few nights time.

And in the midst of it all, Mary enters the room with a beautiful alabaster
jar, breaks the neck of it, and the pungent smell of spikenard permeates
the room and the house, going into all the corners.  It is a musky, sharp
scent halfway between mint and ginseng, according to Barbara Brown-Taylor.  It
is in contrast to the four day old “stench” that Martha spoke of when Jesus
told her to take him to Lazarus’ tomb.   Possibly this jar was the last
very expensive bottle left from having anointed Lazarus’ body before it
went into the tomb.   Or this bottle of spikenard may have been Mary’s
dowry, started by her parents when she was born, added to by relatives over
the years, each time a little more put in the alabaster jar and then
re-sealed with wax.  However, the heady scent would have been quite a
contrast to the smell of the empty tomb so recently vacated by Lazarus.

After breaking the neck of the bottle, Mary kneels down, loosens her hair,
and begins to anoint Jesus’ feet.  She uses all the nard, rubbing it into
the crevices and cracks of Jesus’ feet with her hair.  Mary breaks all the
rules with this lavish, generous, and extravagant gift.  Just as Jesus
breaks down the barriers, so Mary too breaks rules and boundaries.

She does things not acceptable in polite company in that culture and time:
she unbinds her hair, loosens it as women did only for their husbands or
when they were in mourning; she pours expensive balm on the feet of Jesus
(his feet, as one would anoint a corpse, not a king; a king would be
anointed on the head).  And Mary touches Jesus even though she's a single
woman – again, not "appropriate" - and then she wipes his feet with her
hair.  (Kathryn Matthews)

Mary does not hold back the bottle – she uses all the ointment at great
cost to herself, and in effect, prophecies as to what will happen in the
next few days.  . . . “Jesus began his ministry with an extravagance of
excellent wine at a wedding feast, so his ministry comes to a close here in
an extravagance of expensive ointment, a passionate display of love and
caring that even the woman who offers it does not fully understand.”
(Barbara Brown-Taylor, *Bread of Angels*).

I wonder if, as Jesus and his disciples gathered for the Last Supper a few
evenings later, reclining at the table, if they recalled that evening with
Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.  As Jesus washed the feet of his disciples after
the Last Supper, were he and the disciples drawn back to those moments when
Mary bent over Jesus’ feet and washed them.  In that single act did Mary
give Jesus the idea for the new commandment that he gave the disciples that
night as he washed their feet:  Love one another, as I have loved you.

Mary’s demonstration of her love for Christ gives us much food for thought
this week.  Mary’s love shows us the lavishness and generosity of God’s
love and mercy for each of us.  In that one single extravagant act, Mary
shows the disciples, Jesus, Martha, Lazarus, and us what it means

to love our Lord so much that we break open our hearts to those around us
and to our world – to give of ourselves and not count the cost.  In that
moment of lavishly anointing Jesus feet, foretelling of his death and
burial, Mary demonstrates how an extravagant gesture of love and generosity
can transform a situation. A generous spirit offers forgiveness and
healing, a spirit of kindness offers healing and hope and speaks words of
encouragement, a spirit of freedom gives out of the abundance we live in so
that others have enough to live.  (Kathryn Matthews).

This is a story of contrasts – Mary’s generosity vs. Judas’
miserliness.  Mary’s
love against the fear that others in the room are experiencing.  It is a
story that shows us just how extravagant, generous, and lavish God’s love
is.  God’s love is not stingy, it is not miserly, it is not fearful, and it
won’t run out.  God invites us to open our hearts, our minds, and spirits,
in the midst of an world filled with fear, violence and political
machinations, and experience God’s extravagant, generous, and lavish love
anointing us, pouring into our spirits, giving new life and new hope,
filling us with the fragrance of Christ.  When we are filled with God’s
love, “There is no reason to fear running out--of nard or of life either
one--for where God is concerned, there is always more than we can ask or
imagine--gifts from our lavish, lavish Lord.”  (Barbara Brown-Taylor)
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