Isaiah 43:16-21
Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 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 will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
Psalm 126
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongues with shouts of joy. then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses of the Negev. Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
Philippians 3:4b-14
Paul writes: If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Mary served, and Lazarus was one of those at table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him) said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
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It may be said that our relationship with the past is… complicated. At best, we long for the ‘good old days,’ at worst, we refuse to let go of grudges, and somewhere in the middle, we hope never again to repeat the mistakes we have made. In the present moment of joy or celebration, the past might be what got us to where we are, but we are just moving on up all the time. In the present moment of suffering, the past might be where lie all the mistakes and hurts that built up to the present tragedy, or the better days we don’t understand losing. Often in times of joy or suffering we can become so inwardly focused that we forget the past, ignore our history, bury our heads in the sand about bad habits that have gotten worse, or imagine that any help we have relied on before might be sick and tired of supporting us any longer. We return to our past with class reunions, and make a break with the past when we move away to a new job…
sort of. When I started seminary, it was really hard to form new community because so many of us were stuck in the past, relying heavily on college friendships via Facebook rather than putting down our technology and meeting one another in person where we were. And now, of course, we all stay connected despite having been called to the far corners of the church, swapping stories of first baptisms and first weddings, supporting one another in online text study and worship brainstorming, and occasionally retreating into our well-loved and hard-won community of classmate-colleagues when the stress of life seems too much to face head-on. The past can be a place of refuge at times, knowing where we belong and what patterns of behavior to follow brings with it a certain comfort, but in that sense of safety is no small degree of danger. Remaining in the past, dreaming of days gone by, is a sure way to miss the present moment and make even the near future into something hollow rather than allowing it to be something holy.
When Israel was living in Babylonian captivity, all they had was stories of the past, hopes and dreams of a return to what they had once known, but it just wouldn’t be possible to find those old glory days again. Too much was changing, too much time gone by, too much of culture was adapting to the situations at hand. One thing which they had kept with them, however, was the story of their Exodus from slavery into freedom. Now that they were back in a sort of slavery again, only more of a scattered occupation, they were looking for another Moses, another deliverer, another rescue like the one they looked to as a reminder of their roots. The story is still told in the first person plural: “When God led us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm…” they say. As they should. We are all, after all, together part of God’s great salvation history. But that isn’t all God can -or will- do. It isn’t only that God can make dry ground appear in the middle of great waters, but God can make waters appear in the middle of the desert. God can do all things as suits the restoration of the world and the arrival of the Kingdom.
Take Paul for example. Hebrew born of Hebrews, a Pharisee in religious training, a zealot for the faith, good family pedigree, all the things a man would need to be considered a success in his day and age. But he looks on his past, good training as it was, as worth about as much as a baggie of dog poo when comparing it all with knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection. I might have a Master’s Degree, that will take another forty years to pay for, but it’s not worth anything compared with actually knowing the God who we studied academically for three years. No amount of book learning, no number of academic honors, no first call parish size or sudden growth of a community can compare even on the same scale as that relationship with the God whose heart is most clearly revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Yet the value of stuff from the past seems to increase as it gets older, doesn't it? Stories of the good old days leave out trials and tribulations more often than not. Antiques go for a pretty penny here and in Hudson. But our faith stories aren’t antiques, they bear witness to a living and active God who is still working among us today. Our problem comes when those stories become boxes to keep God in, parameters we set up for where and how God is allowed to act. The Bible in many ways serves to prove the point that God is faithful - but we keep getting caught up in the details of how exactly that happened, so that we can prove the spiritual validity, or invalidity, of life experience.
Mary knew that isn’t how this life of faith works. She saved an entire year’s worth of pay, we don’t know how, in order to give it all away in one night to the man who had restored her brother back to life. It just wasn’t done, this kind of generosity, this kind of open intimacy. God was too big for any but the high priest to get this close to Him, but here God was, in her house, at her family table, after having opened a door on death that was supposed to have stayed sealed forever. So she did not hold back on her thanksgiving, she did not hold back financially or emotionally or even according to the rules of social interaction. And this was too weird on too many levels for Judas to just let it happen. It sounds to me like he never really understood the parable of the prodigal son, to be so offended by the wastefulness of Mary’s gift to Jesus. It sounds to me, also, like this might have been the first time Judas said anything about caring for the poor, though he gets painted badly from the start in John’s Gospel because he was the betrayer.
“What waste!” he says. I wonder if he would have said the same thing to his daughter bringing him a macaroni necklace she made in preschool. Or to his brother spending a year’s wages on an engagement ring. Or to all that extra wine showing up at the wedding at Cana. But Mary’s brother was literally dead, sealed in the tomb for four days, smelling like it, too, and then Jesus came and opened that tomb and here was her brother again at the family table. What else could she do but pour out that oil and fill the house with the smell of her love and gratitude?
God was indeed doing another new thing, after all. Raising the dead and walking among us, sitting at table with us, going to the cross for us. It wasn’t kicking the Romans out like the Canaanites were destroyed to make room for the Israelites when they came to the promised land. It wasn’t the ground opening up to swallow those blasphemers. It wasn’t fire from heaven, but God’s own blood from the cross this time, that would lead more than just the Israelites, more than just the men, more than just the wealthy priests and Pharisees, into the coming Kingdom of God. This was a new thing, the way God walked among us and reached out physically with compassion and healing. It was too new for the many who mobbed together to kill him, but then God did another new thing and returned alive again in three days to forgive his tormentors.
So now even the old smell of death, from the recomposing body of Lazarus, from the oil poured out on Jesus’ feet to anoint his body for burial, from the flowers brought to place on a casket, these old smells that trigger memories of funerals and morgues and black suits and red eyes, these smells are carried to the cross and remade into the smells that promise new life. How weird is that? Easter lilies that smell on any other day like a funeral home will in two weeks smell like resurrection. The oil Mary spilled over Jesus’ feet, which made the entire house smell the way it had only just days before smelled when Lazarus’ dead body had been wrapped in it for burial, would cling to the feet of Jesus through trials and beatings and on to his own tomb, but it would also cling to Mary’s hair while she watched and wept and waited. Did his feet still smell like her hair when he met her in the garden, I wonder? After those long nights of waiting, did she smell him on her hair and long for his return the way he had brought her brother back to their family?
So then, I wonder, what new thing God may be doing in the here and now, what new thing God might be doing in your life, what new thing have we missed because it did not fit our expectations of how God works? Where have we come to expect only death, that God has brought new life, not only for us but for entire communities of strangers and outcasts? We certainly saw a new thing Wednesday night here in this space with over a hundred people in worship together from half a dozen or more different faith backgrounds. Where else might God surprise us with a new thing in the days ahead? Remember the faith stories that tell of the faithfulness of God, the commitment of God to liberation and renewal, and then look ahead for what’s next.
Next week we will begin our celebration of the main thing, the new thing that blows all new things out of the water, the triumphal entry that was supposed to mean one very particular new thing but spiraled into disappointment and tragedy and the old story of power and fear and violence leading to death. But even in death God is doing a new thing. Our past does not hold us, neither regrets nor shining victories, for God is bringing new life now, here, and tomorrow, too. Mary poured out her heart in that costly gift of pure nard. Paul despised his own lofty reputation. Israel learned again and again to depend on the gifts and guidance of God. And all because God has poured out life, given us a new reputation, remained faithful to the promise of resurrection, time after time. Eternal love is doing a new thing…
<we sing “What Wondrous Love is This?”>
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