Rev. Cari Pattison

Woodstock Reformed Church

Sunday, April 3, 2022

“Full to the Brim: Brazen Acts of Beauty”

John 12:1-8

1Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 

3Mary 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. 

4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5"Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" 6(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.) 

7Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

***

At the bookstore across the street where I work part-time, people regularly special-order books that we don’t have in stock. And when those books arrive, we call the customers to let them know.

There’s a coding system that we note down on the special-order form: “LM” means “left message,” “SW” means “spoke with,” and “WPU” means “will pick up.” One of the first things we’re supposed to do when we come in is to call anyone whose book is still there, and they haven’t been called for a week or more.

But last week I saw a notation from Gretchen on a special-order book that said “NAE.”

“NAE”? I thought- what does that mean?

And then I saw that she’d called the customer week after and couldn’t even leave a message, because he had no voicemail available.

“NAE,” she wrote in all capital letters = “NO ANSWER EVER.”

***

I wonder if you ever feel like that in your prayer life with God.

“No answer ever.”

Especially with certain “special order” prayers.

You might be praying for guidance about a certain decision you have to make.

You might be praying for a child in your family for healing and for connection in your relationship with them.

You might be calling on God to finally grant you either the desires of your heart, as the Bible says, or to remove that desire altogether, so you can just forget about it.

And yet maybe it seems there’s

No.

Answer.

Ever.

Maybe you’re praying for a breakthrough in the world’s greatest woes- the current war in Ukraine; the melting glaciers and climate catastrophes; the pain of watching people excluded or maligned due to their race or religion or sexuality.

As far back as the Psalmists, and likely long before that, people have faith have cried out, “How long, O Lord?”

And in John chapter 11, the chapter before our scripture lesson today, Mary and Martha, two sisters and two friends of Jesus, have been calling on God for an answer:

Their brother Lazarus is sick, and Jesus doesn’t seem to care.

In fact, if you open your Bible to John chapter 11, verse 6, it says, “So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days…”

Fast forward to chapter 11, verse 17: “On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days…” Verse 20: “When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. ‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” And verse 32: “When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”

***

Every one of us, I suspect, lives with some kind of “Lord, if you had been here…”

“Lord, if you had been here,” “I wouldn’t have lost my job.” “My pain might’ve been healed.” “My mother might have recovered.”

We know what it is to live with unanswered prayer, or even the sense that when you need it most, God doesn’t show up.

If you know the end of the story, Jesus does in fact raise Lazarus- whose name means “God is my help” – from the dead, restoring him to life.

But before he does that, the sisters take him to see their brother, and in the shortest verse- and perhaps the most powerful- in the whole Bible- we’re told “Jesus wept.”

Then those looking on said, “See how he loved him!”

When I ask mentors of mine, people I look up to in the faith- what they do with unanswered prayer, they seem less concerned about outcomes delivered by God, and more focused on friendship with God.

The Jesus who comes to Bethany, and before ever working the miracle, weeps with them in their pain.

***

So before today’s story in John 12, we need to recall what Jesus has just done.

I will never forget my father calling me, during my freshman year of college, to let me know that my brother George almost died.

He was 13 at the time and suffered a bad asthma attack after attending a sleepover where he had a serious allergic reaction to their cats. My dad rushed George to the hospital, thankfully in time for him to be given a breathing treatment.

But the doctor said it was a very close call.

To this day, even when I’m annoyed or disappointed with my brother, I’m reminded how lucky we are to have him. I sometimes wish I could personally thank the nurses and doctors who tended to him in those terrifying seconds between life and death.

***

And so it is that our passage opens today.

Out of indescribable gratitude, the sisters host Jesus and his disciples to dinner. I can imagine they brought out their best china, and roasted the finest cut of lamb they could afford.

The wine has been poured, the appetizers served, and the entrée savored.

And I imagine no one saw it coming-

Mary disappears for a moment, and returns with a jar.

A whole pound of perfume, made of pure nard, costing a year’s wages.

Why did she have this treasure? Were they a wealthy family? Had she sold something special to buy it? Did she acquire such a large amount of it the week before when Lazarus died, so she could treat his body for burial?

The text doesn’t say.

What it does say, is that Mary wordlessly opened this jar, and began covering Jesus’ feet with the perfume, spreading the fragrance of something so strong, so beautiful, it filled not only the room- but the whole house.

But then Mary does an even more shocking thing- she takes down her hair, and begins using her hair to massage the perfumed oil into the soles and toes and heels of Jesus’ feet.

A woman of those days would’ve let her hair down for only two occasions- in the company of her husband alone, and in a state of grief and mourning.

And a person would’ve been anointed with oil for only two occasions- the coronation of a king, or in preparation for death.

Mary’s brazen act of beauty- her boldness, her shamelessness, her sensuality, her extravagance- not only startled her dinner guests- it makes us a little uneasy.

Did she really have to do this right at dinner?

Did she really have to be so dramatic?

Creating a spectacle that others would surely talk about?

Did she really have to spend so much money?

***

Judas didn’t think so.

And isn’t there a little Judas in all of us?

“We should be practical with those funds, getting the most bang for our buck.”

“We should limit our giving to what’s safe and prudent.”

“We should sell that gift, that property, that art, and give the money to the poor.”

“We should be careful helping that refugee family- how do we know they’re going to successfully adjust to life here?”

But Jesus does not go along with these common-sense suggestions for ministry.

Jesus says, “Let her be. She knows what the rest of you don’t get. I’m only here a few days more. And she has brought this beautiful gift to ready me for my hardest moment yet.”

***

Jesus reminds them that they can- and should- help the poor any chance they get.

But this particular evening calls not for frugality; it calls for love.

For pouring out the most precious thing you have, because time is short.

Can you recall a time when someone gave you a gift so extravagant you felt undeserving to take it?

In my early 20’s, I was raising funds so I could intern at a church in Kenya- and I distributed my brochure to everyone I could think of, including the parents of children I babysat.

And one of those little girls- Sophie- who was 9 at the time, asked, “Can I have one of those?” I was reluctant to give her an extra one, because they were expensive to make.

But Sophie studied my brochure carefully. And a few minutes later, she went upstairs, got her piggy bank, and brought it down. She said, “I’ve been saving up in this since I was seven.”

She dumped the whole thing out, a combination of dollars and quarters and nickels, and counted out all $53.19 of it, to give to the mission in Kenya.

***

My friend Dion- the one I mentioned a minute ago in the children’s sermon- said to me the other day, “It feels like the world is going up in flames. I read the news headlines and think, ‘What am doing? Making art and taking photos and playing with color?’”

But I told her- “Yes. I think that’s more important now than ever. You are an artist. You are creating beauty. And what inspires people to give and change and make a difference, is an encounter with beauty. You make people stop and pay attention; to dream of something more. And that is a great gift when the world is going up in flames.”

***

Susan Cain, in her new book Bittersweet, writes about such gifts.

It’s May 28, 1992, and Sarajevo- the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina- is under siege. For centuries, Muslims, Croats, and Serbs have lived together in this city - a city of three religions, three peoples: yet until that the early 90’s, no one paid much attention to who was who.

But now, civil war. Electricity and water are cut off. The Olympic stadium has burned down, and its playing fields turned into makeshift graveyards. The traffic lights are broken, the streets are quiet. The only sound is the crackling of gunfire.

Until this moment, when the strains of Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor fill the street outside a bombed-out bakery.

It’s Veh-dran Smile-o-vich, lead cellist of the Sarajevo opera orchestra, playing in honor of the 22 people killed the day before by a mortar shell as they lined up for bread.

Smailovic was nearby when the shell exploded; he helped take care of the wounded.

Now he’s returned to the scene, dressed as if for a night at the opera house, in a formal white shirt and black tails. He sits amidst the rubble, on a white plastic chair, his cello propped between his legs. The yearning notes of his music float up to the sky.

All around him, the rifles fire, the shelling booms, the machine guns crackle. He keeps on playing. He will do this for 22 days, one day for each person killed at the bakery.

“You ask me am I crazy for playing the cello in a war zone,” he says. “Why don’t you ask them if they’re crazy for shelling Sarajevo?”

People questioned him- “How will this make any difference in the dynamic of the war?”

A few months later, the war rages on, and a foreign correspondent encounters an 80-year-old man. He and his group have trudged through the woods for 48 hours straight, and he has become separated from his wife.

He describes his wife to the journalist, and ask asks if he’s seen her. The correspondent says no, and then asks, “Are you Muslim or Christian?”

The man does not answer. He says only, “I am a musician.”

***

Let us pray:

“No answer ever”

Friendship with God, weeps with us

Brazen acts of beauty, pouring out the best of what we have, even in the midst of grief, even in the presence of death, even when it seems the world is going up in flames.

Loving God, may we be impractically generous, giving all we have and are to Jesus, all for your glory.