Mary and Judas*

5th Sunday of Lent, Year C
homily preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony Indiana

RCL Readings

I was having trouble with this Gospel text

But not because it isn’t clear

It is very clear

Mary gets it right

Judas gets it wrong

My problem was that I couldn’t imagine

Ever

Being quite that extravagant…

Or that sensuous

At the feet of Jesus

At a dinner party
in plain view

I am just not that free

To complicate it further

I could totally imagine

Giving proud voice

To Judas’ very practical and perfectly legitimate words

(disregarding his motivation of course)

I was struggling to name

What it is

That Mary gets so right

And Judas

Gets so wrong

-----

The ritual remembrance of the Exodus

The yearly Passover

Is foundational to Jewish understanding

But Isaiah’s prophetic voice reminds us today

…That God’s action is not only in the past tense

A NEW THING is springing forth

A NEW THING is on the horizon

-----

Years ago I visited a patient

Over the course of several months
in the infusion center

...He was really sick

He had a very...colorful...past

He was one of those honest and real 12-step people

And he gifted me with what is now one of my favorite quips

Which I can’t really do in my own voice...
and I have to act it out:

“…you know…My Daddy always used to say…

if you have one foot in the past---

and one foot in the future---

You are going to end up p-----g

all over the present”

Regret-in the past…and…Worry-about the future

They are traps

In the present

Is where we see the signs

Of something NEW

-----

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians

He counts all his perfection of the past

As rubbish

Now is the essential time

But it has a goal

And the goal is Christ

-----

The air in today’s Gospel is thick with foreshadowing

The HOUR is approaching

There is gravity and fear in the room

Our story comes right after the Raising of Lazarus

And just before the Washing of the Feet

These before and after scenes

are rich with details to awaken the senses

weeping, and wailing

the stench of death and unwrapped bandages

dusty dirty feet

the fresh feel of cleansing

On Wednesday

In the midst of my trouble with this text

I sent out an email SOS to a few friends

Asking for their quick reflections

One friend replied:

“I love this story!
Mary takes my breath away!

I recall the last sponge bath I gave my still living Dad,

I put cologne on him.  It was “Eternity” by Calvin Klein;)

And with my Mom

A hospice nurse helped me bathe her immediately after she died. 

Her body was still warm.

Instead of sending her to the funeral home nude

inside the body bag or wearing a hospital gown,

we dressed her in her favorite pink nightgown.

That’s it

That’s what Mary gets so right

And

What Judas gets so wrong

Judas is living in his head

In the theoretical

Mary is living in the Now

In communion with others

Judas operates not in communion

But in judgment

There is no love in has theoretical argument for the poor

Even if the logic is impeccable and true.

Mary is generous

Judas is greedy

Mary responds to the fear in the air

With an act of love

Judas with self-centered disdain

In Pouring fragrant oil over Jesus feet

Wiping them with her hair

Mary is performing a prophetic act

And Prophetic acts are memorable

They say that our sense of smell

Is the greatest trigger to memory

A smell can bring on a flood of memories

It can influence people’s moods

That’s why we bake batches of cookies

In the lobby shop at the hospital

…to make more happy people!

The region of the brain where this all happens

is often called our emotional brain

I have a proof story of my own:

When my mother-in-law died

I ended up with a tiny, half-full, bottle of

Jean-Patou 2000

a scent she wore for umpteen years

I just loved it

I remember finally wearing it

One night when Rob and I had an evening to ourselves

And halfway through our date-night

Rob was just overcome

He finely named it

“I feel like I am on a  date with my mother"

And so it stays on my shelf

A tiny dab of perfume

Powerful memories

That is What Jesus Needs

He needs

This small band of disciples and friends

To remember

To remember deeply enough

To get through the coming darkness

They will need enough potent memory

So that they won’t get stuck in death

Jesus is counting on the disciples to remember

To remember the healings

the parables and the teachings

And the feedings and the foot washing

And the anointings

Jesus is counting on deep memories capable of

Opening up their hearts and minds and senses

         to the New Thing

         the New fragrance of the resurrection

-----

Mary, in rapt attention

At the feet of Jesus

Pours it all out

Pouring it all out

...is an act of faith and hope

Grounded in remembering

So too for us

Pouring it all out

is a kind of invitation

For God

to come and fill it back up

And do wondrous things

A new thing

A Resurrection thing

Not yesterday

Not tomorrow

Today

Now

chewing...on the fly

Two prods from that great cloud of witnesses:

In down-to-earth Hebrew,

to MEDITATE is to chew one's cud.

The familiar cattle of Hebrew existence

proved a helpful image for the devout believer

"whose delight is the law of the Lord

and who ponders God's law day and night" (Psalm 1).

The browsing cow nibbles constantly at the lush pasture

and when it has filled its stomach lies down,

regurgitates what it has gathered

and chews "meditatively" on its cud until the cud is fully assimilated.

---William G. Story

Because I am a woman involved in practical cares,

I cannot give the first half of the day to these things

but must meditate when I can,

early in the morning and on the fly during the day.

Not in the privacy of a study--but here, there, and everywhere

--at the kitchen table, on the train, on the ferry,

on my way to and from appointments

and even while making supper or putting Teresa to bed.

---Dorothy Day

Being Convicted

Short Homily on the Midday Prayer Texts

Motherhouse, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet

When I bought my cute VW Jetta wagon a few years ago

It was so novel

I NEVER saw them on the road

But as soon as I drove off the lot they were

EVERYWHERE

It’s been that way with MERCY this week

I started highlighting the word

as it appeared in our prayer and worship

I gave up after the first day

Everywhere

       In Word at least...if not practice;)

It brought to mind the line of T S Elliot:

We know too much and are convinced of too little

Mercy is something to be convinced of

God wants Ezekiel to communicate clearly:

If the good person turns bad

their past good

doesn’t count

And likewise, if the bad person turns good,

their past bad

it doesn’t count either

Mercy is not a math problem  

Mercy is Now

In the Psalm:

Have mercy on us, O Lord,

The contempt and scorn...are overflowing!

God’s Mercy

and Contempt and Scorn

They don’t cohabitate well

Mercy needs room

Mercy needs an open space

And we hear God through Jeremiah:

Be gone!  Frowning and Resentment and Disloyalty!

I am merciful...and safe...Come back...

The dinner table I grew up around 

was a place of lively conversation

My Dad, the die-hard republican would joke

“this is a safe table…

you can even be a democrat around this table…”

I remember One night

In particular

When my older sister talked of a friend

Who had been kicked out of her home

I'm not clear on the details…

Drinking/Drugs…pregnancy...unsuitable boyfriend

What I do remember

Was my Dad’s response

Now listen very carefully

I want to be very clear…

There is nothing

Nothing you can do

NOTHING

that would be so terrible

that you couldn’t come home

I know now that my father couldn’t have offered

What he offered

had he not first received it…

from his own parents,

from his relationship to God,

maybe from my mother

The habit

That I am called to live into

The thing that I hope be more convinced of

is a continuation of that safe family dinner table

Which is itself a continuation 

of every truly Eucharistic table

Where unforgiven-ness

Is swallowed up in Mercy

I'm thinking

that that's what

Discipleship is...

becoming ever more convinced 

of MERCY

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Wednesday of the 3^rd Week of Lent

Matthew5:17-19

What does it mean that the Matthean Jesus will fulfill the law and the prophets?  Were there folks around worried about the Law being abolished? 

Calling to mind the critique of the Scribes and Pharisees Jesus makes in Matthew*…heavy burdens, messed up understanding of the role of the Temple, preoccupation with who is in and who is out of the Kingdom, importance of tithing over justice…I hear this passage as a reclaiming of the heart of the law.

The lines before this pericope are those about salt and light.  They are about the embodiment of the heart of the matter.  What gives off light in such a way that others are drawn toward justice, mercy and faith?  Perhaps this fulfillment is like a chemical reaction giving off light and heat.  Nothing is abolished.  It is rather transformed.  And it can be seen.

A heart that is in love with God is the end, the purpose, the fulfillment of the law.  To embody that kind of heart is to be contagious…very contagious.

*chapter 23

Mercy Me!

Tuesday of the 3^rd Week of Lent

Daniel 3:25, 34-43

Psalm 25

Joel 2:12-13

Matthew 18:21-35

A couple years ago, when I bought my little VW Jetta Wagon I really thought it was kind of novel.  But then they were everywhere.  Certainly it wasn’t because they heard I got one;)  Ever since Pope Francis called for the Year of Mercy, I see Mercy in every reading!  Mercy didn’t just appear but the call to pay attention to it changes my vision.  It is evidence of the subtleness of seeing what we expect to see.

Today I wonder what it takes to be moved with compassion.  That’s the difference between the two “lenders.”  There is a physical side to compassion.  It isn’t remote.  Perhaps sympathy is a better word for the remote variety…the hallmark card, the e-mail, the plea on television.  But to be moved with compassion happens in the proximate.  The suffering…the passion…of another is palpable in the tone of voice, in the body language, in the raw fear.  So, to be moved with compassion is to be in sync with another/others and to take on their pain as one’s own. 

So what it takes to be moved with compassion is to believe that to do so is constitutive to my humanness and not to do so is a diminishment, and to believe that it is possible to absorb, at least a tiny portion, of another’s suffering by being open to that physical and proximate companionship. 

To be moved with compassion is a sacrament of God’s palpable and merciful presence.  May I be so moved.