Scandal at Bethany

I usually leave it to Peter to cover the Catholic beat, but since he's not preaching today, I think I'd like to spend a minute or two at the beginning of the sermon today going over the news from Rome since I'm assuming you probably know what happened there.  We got a new pope.

Now I say, "We got a new pope," but let me be clear.  We don't have popes in the United Methodist Church.  We have bishops, but we don't even have a bishop above all other bishops.  We're pretty egalitarian.  It's part of our Protestant heritage.  One of the reasons there was a Reformation in the 1500s was that many European Christians had come to suspect that something rotten was corrupting the church and part of the corruption was the extravagance of the popes.  Even as St. Peter's, that great cathedral that we saw in the news in the Vatican...even as it was being built there were many ordinary Christians grumbling about how all their tithes were going to fund that kind of opulence, even as so many were suffering.  "Couldn't that money have been given to the poor?" you can just hear them saying with Judas.

But we live in a new day.  Catholics and Protestants don't regard each other with the same sort of suspicion that we used to.  Especially after Vatican 2, that great council in the 1960s, Catholics have been more open to talks with Protestant churches, including Methodists.  We have come to see that the things that divided us in the 16th century no longer need to divide us and, in fact, we share a lot of basic beliefs.  So when we hear that the Catholic Church is suffering, as it has, because of clergy sexual abuse scandals, we grieve with Catholics.  And when they celebrate the installation of a new bishop of Rome, a new Pope, we celebrate with them.

Pope Francis is already proving to be a very different kind of pope.  First, because of who he is.  Of Italian origin, but an Argentinian - the first Latin American to be elected pope.  He represents a region in which there are far more Catholics than there are in Europe.  A shy man who does not like to speak in public.  And he comes from the Jesuit order which is known for its missionary history and disciplined spirituality, but he takes the name of Francis.

You've heard Peter talk about Francis of Assisi many times.  Francis was a medieval reformer in the church who reformed through the example of his life.  He, too, thought that the church had become too comfortable and so he sought to live a life of poverty and charity.  Legend has it that, as a child, he was selling cloth and velvet for his father one day when a beggar came by.  He abandoned his wares and chased the beggar down, giving him all that he had in his pockets, much to the dismay of his friends and his father.

This new Pope Francis has a history of seeking a path of humility, too.  When he became Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he refused to move into the Archbishop's apartment with its luxuries, but instead moved into a plain room with a desk, a bed, a chair, and a radio.  He cooked his own meals, which usually ran to things like skinless chicken and salads.  He rode public buses around the city.  And he stopped to talk to street vendors and beggars.  He washed the feet of AIDS patients and the poor.

We won't make a saint out of him yet.  There's a lot to do in the Catholic Church.  Even he, when he heard that he was elected, said, "I am a sinner, but since this has been given to me, I will accept."  But I talked to so many people this week who felt inspired by this new pope.  Even people who who were not religious felt that there was something Jesus-like about a pope who paid his own hotel bill.

Humility and extravagance.  These are important words for us in today's gospel reading, too.  We often think of extravagance as meaning squandering or wasting, but in creation it is a sign of God's overflowing love.  All you have to do is to look at the daffodils and camellia to know that spring is an extravagant season.  All you have to do is look at the cross to understand how extravagantly God poured out love on creation.

So we have an extravagant Lover in God and God calls us to be children.  How do we respond to that?  Our gospel lesson today gives us a hint in the story of Mary's anointing of Jesus at Bethany and in Jesus' defense of her.

Judas often gets all of the attention in this story.  He is the disciple who asks the question, "Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?"  But Judas is a hidden character in this story.  The narrator, John, must tell us who he really is, and we are told that he is a thief, a hypocrite and a betrayer.  So his question is really a reflection of his own sin and he points ahead in the story to the time when he will show himself by betraying Jesus.

We could also make a lot out of Jesus in this story, particularly in his final statement where he tells Judas, "You will always have the poor with you, but you won't always have me."  Some people have tried to distort that saying to make Jesus say, "You're wasting your time with the poor," but everything in Jesus' life suggests that he calls to be in service with the poor as a way of following him, so he was definitely NOT saying that serving the poor was useless.  He was himself materially poor.

It's Mary who seems really central to this story.  Now you may remember Mary and her sister, Martha, from other stories in the Bible.  Luke tells about a time when Jesus comes to their house and Martha busies herself in the kitchen while Mary sits as Jesus' feet listening to him.  In that story Martha gets bent out of shape because Mary doesn't help her and doesn't do the things she was expected to do and in that case Jesus defends Mary saying she had chosen the better part.  Already in that story you can see the difference between proper and correct Martha and spontaneous and independent Mary.

You might also remember the story that comes one chapter before this story we read today when Jesus meets Martha and Mary on the road just before he raises their brother, Lazarus, from the dead.  Martha went out first and never really believed that Jesus could raise her brother from the dead.  She's the one who said, when Jesus gave the order to roll away the stone from the tomb, "Lord, think of the smell - he's been dead four days!"

Mary, on the other hand, came late to see Jesus, fell at his feet in an act of spontaneous emotion, and wept, moving Jesus so deeply that he shared in her tears.  And so here we are again in this story, in the week before the Passover celebration, and Jesus again comes to Bethany to be with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

In this story we are told very little about Lazarus.  He sits at the table with Jesus to eat and then he disappears from the scene.  And we're not told much about Martha either, though she appears in a very familiar role - she's serving the dinner.  Proper, rational Martha is playing the perfect hostess as we would expect.

Then Mary makes a dramatic appearance into the story.  As in every other story we find her at the feet of Jesus and this time she is anointing his feet - as one might anoint a king - or someone about to be buried.

The ointment she uses is a pound of costly perfume of pure nard.  Judas values it at about 300 denarii, or very near the yearly wage of a laborer.  The smell of this wonderful ointment rises and fills the whole house with the fragrance of perfume.  Mary remains at the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair - a symbol of the servanthood Jesus came to proclaim and a foreshadowing of what Jesus would later do as he washed the feet of his disciples.

Now think how extravagant this is!  This is a costly, loving gift given in an act of spontaneous emotion, which is just what we've come to expect of Mary.  Mary is not trapped by expectations and social graces.  She's not trying to trap Jesus in her own plans and expectations the way Judas certainly is.  Mary takes the unexpected route, giving extravagantly and humbly to the one who lived his life in fellowship and solidarity with the humble of the world - the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the outcast.

John slows the story down at this point to give us rich detail about the costliness and the preciousness of her gift.  John tells of the way she gave of herself in offering it, holding nothing back.  John talks about the wonderful aroma which touches everyone in the house as a result.

What would it mean for us to give extravagantly to God?  As Jesus lived in community with those on the underside of society - those who are truly humble - what would it mean for us to give our best to those in need?  We're so aware of what we don't have, but what if we gave extravagantly from what what we do have?  What would we look like if we gave ourselves completely to God, holding nothing back as we fall before Christ's feet, and living our lives as he did in solidarity with the humble?

There's so much in a vital life that doesn't make much economic sense.  Looked at from a pragmatic view, what is the value of a Little League baseball game?  What is the value of the hours spent preparing for a performance of a Beethoven concert?  What is the value of an artist's canvas slathered with paint?

Extravagance is the stuff of life.  And there is an exchange of extravagance going on here that Judas, and perhaps the others in the room, fail to understand.  Extravagance is what God is and it is what God asks of us.

The Japanese artist MF connects Jesus' tears to Mary's anointing.  He says, "Jesus’ tears led to Mary’s act of sacrifice, of nard being spread in a closed room in Bethany, where a transgression by a woman opened up a new paradigm of the aroma of Christ, of the reality of the gospel breathing into our broken world, filling the cracks of suffering. When Jesus hung on the cross, the only earthly possession Jesus wore was Mary’s nard."*

It's not an easy thing to abandon ourselves to God with the spontaneity and independence of Mary.  Maybe you think its too much a burden to simply sustain life without thinking extravagantly.  But Mary calls us to a newness of life that doesn't merely sustain us but invites us to live abundantly as Jesus promised, "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly."  That involves freedom and risk and trust that the best way to understand who God is and who we are is through the one who gave his life in service and solidarity with the sufferer - Jesus Christ.  At the feet of the Christ who lives among us, offering everything we have in service, there is the sweet fragrance of the coming Kingdom.

Most of us are where we are because of someone's extravagant gift.  It began at your birth when a mother gave space within herself for life to begin.  People nurtured us, cared for us, told us who we could be.  And behind it all is the gift Christ offered on the cross.

My favorite part of this story is the detail that John includes that says "the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment."  Mary's gift became a blessing to the whole household.  What do you have to give that will be a blessing?  What do you have to give?  Thanks be to God.

*Makato Fujimura, "The BeautifulTears," Tabletalk magazine, 11 Oct 2010, http://www.makotofujimura.com/writings/the-beautiful-tears/

Journey to the Far Country...and Back

Preaching about the Prodigal Son doesn't work.  I've tried.  This is about the 5th or 6th time in my ministerial career that I have taken up this story and, on any human scale, this parable that Jesus tells in the gospel of Luke (and only in the gospel of Luke) does not work.

I mean, weren't you convicted by Bishop Cho's sermon last week?  Those of you who were here for either the morning or the evening service heard our new resident bishop challenge us to change our behavior.  He talked about hard things.  He talked about tithing.  He talked about living our lives in the world as people who really believe that Jesus is Lord.  He talked about giving an hour a day to prayer and Bible reading.  He really believes that our behavior makes a difference.  He really believes that there will be no vital congregations until there is a vital spirituality moving through our churches and through us.  I told him last week after his sermon, "You have such a gracious presence but you say really hard things."  It's what I most appreciate about him.

So now we come to this story that most people call the parable of the Prodigal Son but which, if we're being honest with ourselves, most of us would call the parable of Bad Parenting.  I mean, can you imagine:

T: Hello, and welcome to today's class on Biblical Parenting.  I'm glad to see so many people here.  And some of you brought your children with you today.  That's wonderful.  There's plenty of sticky food and noisy toys in the back so feel free to let your kids run wild while we're talking today.

K: (from back) Hey, they've got a saxophone back here!

K2: (from back) And fingerpaints!

T: Today I want to look at a story from Jesus about a man who had two sons.  Now back in the day, when the father died in a situation like this, the oldest son would get the majority of the property and wealth and the younger son would get a smaller share.  So one day, the younger son comes and says to the father, "I can't wait til you die.  I want my share of the inheritance now."  Let's playact this a little bit.  What are some responses that the father might have?

1: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....you want...ha, ha....you want what?  Ha, ha, ha...that's a good one, son.

T: Alright, anybody else?

2: You know, Old Yehuda wants to be chief priest, too, but it's not happening.  You just get back to work.

T: Um, hm.  One more?

3: I'm sorry, son.  I thought you said you wanted your share of the inheritance, but I know I didn't hear that, did I?

T: O.K.  Interesting.  Well, here's what the father actually says: "O.K."  And he divides up the estate.

2: Wait.  What?

T: He divided up the estate.

2: What kind of parenting is that?

3: He gives the kid the money?  He's just going to blow it on extravagant living.

T: Interesting you should say that.  Because the boy goes to a far country and blows it all on extravagant living.

3: Told you.

1: Show off.

T: O.K., so the son is broke.  He's hungry.  He ends up slopping pigs and what the pigs eat starts to look good to him.

3: A good Jewish boy slopping hogs?  That's wrong.

T:  Then he comes to his senses.  He remembers that even his father's servants at least have food to eat.  So he decides to go home.

1: Well, I hope he's ready to do some groveling.

T: He is.  He gets a whole speech together in his head.  He's going to confess to his dad that he had sinned against heaven and against him.  He going to say, "I don't deserve to be called your son."  He's going to beg to get hired on as a servant.

1: Sounds about right.

T:  But when he's on the way home and while he's still way off in the distance, the father sees him and has compassion on him.  He hikes up his robe and the old man runs out to meet his son.  He hugs him and kisses him.

2: Wait.  What?

T: The boy tries to get his speech out.  He confesses that he has sinned.  He says, "I don't deserve to be called your son."  But before he can get it all out, the father stops him and orders up a party.

2: Wait.  What?

1:  A party?  For the younger son?  The one that blew all that money?

3:  That's just wrong.

T: So what kind of lessons for parenting can we see here?

[crickets]

You can't see any lessons for parenting?

1: A party?  Really?

3: That's just wrong.

2: How's this boy going to learn anything if he goes off and blows his dad's money and then gets a party when he comes back?

T:  Well, from the father's perspective, it's all about celebrating that the boy has come home.  The boy was dead...

2: Wait.  What?

T: Well, I don't mean literally dead.  It was like he was dead and now he's alive.  He was lost but now he's found.  So they have a party.

3: [after a pause]  That's just wrong.

1: So how does the older brother feel about all this?

T:  He's not happy.  He comes in from the fields and hears this party going on.

2:  Wait.  What?  They didn't invite him to the party?

T:  Well, they do when he gets back.  But the older brother won't go in.  He's too mad.  The dad comes out to see him, just like he did with the other brother.  He begs the older brother to come in.  But he refuses.  Says, "Look, I've been here working all this time and I never even got a goat for a party."

2: Wait.  What?  He wants a goat for his party?

T: Well, the younger son got a fatted calf.

2: What kind of party is this?

T: A good one.  At least back in the day it was.  Anyway, the son is furious.  He can't understand why the father would throw a party for the son that didn't play by the rules and went off and blew his money on who knows what all.

1: Well, now he sounds like a sensible guy.  The first sensible guy in this whole story.

2: What would you even do with a goat at a party?  Hitch it to a cart and give rides?

3: No, you eat it.

2:  Now that's just wrong.

T: But the father doesn't think it's wrong to have a party.  He knows the older son is close to him.  He is just grateful to have the younger son back.  Because he was dead...not literally...and now he's alive.  He was lost and now he's found.

3: That is the craziest story I have ever heard.

1: [to back] Come on kids, we're leaving.

K: But I just found the sandbox!

People would leave a session on parenting if we took the father in this story as the model.  It doesn't fit any kind of parenting we know about.  But what if this is not a story about human parenting so much as it is a story about God's love and the way THAT love works?

This week I rediscovered Rembrandt's painting of the Prodigal Son.  It was one of his last major works and it is among his best.  In the painting we see the three major figures in this story, the father and the two sons, all in relationship to one another.  The older brother gets our attention because he's looking down on his brother's homecoming with a great deal of judgment.  Who knows what he sees?  Perhaps he sees that the son has come back with a shaved head like a penitent and we wonder, with the older brother, how much the younger son has changed.  It's easy to be remorseful when you've lost everything.

The older brother probably notices, too, that the younger son is still wearing the fine clothes that he left home with, even if they are kind of tattered now.  He probably sees that the younger son still carries a small sword on his belt, a vestige of his old life and who he once was.  We are suspicious of how genuine this repentance is.

But look at the father.  The father is entirely unconcerned with what's going on around him.  He has no look of judgment on his face.  There is no trace of disgust or anger.  He is embracing this child.  He is accepting this child.  He was dead.  Not literally dead.  But dead enough.  And now he is alive.  How can he not celebrate?

The interesting thing is that the scene that Rembrandt depicts never happens in the story itself.  The three characters are never together in the parable.  The message is carried in two major confrontations - one between the younger son and the father, and the other between the older son and the father.  In both cases the father has come out of the house to meet the son.  In both cases he expresses his love for the son.

We can see that love in the one-on-one exchanges.  It's only when we put the brothers side-by-side that we start to get nervous about this story.  That's when we start to worry about whether this story is fair.

But God's love is incredibly personal.  It comes to each of us in our need.  Gerard Manley Hopkins, the priest and poet, said once "Searching nature I taste self but at one tankard, that of my own being."*  When it comes to our particular need before God, we can't look to someone else.  We taste self but at one tankard.  I know the pains and failures that have come to my particular life.  I know what the far country looks like in my particular life.  I know the terrain very, very well.  And what it means for God to meet me on the way back from that particular country is not what it means for you.  I may be the younger brother or I may be the older brother, but I can still be dead.  Not literally dead.  But dead enough.  And need to be made alive again.

For that to happen I need a God who loves me like this crazy father and not like this older brother.  I need a God who knows that my repentance could never be enough to change my life entire.  I need a God who knows that even when I think I'm being sincere, I have an incredible capacity for fooling myself.  There are places where I still hold on to the sword and still wear the pretentious clothes even though I have no right to them.  There is still a bit of pride in me.  There can never be enough humility.  What I am is unforgivable and yet that is exactly what God gives to me despite myself - forgiveness.  The older brother will always peer at me with judgement, but God will always look at me with love.

This God who sees me while I am still far off.  Who abandons all his dignity to run and meet me on the road.  This God who has been to the far country himself and who knows exactly what he is doing when he welcomes me back and throws a party...this God sees through the judgement because he has taken it on himself.

Have you been heartbroken by love, too?  Has love ever failed you?  Did your parent's love fail you?  Your spouse's love?  Your friend's love?  Every human love has its failures.  Because every human love is tied up in our anxieties about whether we are worthy of the love we receive.  We never know quite how the other person sees us.  Never quite sure what's being asked of us when we receive love.

But there is no anxiety in God's love.  God knows our every weakness and loves us anyway.  God knows our deepest secrets and loves us anyway.  God knows our shame and loves us anyway.  God knows our sins and loves us anyway.  God knows our pride and our sloth and our pretense and our worry and our wayward ways.  God knows that tankard from which we drink.  And loves us anyway - not because God needs to love us, but because God wants to.

And all the other stuff - the new behavior, the prayer, the scripture reading, the missions, the tithing, the church community -- it's all there because God loves us and wants us to love God, too.  And so we give.  And so we are ambassadors for God.  And so we live as agents of God's reconciling love - not because we have to be acceptable to God - but because God met us on the road and called us in.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

*Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), British poet, Jesuit priest. Comments on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W.H. Gardner (1953).