Sermons

Fifth Sunday of Lent
Sunday 21 March 2010

David Paton-Williams

Readings: Psalm 126, John 12 v1-8

Our gospel reading today is a story about Jesus spending time with some of his closest friends.

I say friends because Mary, Martha and Lazarus are not called disciples in the gospels. They don't follow Jesus around, but they know him, love him and have faith in him.

And we are told that Jesus loved Lazarus. In the previous chapter Mary and Martha send a letter to Jesus to tell him "The one whom you love is ill" and when he weeps over the death of Lazarus the crowds say "See how he loved him."

And both Luke and John have stories of Jesus relaxing in their home at Bethany and sharing a meal. And we are also told that at the end of long days on the streets of Jerusalem, Jesus would go back to spend the night at Bethany - quite possibly in the home of these friends.

There seems to have been a special bond between him and this family.

We don't know anything about how this relationship came about, but here among these good friends, Jesus can relax away from the demands of crowds.

On this occasion "they gave a dinner for him". What a lovely, homely phrase. We can picture the scene - with them gathered round the table and Martha serving up her best recipes for this most special of guests - food that she has prepared as her offering to Jesus.

Mary, Martha and Lazarus may have given Jesus many meals but perhaps this one was special.

Are we meant to think of this as a heartfelt "thank you" for the wonderful, unimaginable gift of Lazarus raised from the dead?

Or are they aware that tonight Jesus seems to be carrying a particularly heavy burden on his shoulders as he faces up to the last week of his life?

Either way we are let into an intimate, private moment, and here we see that Jesus was prepared to allow others to minister to him - it wasn't all one way traffic. In Mark's gospel we read that he came "not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many". However, Jesus was able to receive as well as to give. Jesus needed to receive as well as give.

Jesus was not a detached isolated superhuman who needed no one - he felt hunger and pain, grief and fear, loneliness and pain.
And he needed the grace of God that came to him through the care of others.

John sets this story on the eve of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, the start of a week that was going to take every ounce of strength, courage and faith to get him through.

And here, in the home of good, trusted and loving friends Jesus allows himself to be served, to be ministered to - to receive their offering of love, which blesses and strengthens him - perhaps giving that little extra help to face the week ahead.

Martha, the ever-practical one, expresses her love for Jesus in what she did - her practical tasks. She serves up food and hospitality that is so good that it blesses not just his body but his soul as well.

Mary is a different personality - perhaps more contemplative, seemingly more emotional.

Mary is always at Jesus' feet. When Lazarus dies, Mary is the one who comes and weeps at Jesus' feet, pouring out her anger and her grief.

And when Jesus comes to their home Mary seems to just plonk herself down and listen to him. So much so that in Luke's story Martha complains to Jesus that all Mary seems to do is lounge around listening to him, letting her sister get on with all the work.

And here - Mary comes, once again to the feet of Jesus - and wets them- not with tears of grief this time - but anointing them with precious ointment.

Pouring out, perhaps, her joy and gratitude for what Jesus had done for Lazarus. And what more appropriate thing to use than the ointment she had bought for her brother's burial - she didn't need it now - he was alive and well and sitting at table with Jesus.

Or perhaps with an intuitive sense of what was about to happen to Jesus in the coming week - Mary comes to minister to Jesus.
And in an act of extravagant, reckless, generous love she uses up a year's wages as she shows him just how much he is loved and appreciated.

In the next chapter, Jesus is the one who is at the feet of his disciples - pouring not ointment but water over their tired and dusty feet - showing reckless love that is misunderstood, and at first rejected, by Peter.

Is John hinting that Mary's act is the prompt for Jesus to do something similar a few days later? Certainly her love points us forward to the reckless love of Jesus giving his life on the cross.

So here in this intimate scene we have Lazarus who has died and been raised; Martha - the servant, Mary who demonstrates extravagant, reckless love,

It is almost as if John is using these three people to point to the mystery of who Jesus is. The one who dies and rises again; the servant, who gives himself in reckless love for us all.

And they also help us to reflect on our own response to God.

Like Lazarus we need to die and rise again - die to a life based on our false selves, ruled by sin, and rise to who we truly are, friends of Christ, made in the image of God and renewed by his Spirit.

Like Martha do we show our love for God in practical ways? Can we see the everyday things we do as things we do for him?

Whether that is our work, or our family life, or our involvement in the community or the wider world, or the small hidden unnoticed things of life as well - can we do these for Christ - as a sign of our desire to serve him like Martha?

And as we do these for others - perhaps we give them a little bit of the strength and grace that they need just as Martha did for Jesus..

And Mary leads me to ask - what is it that we need to "pour out" to Christ?

What words, what feelings, what concerns, what thanks - what is it that we need to share with him? what is it that we may keep bottled up, perhaps finding it hard to express?

Or can we imagine doing something which shows a reckless, generous love, that to others may seem a total waste but is for us a sign of how much Christ means to us.
Wasting our time praying.
Wasting our Sunday mornings in church
Wasting our money - giving it away.
Wasting our effort and gifts on some task.
Wasting our love, our forgiveness on someone.

So John paints a picture of a very intimate scene which points us to who Jesus is and what he is about to do, and which sheds light on who we are and our way of responding to God.

Both Mary and Martha in their different ways do something beautiful for Jesus - and whether we serve in practical ways, pour out our hearts to him in prayer, or make an act of reckless love - we too are doing something beautiful for him,

we too are friends of Christ.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay