THE DINNER PARTY

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Isaiah 3:16-21; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8]

You know how before we enter a meeting or any occasion in which something important is about to happen and the stakes are high – you know how we so often pause and then take a deep breath before we take the next step?  Actors before going on stage; athletes before they spring into action; and preachers absorbing the preposterous notion of speaking God’s Word to God’s people:  They all know this pause and the following deep breath.  We quite naturally and necessarily pause in order to gather ourselves and to take a deep breath before we enter the next moment.

I mention this experience because over the years I have found that the gospel for the Fifth Sunday in Lent (today) offers us a time to pause and the chance to take a deep breath before we enter the events of Holy Week.

In this year’s offering, the gospel occurs in a complex and intense dinner party setting.  For our observing parts, we know that the clock is about to run out for Jesus, which is something he, too, recognizes; but the other dinner guests are not nearly as clear.  Nonetheless, what they all knew was that the next stop for Jesus and his followers was Jerusalem, arriving precisely at the time of the Passover.  Clear or not, a certain (albeit, unmentioned) shadow cast a cloud of apprehension over the dinner party.

What strikes me about this gospel is not only the timing of this gathering (less than a week before Passover) but also how each of the characters embodies a storyline that will only be completed by what will unfold in the Passover week.  And to the extent that you and I make good on the opportunity to pause and take a deep breath before we enter Holy Week, I wonder what we dare see as 21st century characters in these events and experiences that might fall under the heading of “holy” – of God?

With a dramatic sharpness, today’s gospel locates us six days prior to the Passover, with Jesus having returned to his safe house in Bethany.  Bethany was a small village less than two miles from Jerusalem.  In that village lay a house that belonged to Lazarus who, together with his two sisters: Mary and Martha, provided Jesus with hospitality and safety in those times when came to the Holy City.  And it is the characters of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha that tellingly produce us with a kind of dress rehearsal of what is to come within the next two weeks.

Specifically and as John’s gospel conveys it, the most dramatic element of this gospel story lies in the fact that in his most recent visit to Bethany, Jesus raised his friend, Lazarus from the dead.  While this event was not an example of resurrection, nonetheless, the impact of Lazarus’s unprecedented resuscitation drove Jesus’ religious opponents into action, pushing them into a vow to kill both Jesus and Lazarus in an desperate effort to remove what they regarded as a dangerous and heretical movement.1  Given this, in the Fourth Gospel’s timeline and in today’s gospel scene, both Jesus and Lazarus dine openly in the company of the Twelve.  Can you imagine the conversation over the meal?

“So, Lazarus, how’s it going?  You really look good.  Have you been working out?  Pardon me for asking, but what’s it like being so dead and then so alive?  Has that changed you?  Oh, by the way, would you mind, please, passing the pita bread?”

In this gospel, the one that leads immediately into Holy Week, I believe that in this storyline we are meant to pause, take a deep breath, and wonder where this Lazarus story is headed and what it has to do with Jesus, Jerusalem, the impending celebration of Passover, and (more significantly) what it all has to do with us.

So, it is within this heightened backdrop, that Mary entered the dining area of the house, which (of course) was filled with men.  With an expensive jar of costly ointment, Mary unabashedly proceeded to anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet.  Making no effort to shield her actions, Mary let her hair down to wipe clean Jesus’ tired and hardened “dogs”: an action that was not only socially outrageous; it was also unthinkably scandalous.

The buzz in the room about what Mary had done must have been alive with all kinds of provocative thoughts and confused murmurings.  Ironically, some relief from the resulting tension that Mary created emerged through Judas’ passive aggressive criticism of Mary, that she was wasting something that could have been sold and the return used to support the poor.  Irrespective of Mary’s over-the-top behavior, Judas’ indictment of her comes across as a bit hollow, since it came from one of Jesus’ hand-picked disciples who already had a reputation for cooking the discipleship books.  But Jesus’ response to this gaslighting isn’t very clarifying either:  “Leave her alone,” he said with a surprising sternness in his voice, followed quickly by a more gentle tone, “She’s anticipating and honoring the day of my burial.”  Then this curious comment: “[Besides which,] you will always have the poor among you.  You don’t always have me.”2

After all this commotion, I’m not sure that any of the guests were in the mood for coffee and dessert.  Besides which, word quickly spread throughout the village that Jesus was back in town.  Gawkers began to assemble in the yard, trying to get a glimpse of Jesus, perhaps hoping for a souvenir selfie with Jesus and Lazarus.  Moreover, with the spread of this news, word on the street was that the hostile religious authorities were planning to kill both Jesus and Lazarus, trying to take advantage of this opening in a desperate effort to get rid of their “Jesus problem” once and for all.  But that nefarious intention had to wait for another time.

So, you can see how intensely messy and complicated the situation is surrounding Jesus in the period just before he entered Jerusalem, and the events that led to his trial, crucifixion, death and burial.  In all this, I have suggested that this Lent 5 gospel scene – with all its confusion and then tangle of subplot stories – offers us the opportunity to pause, take a deep breath, and decide to what extent we will engage our story with the story of Holy Week.

In particular, I can’t avoid the thought of placing the story of our nation’s governance within this approaching Holy Week context.  As we move with Jesus into Jerusalem and dare to follow him along the Way of the Cross, the questions of who we are and what we do unavoidably loom.  To what extent do we “show up” along the “Way”; or do we take a convenient pass?  And if we “show up”, what do we do with our presence?  To put it bluntly, are we spectators or witnesses?  What is dying – and threatens us?  What needs new life?

Of course, our problem is that we all know what happens in Holy Week.  And such knowing can tempt us to speed skate through all the profoundly demanding events and leap into a neat, clinical summary: that “the good guys win in the end”.  But this temptation is just that: a temptation to remove ourselves from the pressing opportunity to see our own lives and all the subplots of our experience in these coming days.

So, I ask you: Can we now, while there is still time, pause to see Jesus and take a deep breath in order to recognize the lengths to which God goes to claim us and redeem us?  Amen.

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1.  John 11:53

2.  John 12:7-8 –The Message