First Presbyterian Church
Blessed Feet
Sermon for March 25, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Psalm 126 is our unison reading. You can find it on page 572 of our pew bibles. The people have experienced God's deliverance in the past, but are confronted with another crisis and ask for help. Listen for the word of God as we read it together in Psalm 126.

1 A Song of Ascents. When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.

2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."

3 The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.

4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb.

5 May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.

6 Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.

This ends our reading of the psalm.

Planting seeds is an act of anticipation and hope—the gardeners anticipate that they will be in the same place for the next few months, and it will be peaceful enough to be able to harvest. Hope that water will come and water the seeds.

Our gospel reading is also about anticipation. It takes place in the home of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Listen for the word of God as it is found in John 12:1-8.

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

3 Mary 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.

4 But 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.)

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

This ends our gospel reading.

It seems odd to some of us. What was going on?

There were two words for anoint. One word “Anoint” in Hebrew is pronounced ‘mashiach.' In Greek translations of the old testament, the word ‘anoint' is ‘christos.' We get our words messiah and Christ from meshiach and christos.

But there's another word, aleipho, which means ‘to put oil on.' We might use lotion or hair conditioner; ancient people would have anointed themselves with oil and put it on their skin and hair. Our perfumes and aftershaves are alcohol or water-based. In biblical times, they used olive oil. They usually mixed cheap olive oil with more expensive fragrances. The very rich could afford to have undiluted perfume. Several exotic plants, like nard, also were good for making fragrant oil.

I was at a conference with friends when I met a clergywoman in the hall, holding her hands out. She said, “Do you need hand lotion? I just used some in the restroom and it was richer than I thought. I can't rub it all in.” So she held out her hands and several of us rubbed our hands with hers, trying to use up all the lotion.

Absorbing extra oil is the only explanation I have for why Mary wiped Jesus' feet with her hair. She didn't want to waste the perfume, and she didn't want to leave Jesus' feet wet with oil. So she used her hair. Men and women both put perfumed oil on their hair.

But what was she doing at Jesus' feet?

Falling at someone's feet indicated reverence. Softening someone's feet with oil indicates devotion. Being able to dip your feet in oil is a blessing. Taking care of someone else's feet is a sign of submission, humility and hospitality.

Let's listen to the anthem.

In our epistle reading, Paul speaks of humility. But it takes him awhile to get there. First he “goes through a litany of his own accomplishments, his list of what makes him so great. Then he shreds his resume into pieces and throws them up in the air. Paul claims that all of it is nothing in comparison to knowing Jesus as his Lord.” 1 Listen for the word of God as it is found in Philippians 3:4b-14.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

This ends our epistle reading. Paul looks at the cross and the way God's love was poured out for the world and finds himself emptying out his own claims to fame. All of his own accomplishments are rubbish in the light of what Jesus did for the sake of the world. The faith of Christ gave Paul value, not anything Paul did or did not do. His actions were purely secondary to God's action in Christ. As a disciple, Paul's spiritual work was to go through life learning to let go, to unclench his fists, to empty himself of the false stories and the surface accomplishments. 2

Our gospel lesson made me think of the verse in Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

It reminded me of what Jesus did. He announced peace, and brought the gospel, the good news. He announced the reign of God to everyone he met.

The only person who ever put any oil on him was Mary of Bethany. And she didn't anoint his head with oil the way priests consecrated kings. She poured the perfumed oil on his feet, blessing where he's been and maybe where he's going.

And then there's Proverbs 27:9. “Perfume and incense make the heart glad, but the soul is torn by trouble.”

Mary was celebrating that she had Jesus with them, in their house in Bethany. But Judas was troubling. He complained she was being extravagant, claiming that helping the poor was more important. But it sounds to me like he was jealous and greedy. There would be time for the disciples to help the poor. But there wasn't much time left for them to be with Jesus, because he would die in a week.

A theology professor, William Cavanaugh, wrote about martyrdom. He starts out saying:

“General George S. Patton once said, ‘No poor dumb [wretch] ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb [wretch] die for his country.' But Christ triumphs not by amassing a greater arsenal and using it more efficiently…Rather, Christ triumphs by dying ignominiously, tortured to death on a cross, then peaceably rising again to new life.”

Why then, doesn't “everything turn out right? The realm of God is ‘at hand' but is not yet fully consummated until Christ comes again. In the meantime, the powers of darkness still stalk the earth and still deal in death. Because of the resurrection of Christ, however, death is robbed of its sting.

People still die at the hands of the powers of darkness.” These martyrs don't mean that Christ hasn't triumphed. Athanasius, in the third century said that martyrs “are proof of the victory of Christ. He wrote, ‘Men who, before they believe in Christ, think death horrible and are afraid of it, once they are converted despise it so completely that they go eagerly to meet it, and themselves become witnesses of the Savior's resurrection from it.'

Suffering isn't a good in itself; it is simply something that must be encountered if one is to speak the truth about the re-creation of the world through Jesus Christ. If one speaks truthfully of the in-breaking kingdom of light in a world of darkness, the powers of darkness are going to resist…If we do not meet with resistance, then we must not be speaking the truth.” 3

Speaking the truth isn't easy, especially when to do so seems unpatriotic.

A philosophy professor asks if torture could be morally justified, along the principle that whatever yields the greatest good for the greatest number is morally acceptable. “This means that no act is prohibited, provided it produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.” He asks the question “If we know we can prevent a bomb from going off, may we torture the terrorist's only son before his eyes? …Is it worth it? One innocent life for the sake of a city of a nation?” What about if we had to torture three innocent children? Or 3,000? Or burn a city of civilians? …From ancient times to the last century of world wars, exterminations, and ethnic cleansings, all the way to the terrorists of 9/11, countless humans have been rendered expendable for the sake of some desired good.

We have to ask ourselves ‘Is there any evil we would not do to be victorious over evil?'” 4

Doing evil doesn't give us victory over evil; it just means we're on the wrong side. John McCain has spoken out against torture. In political circles, it wasn't a popular point of view. But he is a person of faith and honor.

He resists evil. And because he does, he can recognize when others resist evil too, even in unlikely places. McCain wrote:

“As a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam, I was tied in torture ropes by my tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening, a guard I had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve my suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to me. Some months later on a Christmas morning, as I stood alone in the prison courtyard, that same guard walked up to me and stood next to me for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.”

“To me, that was faith: a faith that unites and never divides, a faith that bridges unbridgeable gaps in humanity. It is the faith that we are all equal and endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is the faith I would die to defend.” 5

Julian of Norwich said, “He did not say to me, ‘you will not be assailed, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted.' But he said, “you will not be overcome.' He wishes us to trust in him, and all will be well.

Alfred Krass is a pastor with a forty-year-old disabled son named Tom. He suffers from seizures. One church member believed that Tom's seizures were as sign of his parents' lack of faith. He found that sometimes well-meaning church people respond to grief loss and struggle by saying something like, “Jesus has taken care of all that, so buck up!”

Alfred said that believe in Jesus does not mean that all suffering has been replaced by triumph. He said:

“Jesus great gift was to become fully human. In doing that, he allowed himself to be defeated. He identified with suffering. Knowing that he understands the agony of the cross as well as the victory of Easter resurrection allows us to trust that he can accompany us through all the experiences of our life.

As Christians, we need the promise and the victory of resurrection. But we also need the long journey to the cross that comes with it. Because we live in a world of both suffering and resurrection, we need a God who has lived through both. In Jesus, we find that God.” 6

Amen.

1 Kershner, Shannon Johnson, “Preaching the Lenten Texts,” Journal for Preachers, Lent 2007, p. 8.

2 Kershner, Shannon Johnson, “Preaching the Lenten Texts,” Journal for Preachers, Lent 2007, p. 8.

3 William Cavanaugh, quoted from Theology Today summer 2001, in “Christian eschatology is Patton-ly absurd, “ Context, Dec. 1, 2001, p. 6-7.

4 Kavanaugh, John F. “Mathematical morality,” quoted from America, 1/30/06, in Context, Sept. 06, p. 6.

5 www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4959134

6 Krass, Alfred, “Living Both Cross and Resurrection,” The Other Side, March & April 2001, p. 36-38.