THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT 2007
The Revd Deacon Polly Bowen preached this sermon on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 25, 2007.
When I was in seminary, they told us that Deacons are supposed to proclaim and preach the Gospel. I wasn’t really eager to preach, but when they told us we wouldn’t all earn a preaching license I took it as a challenge, and I took the books home and began to read. My teenaged son looked at them and said, “What’s homiletics, Mom?” “Preaching,” I said. He sort of hooted and said, “They think they have to teach you to preach? You’ve been preaching at me my whole life!” Well, there’s preaching at, and then there’s preaching. Another challenge. I did get that preaching license and as Fr. Dan will attest, I’ve spent the last 19 years trying to do as little of it as I could get away with.
But – here I am today, and it is what it is.
Today’s Gospel reading is a great story – Jesus comes to the house of his friends, Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. When Luke tells the same story, it happens at the home of a Pharisee, and the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet is a woman of the streets. But John brings it home to a comfortable reunion of old friends. And in John’s usual style, the story is full of multi-layered implications, and wrapped in the swirling mists of symbolism. The one who is about to die sits at table with Lazarus, the one who died and was called from the tomb.
Martha bustles about with her own traditional role of cooking and serving, and Mary, always turning custom upside down, takes a path outside the customary boundaries. She lets her hair down in public – unthinkable – and bathes Jesus’ feet with a fortune in perfume. The disciples see this as a needless expense, but Jesus sees something far more significant – his own preparation for burial, and his anointing as king of her life.
Jesus always saw things differently. He had penetrating insight, and we who profess to follow him are called to see things differently, too. We’re called to consider everything from the perspective of the cross, to follow our Lord’s example, to live into the
Think of the examples Jesus gave us: today he defends Mary in her extravagance, her defiance of custom. Forget about letting down her hair, forget about wasting money - even her anointing action puts her in opposition to the accepted role for a woman. The more astute among the disciples might make the leap that kings were anointed by the prophets – but a woman prophet? Unheard of! The few women in the Scriptures who had been called prophets were not the ones who anointed the kings! But Jesus finds no fault in that. He sees her humility, her gratitude and her love, and he accepts her gift.
Here at the end of his ministry he accepts the actions and inner thoughts of a woman, just as he accepted them at the beginning, by turning water into wine at the urging of another Mary, even though he hadn’t planned to begin his public life quite so soon. Later on he not only defied custom by speaking to a Samaritan woman, but found a pathway through their bickering, so that both came away from the encounter in a spirit of grace. He saw evil in the hearts of those who would stone an adulteress – you remember adultery – it’s a sin that requires two people – Jesus managed to avert the stoning without causing a riot.
When a rich man walked away, unable to do what Jesus asked of him, our Lord watched him go, and loved him. When children – non-persons in that society – were brought to him, he welcomed them. When a ritually unclean woman crept out of the crowd to touch his garment, he healed her. When one of his own disciples tried to defend him by cutting off a soldier’s ear, Jesus healed the soldier and told his disciples to put away their swords.
Time after time, Jesus cut through the garbage to see what was really important. No one was too lofty or too lowly, too accepted or too despised by society to escape his lessons in love. He was not a fence sitter, waiting to see what others thought. He scolded those who needed scolding; he embraced those who were longing to be embraced – the poor, the sick, prisoners, even the lepers of his time.
Now. What does all this have to do with Seminary and me getting that preaching license? Everything! Because my preaching license doesn’t just allow me to get up in a pulpit and spout off at you. It requires me to follow Jesus – to use the gifts God has given me in the best way I can, to do my share in building up his Kingdom.
Do you know that you have a preaching license, too? You got it when you were baptized. Every one of us has the obligation to get off the fence and witness for God. Now. That’s a scary word, witness. But it doesn’t have to be done from a pulpit, or a street-corner, or door-to-door, or any other kind of beating people over the head with God’s Word. You witness by the way you follow Jesus in your life – by how you treat your neighbor, and by how you treat the poor, the sick, prisoners, and yes – even the lepers of our time, whoever they may be. Remember those words from the Baptismal Covenant? Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
We are deep in Lent. Our Church has embraced the Millennium Development Goals, and here in
I want to close with a quote from the successor to Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Ndungane of
“The WORD was not made text. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. We come together for God to transform us and to make us agents of transformation. Through following Jesus’ example in serving the needs of others we will know better how to follow Jesus’ example in other areas of our lives. This is the moment for the Church to be more visible as the credible voice for the poor, the destitute and the disadvantaged. This is the moment for the Church to unite against poverty and bring hope to the People of God.”
This is the moment. Amen.
