Not Erased

John 18:1 - 19:37

This is not going the way it’s supposed to go.

 

Definitely for Peter, who probably can’t understand why Jesus tells him to put his sword away, and then finds himself trying to stay faithful and stay out of trouble in the high priest’s courtyard, and discovering he can’t do both at the same time.

 

Not going the way the chief priests want it to go, when they have to keep arguing back and forth with Pilate about guilt and innocence until he catches on that they are talking about political necessities and the threat of insurrection, not abstract justice.

 

Not how Pilate wants it to go either. If someone’s going to bring him a criminal, he’d rather it be clear and simple and not messed up with local religious beliefs. And not this baffling prisoner who turns the interview around and instead of answering authoritative questions, asks him, Pilate (the voice of Imperial Rome!) uncomfortable questions.

 

Not how we would want it to go, watching a friend of ours get arrested on a manufactured charge, and then die, publicly, before our own eyes.

 

It might, however, be going the way Jesus means for it to go. John tells us, and shows us, that through every minute of this story Jesus knows what is going on, what’s supposed to happen, and that he’s steering events from the moment the guards find him in the garden.

 

“It’s me. You’re here for me,” he tells the guards. And tells them again “take me, and leave the rest alone,” when the guards have already drawn back from him in fear, and would have probably just watched in silence if Jesus had chosen to walk away.

 

I have very mixed feelings about this, personally and theologically, but as we remember and retell this story tonight, we can see Jesus shaping the story, guiding all of us toward the cross.

Jesus encourages his own arrest. Jesus walks directly into death.
God dies.

And crucifixion fails.

 

Because, you see, nailing someone to a cross to gradually suffocate wasn’t just meant to kill that person.

It was one of Rome’s tools for erasing a person.

For making that person so shameful, so untouchable, so unmentionable, that they vanished. So that not only did they disappear from public sight, even their families would stop talking about them.

Being crucified, all by itself, was meant to serve as evidence that someone was the lowest kind of criminal, best rejected and forgotten immediately (if we know what’s good for us).

Most of those who were crucified were never buried, erasing even the record of their death.

 

And that tactic failed spectacularly with Jesus.

The crucified victim whose name never stopped being spoken.
Whose death has been remembered, and retold, over and over and over and over and over again, including here, today/tonight.

Whose death turns shame into the seeds of glory; turns the erasure of a human being into the revelation of the presence of God;

turns loss into the recognition of a love so deep, so broad, so high, so beyond our imagination that we cannot forget it once it touches our hearts.

 

The power of the powers of this world is turned upside down, and inside out, and even while death stands over us, crucifixion fails.

 

Jesus is not erased in this moment; instead, love is revealed.
God is recognized as Mary and Mary and John (and maybe others) stand at the foot of the cross; hear Jesus give them to each other; see and hear him direct the cues and the moment of his death.

And they remembered and told that story. Shared that revelation of love with others, gathered people into their remembrance; as we are gathered now.

 

As we gather here today/tonight,

standing in the shadow of the cross Jesus has guided us to,

making ourselves present and open to the heartbreak of experiencing God’s own love poured out upon us as Jesus dies before our eyes – or ears, tonight – before our hearts.

 

Gathered here, you and I are the proof that once again, crucifixion fails, and God’s presence in the deepest loss is felt once again.

And gathered here, we are, in God’s hands, the promise that again and again, every time, the power of the powers that be will fail; that love will be revealed, and felt. Remembered and shared.

That love will win.

 

Part of Jesus

John 13:1-17, 31-35; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

This is the week when everything turns upside down.

Inside out and backwards.

 

Because God is not supposed to die.

Dead people are not supposed to open their own graves and walk out looking shinier than before. Not supposed to walk right up to you on the road and say “Oh, hi!”

But all that is just about to happen.

 

And it starts here.

 

Okay, really it starts days or weeks or months before, as Jesus starts preaching topsy-turvy “last will be first” stuff, and eating with ritually unclean sinners, and winning religious debates and doing miracles and generally making the local religious and political leaders uncomfortable and suggesting things might not be as in control as everyone thought.

Or maybe it starts thirty-something years before, in human time, when God decides to be human, which already turns things upside down.

Or even maybe in the time before time, as God is becoming God.

 

But it also starts here, tonight, at this table.

When Jesus – the teacher, leader, rabbi everyone looks up to and depends on – takes a towel and starts washing the feet of his followers.  Something the servants are supposed to do, not the leader (and they were supposed to do it when we all came in to dinner, not in the middle of the meal. Good grief.)

 

Everybody’s uncomfortable with it. And as usual, we leave it to Peter to say something about it. So when Peter objects that this is upside down, that this is Not The Way It’s Supposed To Be, we all hear Jesus say “unless I wash you, you don’t belong with me”. And that’s a loss Peter (and everyone else at the table then and now) can’t tolerate.

 

So Jesus pushes Peter, and us, into our Uncomfortable Zone.

Which most of the disciples around that table – and many of us gathered here and contemplating an invitation to take our own shoes off and get washed – hope will all be over and back to normal in the morning.

 

Which it won’t be.

Not for Peter and those earliest friends and followers of Jesus, anyway.

Maybe not for us.

 

Because what Jesus is doing is not just turning the hierarchy of power upside down for one evening, to make a point.

He’s turning it upside down more globally. More permanently.

He’s about to pick up and turn over the entire fact and power of death. The one thing (besides taxes) that we can all be sure of. He’s about to hollow out all the power of every political and religious official in town, turning their power of ordering the death – and daily life – of others inside out.

 

And I suspect that when Jesus says to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me,” he’s not talking about getting kicked off the Friends of Jesus softball team.

He’s talking about having a real, effective share in the power, purpose, actions, and even personhood of Jesus.

Talking about Peter – and the others around the table, and listening through the centuries, down to you and me – becoming part of Jesus.

Part of spreading God’s story, and God’s presence, and God’s miraculous power through the world.

Part of carrying God’s justice and mercy into the world where humans and human systems fail.

Part of carrying God’s joy and creativity into the world where humans and human systems are ignoring or smothering it.

Part of standing up to the power of death, overturning the power of those who kill, or who order death, and even becoming more powerful than death itself.

 

That is a lot more leadership and responsibility in our faith than many of us want.

I don’t blame Peter one bit for trying to yank his feet out of Jesus’ tub, when he got a little tickle of what Jesus might be turning upside down and inside out tonight.

 

Now, you and I are probably not going to wake up tomorrow to find ourselves actually in Jesus’ place with a tight schedule of miracles, arguing with the powers-that-be, and teaching the masses booked in our phone calendars, just because we wash each other’s feet tonight.

Probably not, anyway.

 

But Jesus is still inviting us, challenging us, with Peter, to have our own share in Jesus. To be part of Jesus, in all the ways that matter.

Inviting us to say yes again and again when Jesus offers to turn our expectations, our world, our comfort zone upside down.

Because that’s what it means to follow Jesus, to be Christian: to be part of the Body of Christ, here, in the world we live in now.

 

So it might be important, tonight, for you and me to notice, with Peter, that none of us is supposed to do this alone. As an individual.

 

Once we accept that first invitation to let Jesus wash our feet – to let Jesus turn our expectations upside down and recruit us into the bizarre, inside out, miraculous work of being Christ – Jesus commands us to wash each other’s feet. 

 

Peter is not the one who is appointed to become Jesus, to be The Leader, The One, and to wash everyone else’s feet. Nor is any other one disciple supposed to take that role.

 

We’re all commanded to keep exchanging service and leadership with one another. To become a whole Christ together: the whole Body of Christ, greater than the sum of our parts. Constantly giving and receiving love and leadership, service and strength.

Commanded to love one another as Jesus loves us, so that the love of Christ is always flowing back and forth among us, strengthening and uniting us.

(And gently, firmly, constantly turning our world inside out over and over again.)

 

Which is why we come to the table here, in the first place.

 

We come to be nurtured with the bread that Jesus breaks for us, and to become the Body of Christ that we share. Preaching centuries ago about Paul’s story that we read tonight – of Jesus breaking bread and saying “this is my body” – Saint Augustine said that when we gather at Jesus’ table we must “be what we see; become what we receive.”

 

As Jesus feeds and nourishes us, we must become, be the bread that nourishes the world. Become the whole and holy Body of Christ, pour out the Blood of Christ, in the real and present world – not as individuals, but as part of a whole, together. 

Whether we take off our shoes tonight and let Jesus handle our feet, or open our mouths and let Jesus feed us, tonight you and I, together with Peter and all the others at this table through the centuries, become part of Jesus’ own self.

Become the Body of Christ, carrying God’s presence where ever we go.

 

Together, we enter the story.

Together we are cleansed and nourished and invited to unite with Jesus as we walk through the days when everything turns upside down. Inside out and backwards. Until death itself is overturned into life beyond imagining.

Extravagant Gestures

John 12:1-8

About once a year, Doctors Without Borders sends me some kind of tchotchke in the mail – a pen that’s a multi-tool, a tote bag, a mini flashlight.

And I open the package and complain out loud.

“Why are you sending me this stuff?! I sent you money to help sick and wounded people! I’m definitely not giving you more money if you’re just going to spend on sending me junk!” (as I throw the appeal letter in the recycling, unread.)

 

(Sigh.)

I mean, if people would just listen to me, charities, churches, and governments would all spend their money much more wisely, and for better purposes.

Right?

Anyone else here have that experience?

 

So – in spite of the narrator’s comment in today’s gospel story calling Judas a thief – I know that more than once I’ve said basically the same thing he does:

Why was this wasted this way, when it could have been doing so much more work to feed or heal so many people!?

 

That’s actually a very natural point of view for people who follow Jesus; who have heard Jesus constantly refocusing our attention toward the multitudes, those who are hungry, or poor, or sick, or oppressed.
It’s a very natural point of view for those of us who think people who have plenty should help provide for people who have little – or for people who have had even their little taken away from them.

 

And Jesus doesn’t exactly disagree!

When he says “the poor you have always with you”, he’s reminding everyone listening that the Torah, the law, requires us to always be openhanded and generous with those who have less than we do, because there will always be someone who has less.

 

He’s reminding us that 99% of the time, or more, there is indeed some conceptually “better” use for what we are doing, giving, or spending. Something more completely compassionate, more perfectly effective, more rigorously holy and right than what we have thought of, or planned.

I often hear that voice inside my head, always pushing me to do the most right thing, the best thing, the most loving or most holy thing…

Maybe I’m the only one who gets stuck in a cycle of not deciding to do something, because I can’t tell what would be best.

Or maybe I’m not the only one, and some of you know about that, too.

 

One of our vestry members, commenting on this story a couple of weeks ago, mentioned that we’d never even be able to pray together if we had to measure everything we do against the greatest possible good in the use of our time, and resources.

 

But, as another Vestry member pointed out, Jesus is telling us that even if the expensive, extravagant ointment in the story could have fed three hundred families for a day, what Mary has done with it instead is, in fact, a worthy action.

 

It is, first of all, an act of love, intimacy and trust. This dinner, and Mary’s anointing, are direct, physical acts of discipleship, of heeding Jesus and becoming like Jesus.

This action demonstrates that Mary is living out her belief in Jesus just as Jesus has been teaching us to do: loving others as Jesus loves, abiding in him as branches and vines are knit together, and listening to his voice.

She acts in imitation of Jesus, pouring out extravagant abundance as an act of love – divine and human love.

 

And when Jesus tells us that “She’s kept this for the day of my burial.”

We know that Jesus knows that Mary has heard and understood what else Jesus has been teaching.

And while by John’s timeline of Jesus death and burial, Mary has poured out her burial anointing almost a week early, I think Jesus is telling Judas, and us, and anyone else listening, that Mary gets it.

 

In a room full of followers who have consistently misunderstood, or denied the possibility, any time Jesus suggests that he’s going to be crucified instead of seizing the crown of Israel, Mary already stands with Jesus under the shadow of the cross; in the reality of that tragic and courageous gift of death and life to the whole world.

 

Just before and after John tells the story of this dinner party, he explains that the raising of Mary’s brother Lazarus is what tipped the political and religious leaders of Jerusalem into deciding to kill Jesus. And that Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem for the last time, where they will kill him.

On some other day, a different time, pouring out a year’s salary in perfume might indeed have been a waste.

Here and now, it’s an act of affirmation, trust, and love that recognizes, beautifies, and sanctifies the extravagant gift that Jesus himself is in the process of giving.

 

In the noisy, distraction-filled world that you and I live in, and when many of us have heard some story of Jesus’ death and resurrection more times than we can conveniently count, it may be hard to be certain in our hearts when the moment is right for our own gifts of love to be poured out in faith.

It may be hard to be sure in our guts that you or I have found the right moment for the extravagant gift of money, time, or skill – to God via the church, or a charity doing justice, or healing, or feeding, or lending listening ears and helping hands. 

 

It may feel like there’s never a right time for a lavish gesture with our time or voices – a question of whether it’s ever worth it, or possible, to stand and speak your truth for twenty-five hours like Senator Cory Booker this week.

Or to write a list of every possible argument against scams and financial abuse and injustices and nail them to the door of the church (or the courthouse, Congress, or corporate offices these days) like the 16^th century saint Martin Luther.

Or to keep gathering crowds to speak about reconciliation and transformation and the eternal future of our human souls, until someone lynches you for upsetting the powers that be, like the twentieth century Martin Luther King, Jr or the first century Jesus of Nazareth.

 

Or the right time for opening your dinner table or home to someone who needs comfort, friendship, refuge;

standing up to the school or office or neighborhood bully – and offering to help them heal what’s hurt them;

or writing the difficult letter no one else can write;

or whatever other extravagant gesture lies within your reach.

 

But it’s possible Mary wasn’t sure either. Didn’t know that the time was right for her extravagant gift of love, so long ago in Bethany.

It’s possible she just knew that this was one thing she could do, one act of love that she needed to give, now.

And that she trusted Jesus to receive it.

 

Because there’s one other thing Mary could have done with that ointment, besides pour it over Jesus or sell it to feed the poor always with us.

She could have left it in a cupboard.

She could have done nothing.

 

You and I always have that choice, too.

To find the “most perfect” thing to do with the resources to hand.

Or to do the thing that’s right before us to do. The thing that is worth it, in the hands of God, because we did what love led us to.

Or to do nothing.

 

Which has the advantage, usually, that no Judas will mansplain to you that you did it wrong.

But which robs Jesus of the chance to make our actions matter.

To receive our gift of love, or hope, or trust – extravagant and inadequate, both at once – and with his love, and power, and grace to transform action into miracle, ordinary into gospel, and one moment into eternal life.

 

You and I, all of us, have some potential extravagant gesture in our hands, no matter how empty or full those hands are right now.

Jesus is with us.

I wonder, now, what will we do.