The fragrance of love
John 12: 1-8
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 13, 2016
“If God was a smell, what would God smell like?”
Gardenias.
Chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven.
Everything.
Easter lilies.
White lilacs.
Fragrant oil.
Roses.
Fresh baked bread.
The ocean.
Peppermint.
Family.
Ripe melons.
Spring rain.
Our sense of smell is one of the most potent of the five
senses, because it has the power to bring us back in time to a place, a person,
an experience and make it real for us.
For instance, I love the smell of celery and onions sautéing in butter
because it reminds me of my mother making her Southern cornbread dressing and
of her cooking in general. The aroma of
coffee brewing and bacon frying takes me back to my grandparents’ house in
Mississippi when I was a little girl.
Whenever I am in an office supply store, the smell of Scotch tape and
ink and paper remind me of my childhood church and the office that contained a
mimeograph machine on which the Sunday bulletins were printed.
Human beings can recognize more than 10,000 different
scents or odorants. We have hundreds of
olfactory receptor neurons in our nasal passages, each receptor encoded by a
specific gene. If we do not possess a
certain gene, then we have difficulty picking up particular scents.
The sense of smell is an important character in this
passage and in the one leading up to it.
In chapter 11 in John’s gospel, Jesus arrives four days too late to save
his friend Lazarus from death. When he
asks to have the stone taken away from the tomb, Martha, the sister of the dead
man, says to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead
four days.” The body has already begun
to decompose; according to belief, this was a sign that the spirit or soul had
left the body and resuscitation therefore impossible. But for Jesus, with whom nothing is
impossible, this permeating odor of death is but a mere whiff of the perfume of
resurrection to come. He then prays to
God and calls forth Lazarus, who emerges from the tomb, the smelly graveclothes
still clinging to his face and body.
Now, in this morning’s passage, the scene has changed
completely. Lazarus now washed and
clean, is host to Jesus and his disciples for dinner. His sister Martha serves the dinner but not with
complaint as she did in the Luke story between her and her sister Mary. There is no resentment about serving this
time; the Greek word for ‘serve’ is used in the tradition of a deacon. There are the pleasant aromas of roasted meat
and bread and wine and the air dense with the emotions of contentment, joy, and
the intense feeling that very soon it is all about to end, for in raising
Lazarus, Jesus has signed his own death warrant.
Into all this enters Mary with a jar of perfume made from
pure nard. The word ‘nard’ comes from
spikenard, a flowering plant that grows in the Himalayas of China, India, and
Nepal, which explains why it is so costly.
Its underground stems
can be crushed and distilled into an intensely aromatic, amber-colored
essential oil, very thick in consistency.
It was a luxury item in the ancient world, something that would be used
to anoint the head of a king, not the feet of a poor wandering rabbi.
To anoint the feet would be part of preparing
a body for burial. And to wipe Jesus’
feet Mary lets down her hair, something a woman would do only for her husband
or in grief.
In this story Mary, sister of Lazarus, is the prodigal,
which again means ‘wasteful extravagance’.
In her whole manner we see wasteful extravagance. She unleashes the potent fragrance of love
into the dinner banquet, disrupting the heady scent of the meal and the mood of
Judas, who reeks of stinginess and the betrayal to come. She does not use ordinary oil but one that is
costly and pungent: the whole house is filled with its perfume. She lets loose her hair as a spontaneous
gesture of her gratitude for her brother and a sign of her exuberant affection
for Jesus. She does not wait for his
burial but anoints him now, alive in her home, where she can enjoy his company
and presence.
This lavish act of extravagant love is Mary’s prophecy of
Jesus’ death: God’s lavish act of
extravagant love in human flesh. Jesus’
death is indeed wasteful extravagance; there is nothing prudent or economical
about God’s love on the cross. And there
is nothing prudent or economical in Mary’s discipleship. In her unrestrained display of devotion we
see the portrayal of supreme faithfulness.
While Judas plays the role of bean counter (and not a very honest one at
that), Mary, in her filling the whole house with the fragrance of her love for
Jesus, fulfills the role of one passionate in love and service. The smell of death may be on the heels of
Jesus, but Mary witnesses to the overwhelming persistence of God’s love; that
God’s love smells sweeter and stronger than death itself.
But I wonder: does
God’s love always smell pleasant and sweet?
Can God’s love also smell like the sweat of migrant workers picking
coffee, oranges, and grapes; the sweat of day laborers mowing grass, laying
brick, tarring roofs? Can God’s love
reek of a person who hasn’t bathed in days or months? Can God’s love stink of prison cells and
tenement hallways and dingy nursing homes, battlefields and refugee camps? Jesus said that we would always have the poor
with us but not always him. What did he
mean by that? Do not all of us deserve a
roof over our heads, health care, nutrition, clean water, clean clothes, clean
hair, teeth and bodies, to know that we will never have to question these
things?
Jesus was quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 15,
verse 11: "Since there will never
cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand
to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’" The stench of poverty cannot be covered up
with sweet-smelling platitudes, like Judas.
If God’s love stinks, it stinks of the need for restorative justice, for
peace, and for resurrection. The sweet
smell of God’s love reminds us of the extravagant gift we have been given, that
continues to be lavished on us daily.
The rank odor of God’s love is a pungent call to give extravagantly,
wastefully to those who are always with us but to give as though there may not
be a tomorrow.
If God’s love stank, what would it smell like?
Fresh cow manure.
Hockey.
A locker room.
Blistered feet.
Mulch.
Burned dinner.
Burned hair.
A forest fire.
Intolerance.
Sulfurous brimstone.
Sulfur hexachloride.
Decaying matter.
Rotten eggs.
Bacteria.
One day our opportunity to serve will come to an end; the
fragrance of our love will diminish and fade.
At some point it will be too late.
How is God calling us, New Ark United Church of Christ, to give today
and to give lavishly, wastefully? How do
we as a congregation define waste, extravagance? What limits have we placed on what we spend
or give away or use, that define what is "reasonable," and what is
"excessive"? How do we think
about our giving and our gestures of love and generosity, the things that come
from deepest within our hearts? God is
not yet finished with us; how is the day and the moment before us in such a way
that our acts of extravagant generosity can wait no longer? What does God’s love smell like in this
church, in this time and place?
Go Bags.
Bread pudding.
Fresh paint.
Potluck dinners.
Coffee and snacks.
Hope Dining Room.
Garden soil.
Burning prayers.
Candle smoke.
The
fragrance of love is sweet and smelly, heady and rank, perfume and stench. It is seizing the moment to give what we have,
not counting the cost. It is
uninhibited, exuberant, exultant love celebrated and cherished in the here and
now. It is a sacrificial, humble,
extravagant gift of God that has the power to permeate our lives, resurrect us,
and transform us into new beings. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment