The World of Rev Ken
Easter Day 2004
Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.
That’s what Jesus says to Mary Magdalene when she realises who it is she is seeing at the tomb. I can imagine her, her eyes full of tears, not seeing very clearly. It was early morning. Perhaps she had been crying ever since He was crucified. Suddenly, her eyes are opened to the fact that the man standing before her is not the gardener, but is in fact The Risen Christ.
She’d found His tomb open. She’d told the Simon Peter and another disciple about the open tomb. They found the tomb empty. And she realised that Jesus, the one she loved, the one she followed, the one she had so much faith in, was gone. There was not even a body to show that he had been there at all. Just some folded grave clothes. There was nothing left. She had nothing left to cling to but her memories.
We like to have something to cling to. It’s quite natural really, especially in the rough and tumble world in which we live. We cling to the ideas, beliefs, attitudes and understandings about our world that support a more comfortable existence, maintaining a world we think know, even if it is not nice. We even cling to people, and sometimes to unhealthy aspects of ourselves. We know that sometimes change is scarier than what we know, even if it what we know isn’t doing us any good.
Jesus says to Mary Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. A better translation of this is Mary is Do not cling to me. It more a sense of holding on tight, refusing to let it go. Why is this a bad thing? Well, Mary is clinging to the pre-good Friday Jesus, the Jesus she knew, the Jesus she could touch. This is the Jesus she anointed. She thought he was gone. She mourned him, she grieved for him. She missed him. She clung to that person she had known.
But Jesus wasn’t, of course, by this time, dead. He had risen. He is risen. But she was so distraught at losing the Jesus she knew that she failed at first to recognise the Risen Jesus. She even asked him a question, assuming Him to be the gardener. It was only when he spoke her name that she recognised Him. Hand then her first response was to turn to him and address him as teacher. This is how she knew him. The teacher, the rabbouni, was the person she had lost. This is when he tells her not to cling to him.
You see, the risen Christ is more than a teacher. He was no longer the wandering Prophet who had upset the temple authorities. He was more than the one who preached so well, who healed and taught, who ate and drank and loved. This was much more. The self-emptied, self limited incarnation, the Son of God, Jesus the Christ who died on the Cross was gone, and Mary had found the divine Son of God, the risen Christ, the same person yet different.
Mary was one of the few followers of Jesus who seemed to get it right. She understood what Jesus meant more often that the others. Simon-Peter was always getting it wrong, being impetuous and foolhardy, putting his foot in his mouth, but Mary was wise. She sat at Jesus feet and listened, and responded appropriately. She knew and loved Jesus the great Teacher. She had great faith in Jesus. She knew that He could have prevented Lazarus from dying. She understood that Jesus would have to die, and did that great thing we heard of a few weeks ago, where she anointed His feet and wiped them with her hair. If any of the followers of Jesus could have recognised the risen Christ, then she was the one. Yet it took her a minute, and when she did recognise him, he told her not to cling to him.
What would her clinging do as far as Jesus was concerned? Could her clinging prevent him from ascending to God? I do get that impression from what Jesus says and it is possible.
You see, there is only one thing which can limit God’s ability to work with us, within us and around us. It isn’t some other supernatural power, although perhaps those against us can influence us. Ultimately, the one thing that can limit Gods power is us humans. We all have our images of God. Most of them are different, some a little bit different, and some so completely different as to seem like an entirely different deity. But none are the same, and none are entirely accurate, if only because of the limited nature of our human perception of the divine. They may be partially accurate, yet none can ever expound and explain the true nature and being of God. Our language and concepts are not enough. And this is the key. If we allow ourselves only to experience the divine in the ways we find acceptable, and we close ourselves off to other expressions of God working in our lives, then we are clinging to a God who is not real. If we maintain a Sunday school image of Jesus, then we are limiting His power in our lives because we will refuse to see it. We just won’t believe it is possible. If we are not open to other views of Jesus in the world, then we are clinging to him. We are holding him back in our relationship with him. Mary Magdalene, in wanting to hold onto the pre-death Christ, is clinging to one version of Him, the incarnated, human version of him, and in so doing, her mind would not be predisposed to seeing the divine, ascended Christ and His influence in her life. This is not helpful, and Jesus knows this. So the risen Christ instructs her not to cling to him.
So I guess the lesson for us, as we gaze at the empty tomb, and look about for the risen Christ, is to not limit ourselves to seeing Christ where we most expect to see Him. Look for him in unexpected places and situations, in unexpected people. Don’t cling to a Jesus who is not risen, or is limited by our own feeble imaginations and beliefs. Don’t trap Jesus here on earth, in our world. Allow Him to work in our world, but to be free of it. Allow him to be ascended to the Father. And maybe His presence will be a little more discernible in our lives. Perhaps miracles might occur. And perhaps our faith might become a little more enlivened.
Amen.
Maundy Thursday 2004Feet can be a bit gross.
Especially when they’ve been inside running shoes, especially the ones that are totally uncontaminated by natural fibres, the ones that don’t breathe at all. They end up stinking to high heaven.
But imagine what it was like in Jesus time.
People wore sandals. Which means that their feet probably didn’t get all smelly from foot odour, which is a plus. All that fresh air would be good in that respect. But imagine all the other stuff they would have on them. Dust and dirt. The remains of the calling cards left by animals – goats, donkeys, camels, cattle. Since feet were not covered, they would be susceptible to damage, so perhaps many feet might have had horrible festering sores. They would have had really tough skin, the nails chipped and cracked, with lots of yukky stuff stuck underneath them. Enough to make you vomit really. Which makes you wonder then why on earth Jesus would want to wash other peoples feet.
The job of foot washing was usually done by the lowly servants or slaves. It was an act of hospitality yet not usually done by the head of the house. It would be far below his station. Jesus, in doing this, was setting a very radical example. He was saying that to be a leader you need to be a slave, and more, that you needed to be one of the lowest of the low. You have to wipe the dirt and dung of other people’s feet. You have to get your hands dirty serving others.
Now this is a radical statement about leadership, as I’m sure you will all realise. It turns the concepts of power and leadership upside down. It makes the whole concept of what community could and should be new.
Jesus said “I am making all things new.” The washing of the feet is an example of this. All who seek to be disciples of Jesus must wash each others feet. We must all humble ourselves, get our hands dirty, dirty with the grime that someone else has trodden in. The flip side of this is that we mustn’t be too proud not to allow another person to wash our feet. We are called to serve and to be served. This is mutual ministry, mutual service by all members of the community. We minister to each other. Even with us clergy types, we minister to others, but others minister to us as well. It’s a radical concept. For some it’s a scary concept, this complete re-write of the rules of honour and service. For some it was scary enough to beat a man to within inches of his life, then nail him to a cross. They couldn’t handle the fact that this man who was more than a man was not supporting the existent social order. They couldn’t accept that a King would be anything less than powerful, mighty warrior King. When the truth was right there in front of them, they couldn’t see it. We are more threatened by humility and service to each other than by violence and selfishness. This is what Jesus was speaking out against.
It’s a powerful concept. So powerful that God sent His only son to the world to spread the word about it, and to die on a cross, as an example that there is another way, a better way, a loving way.
Follow that way. You know the way. Follow Jesus.
Amen.
Lent 5 2004
Isa 43.16-21, Psalm 126, Phil 3.3-14, John 12.1-8.
I wonder if I am alone in feeling slightly uncomfortable when hearing the Gospel reading for this morning. It’s not so much what John says about Judas being a thief. It’s not the extraordinary value of the oil that Mary anoints Jesus with. It’s that I feel like I shouldn’t be watching or hearing about the actual act of anointing.
This is an incredibly intimate act. It is very sensual act. That’s sensual, not sexual. There is a difference. The sensuality is not just in the actual anointing - it is also the wiping of Jesus feet with her unbound hair. Mary has let down her hair for Jesus. I guess in a way I feel almost voyeuristic. Perhaps it is also a bit of a cultural tendency for us Anglo types, especially blokes, not to feel comfortable with intimacy.
About 12 years ago, I studied massage. I remember at the time, when talking with friends about studying massage, particularly men, I’d get those “nudge nudge, wink wink say no more” type of looks and comments. They would automatically associate the touch, especially I guess the touching of bare skin on the back and front with something sexual or pervy. I think it was a way of expressing the fact that they felt uncomfortable about the sensuality, or the intimacy of massage. Perhaps making a crude comment was the only way they could express their embarrassment.
At the same time as I was learning massage, I was also studying aromatherapy. I learned about the importance of our sense of smell. I learned that it is so important that our olfactory nerves, the nerves concerned with smell, are the only nerves in our bodies which can regenerate. I also learned that the olfactory nerves go straight from the nose to the limbic system, a part of the brain that controls emotional responses and may also be a storage area for long term memory. Hence, what we smell can evoke an emotional response in us, or even bring back a long forgotten memory. I’m sure many of you will have had an experience of that. So I guess it was with this distant background in aromatherapy that the line in the gospel “The house was filled with the fragrance” jumped out at me.
At the same time, I found myself looking back at the previous chapter of the Gospel according to John, where Lazarus also gets a mention. You will all, I’m sure, remember that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And the line I remembered from that chapter was this – “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” I found myself reflecting on these two lines, comparing and contrasting them. I began to reflect on the idea of the fragrance of life and the stench of death. And I came to the conclusion that most of us are more used to the putrid stench of death than the heavenly fragrance of life.
Another amazing fact about our sense of smell – where there is a predominate smell, a smell that is ever present, our brain filters it out. We cease to register it consciously, so that we can be aware of other changes in smell. This is how people are able to live in places such as Rotorua in New Zealand, where the smell of sulphur, otherwise known as “rotten egg gas” from the thermal activity is ever present. When you first arrive there it’s the first thing you smell, but you very soon get used to it and don’t notice it as much.
In the light of this I found myself reflecting on this as a metaphor for the way we seem to become desensitized to some things in life that are constantly there, and we get shocked by others. In particular, I reflected on the way we seem to be more shocked by sensuality and intimacy, expressions of care and love for each other, than by violence and death. I wonder if it’s because we have become so used to the death we see in the world around us that the loving aspects of life become unusual, and so we don’t know how to handle them.
I thought about Judas in the midst of this. In the film the Passion of Christ, the portrayal of Judas’s betrayal and his descent into madness and despair, and death was particularly powerful. Recalling the fact that the sense of smell links into the emotional control centre of our brain, and that our brains filter out the background smells, I thought about what sort of response the smell might have triggered in Judas. That this act of intimacy took place in a public area may have been confronting enough for Judas and others in the room, but perhaps the aroma might have rubbed his nose in it (no pun intended – well, maybe a little bit) and elicited the response he gave. He may have been reacting to an unusually loving thing happening in a rough and tough world. Perhaps it also solidified his desire to betray our Lord.
Then what of the oil? Nard, or spikenard, was a rare oil in those days, imported from India. I had hoped to have some evaporating in the church today but it is still quite expensive. We have some myrrh and frankincense burning this morning. As nard was rare, it was also expensive. When the tomb of Tutankhamen was explored, perhaps plundered might be a more suitable word - unbroken, unopened jars of perfume were found. Chemical analysis of the contents of one of these jars revealed that a major ingredient in these perfumes for the after life was Spikenard. So it seems, ever since ancient times, Spikenard, or nard, was the perfume of choice for dead kings. Do you see the significance? Jesus speaks of her keeping it for the day of his burial. But the act of anointing with oil was also part of the ceremony for the crowning of a king. This woman being very intimate with Jesus, the one who got it right earlier on when she sat at Jesus feet instead of racing about cleaning the house like Martha, this woman who told Jesus if he had got there earlier Lazarus would not have died, was the only one who really understood the true nature of Jesus and His mission. She was the only one who could express what they perhaps should have all been able to express. She was the only one brave enough to step outside of rules about letting down your hair and appropriate behavior in the dining room to do something totally, wonderfully and extravagantly loving and intimate for Jesus. She was the only one able to pick the fragrance of life from the stench of death. She was the only one at that time, it seems, who was transformed by her faith.
We can all allow ourselves to be transformed by our faith. It’s totally up to us. We need to be alert and alarmed by the stench of death that we’ve got used to, and look out for the fragrance of life. And when we find that delicious aroma, savor it, tell others about it, embrace it in all it’s extravagance. Because that fragrance is the fragrance of the risen Christ - not decayed and rotting like a body that’s been in a tomb for four days, but alive, vibrant, radiant, heavenly. It’s the smell of a new born baby. It’s the smell of rain after a long dry spell, the smell of roses first thing in the morning, the smell of freshly baked bread. It is the smell of all of the good things in life and more. Life can be wonderful. If we allow ourselves to be transformed by faith, we can experience it fully. Inhale deeply. It truly is wonderful.
