(Mark 14.1-11)
A reflection by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The Second Sunday of Lent: February 28, 2010
This is the fourth in a sermon series on the last week of Jesus’ life on earth.
It is based on The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. Growing up, I went to church and Sunday school every Sunday morning. I was at children’s choir practice every Wednesday after school. By the time I finished 3rd grade, my faith was as solid as a 9-1/2-year-old’s could be. Then I spent my fourth-grade year living with my family in India. I saw kids my age dying on the streets of New Delhi. I went back home to small-town Ohio. I heard the same Bible stories. And I sang the same songs in the children’s choir. But I was not the same.
I had looked in the eyes of starving-to-death kids. I’d heard their eyes ask, “Why are you white and rich? Why am I brown and dying?” So I stopped believing in God. I thought, if God exists, there wouldn’t be eyes asking me why I had a future and they didn’t. If God exists, all of us would have enough. And since all of us don’t have enough, there must be no God. God wasn’t doing what I thought God should do. So I stopped believing in God.
What do you do when things don’t turn out like you hope? That’s the question I hear in this morning’s story from Mark’s Gospel.
Listen for a word from God.
In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him. They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. "We don't want the crowds up in arms," they said.
Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious among themselves. "That's criminal! A sheer waste! This perfume could have been sold for well over a year's wages and handed out to the poor." They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.
But Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me. She did what she could when she could—she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly."
Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the cabal of high priests, determined to betray him. They couldn't believe their ears, and promised to pay him well. He started looking for just the right moment to hand him over (The Message Remix © 2003 by Eugene Peterson).
God wasn’t doing what I thought God should do. So I stopped believing in God. Jesus isn’t doing that the disciples thought the Messiah should do. He’s not going to lead an army to kill the Romans. Instead, he’s talking about loving enemies and praying for those who persecute us. He’s not going to lead the disciples to places of glory, power, and status. Instead, Jesus has been telling them the same things over and over:
When we get to Jerusalem, Rome’s going to murder me as an enemy of the state. And three days after that, I’m going to burst out of the tomb, alive. But the disciples can’t believe that’s going to happen to the Messiah. They’re waiting for Jesus to change his mind. And then this unnamed woman bursts into their quiet dinner. And she forces them to decide. She pours perfume on Jesus’ head to prepare his body for burial. Which means she believes Jesus when he says he’s gong to die. And she believes she will see him again when he rises. Some writers call this woman the first Christian (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, Harper San Francisco, 2006, p. 104).
Because she’s the first person in the Gospels who believes what Jesus has been saying. Even if it’s not turning out like she hoped, her actions say, I trust you, Jesus. I will stay by your side. And how do the other disciples respond?
They play the old Let’s try to distract him so we don’t have to talk about what’s really going on out there trick. And Jesus sees right through it. He says, what’s this woman has done has nothing to do with the poor! You can choose to show your love to the poor every day. And you know that is what I want you to do. This has to do with one simple thing. Even though this isn’t turning out like you hope, Do you trust me? Will you stay by my side? And within 24 hours, all of his disciples answer, No. Right after this, Judas betrays Jesus. He must feel like a Messiah who’s not going to lead an army against Rome deserves to die.
And before the end of the next night, the other eleven will cut and run. They’ll deny they ever even knew him. It’s like they’re saying to Jesus, If you’re not going to be the Messiah we’d hoped for, we’ll just have to look for someone else to follow. When it doesn’t go like we hope, one choice is to do what the disciples do. And do what I did. We decide God doesn’t exist.
Though we usually don’t admit it, when we do that, it means we think we know how God should work. You’re not doing what you’re supposed to, God. Life isn’t turning out the way it’s supposed to, God. So you’re fired.That’s one way to respond when life doesn’t turn out like we’d hoped. And even though that’s what I did after living in India,I don’t know think that gets you very far.Because some parts of our lives never turn out like we’d hoped. And after we’ve turned away from God, who or where do we turn to? Then where do we go for comfort and strength and understanding and healing and hope then? Ten years after I fired God because I saw too much suffering in the world, I chose to walk through the doors of a church. Because my younger brother had had a psychotic break. And I felt guilty. And I needed somewhere to go with that. I needed comfort. And understanding. And forgiveness. I needed to be held in arms that were way bigger than any human arms. I needed God.
Ten years before, I’d fired God because there was so much suffering. Now, in the midst of my suffering, I started looking for God. Or, more honestly, I let God find me. The song “Enemy of Apathy” sings about this other choice we can make. Instead of firing God, we can let go of the delusion that we know how God should work. Instead of firing God, we can trust God keeps looking for us, even when we’ve stopped looking for God. Let us sing this song together.
She sits like a bird, brooding on the waters,
hov’ring on the chaos of the world’s first day;
she sighs and she sings, mothering creation,
waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.
She wings over earth, resting where she wishes,
lighting close at hand or soaring through the skies;
she nests in the womb, welcoming each wonder,
nourishing potential hidden to our eyes.
She dances in fire, startling her spectators,
waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
she weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
nor can she be captured, silenced, or restrained.
For she is the Spirit, one with God in essence,
gifted by the Savoir in eternal love;
she is the key opening the scriptures,
enemy of apathy and heavenly dove.
(John L. Bell and Graham Maule © 1988 GIA Publications. All rights reserved.
Reprinted under OneLicense.net #A-714452)
I don’t know if you saw this film footage. But right after the earthquake in Haiti, I saw a TV report that showed Haitians dancing and singing as acts of prayer to God. While their loves ones were being pulled from the rubble, they were dancing and singing their love for God. If there are any people on earth who we could understand might stop believing in God, it is the people of Haiti. But here were people in the midst of unimaginable suffering, singing their love for God. In 2004, I got to do a shared sermon with a woman from Kenya. She has started a non-profit that supports children in her village whose caregivers have died from AIDS. I asked her what burying so many loved ones way too young had done to the faith of the people in her village.How did they keep trusting God? I asked.
She looked at me. Hugged me with her smile. And said, “Dave, that is such a Western question. You people in the West expect life to be easy.And when it’s not you use it as an excuse to stop believing in God. That’s not how it is in Africa. Nobody in my village believes God ever promised us life would be easy. God only promises that God won’t leave us alone.”
That’s the other choice. When it doesn’t turn out like we hoped, we don’t have to fire God. We can admit that there’s so much we don’t know. And we can choose to lean on God, to let God know how much we are hurting, and let God find us. And show us that God never, ever leaves us to face anything alone.
Amen.
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