St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA
“Don’t Look Back"
Collect: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Philippians 3:4b-14
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
How do you say “I love you.”? J’taime. Te amo. Ego amo te. Ich liebe dich. Medo wo. But I am not talking about language, necessarily. We all have our ways to say I love you.
For some it is saying the words, words of affirmation, “You are so wonderful.”, “You look really nice today.”.
For some it is physical contact, holding hands, a hug.
For some it is acts of service, doing the little things that make life easier.
For some it is quality time, time set aside with special effort and intention, a party, a candlelight dinner, a getaway.
We all have our ways of saying I love you. We all have our ways of needing to hear I love you. One of the greatest needs in relationships is speaking the language our loved ones need. The stereotypical Ugly American going to another country and assuming people need to speak our language is what happens in many a non-functional relationship. Speaking louder is not going to help, overseas or in a relationship. And too often that lands people in my office or marriage counselors.
For some saying I love you is the giving of gifts. That could mean bringing home a favorite ice cream. Or something special in a box from Tiffany’s. Or an alabaster jar of perfume. My guess would be that Mary’s love language was the giving of gifts. And she took her greatest possession, and gave it freely, openly, extravagantly.
Notice here that Judas, and John presumes a motive, complains about how she says I love you. He does not speak her love language, and calls it a waste. Garrison Keillor said once, “Anything done for a child is never a waste.” I thoroughly believe that. Anything done for Love is much the same. Last week I told you that the Prodigal means Lavish, and we have slapped it on the Lost Son in the parable. But Prodigal Mary is far more an apt description. She is lavish in her public statement of how much she loves Jesus. She gives her absolute best in expressing her devotion.
Let us not forget, Martha, though. What is her love language? Acts of service. Remember when she complained to Jesus about her sister, “Tell her to get in here and help me?” Her love language is service. [Thank you, Altar Guild. Thank you, Facilities Team.] Let us not forget that the place of Martha’s prodigal, lavish act was a dinner Martha made and served. We tend to forget that part because it is less flamboyant and memorable.
The other part of the story we need to acknowledge is the context. We are in Chapter 12 of John. What happens in Chapter 11? The raising of Lazarus from the dead, Mary’s brother. And Lazarus is sitting at the table with Jesus, no longer rotting in the grave. Mary’s act of love is an act of worship in response to Grace. She COULD NEVER pay Jesus back for the gift of life for her brother. NEVER, EVER. All she can do is live in that gift. Live in that Love.
When we are in Love we do all kinds of things that make no rational sense. As my grandmother used to say,
John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
How do you say “I love you.”? J’taime. Te amo. Ego amo te. Ich liebe dich. Medo wo. But I am not talking about language, necessarily. We all have our ways to say I love you.
For some it is saying the words, words of affirmation, “You are so wonderful.”, “You look really nice today.”.
For some it is physical contact, holding hands, a hug.
For some it is acts of service, doing the little things that make life easier.
For some it is quality time, time set aside with special effort and intention, a party, a candlelight dinner, a getaway.
We all have our ways of saying I love you. We all have our ways of needing to hear I love you. One of the greatest needs in relationships is speaking the language our loved ones need. The stereotypical Ugly American going to another country and assuming people need to speak our language is what happens in many a non-functional relationship. Speaking louder is not going to help, overseas or in a relationship. And too often that lands people in my office or marriage counselors.
For some saying I love you is the giving of gifts. That could mean bringing home a favorite ice cream. Or something special in a box from Tiffany’s. Or an alabaster jar of perfume. My guess would be that Mary’s love language was the giving of gifts. And she took her greatest possession, and gave it freely, openly, extravagantly.
Notice here that Judas, and John presumes a motive, complains about how she says I love you. He does not speak her love language, and calls it a waste. Garrison Keillor said once, “Anything done for a child is never a waste.” I thoroughly believe that. Anything done for Love is much the same. Last week I told you that the Prodigal means Lavish, and we have slapped it on the Lost Son in the parable. But Prodigal Mary is far more an apt description. She is lavish in her public statement of how much she loves Jesus. She gives her absolute best in expressing her devotion.
Let us not forget, Martha, though. What is her love language? Acts of service. Remember when she complained to Jesus about her sister, “Tell her to get in here and help me?” Her love language is service. [Thank you, Altar Guild. Thank you, Facilities Team.] Let us not forget that the place of Martha’s prodigal, lavish act was a dinner Martha made and served. We tend to forget that part because it is less flamboyant and memorable.
The other part of the story we need to acknowledge is the context. We are in Chapter 12 of John. What happens in Chapter 11? The raising of Lazarus from the dead, Mary’s brother. And Lazarus is sitting at the table with Jesus, no longer rotting in the grave. Mary’s act of love is an act of worship in response to Grace. She COULD NEVER pay Jesus back for the gift of life for her brother. NEVER, EVER. All she can do is live in that gift. Live in that Love.
When we are in Love we do all kinds of things that make no rational sense. As my grandmother used to say,
Love is such a funny thing, it’s kind of like a lizard.
it curls itself upon its back and crawls into your gizzard.And when it gets down in our gizzard, we do things that are unexpected, extravagant, and beautiful.
It makes us forget what has come before. There is a reason we still read Romeo and Juliet, because we probably remember being that crazy in love. At least for a moment. We are willing to fling off everything. We are willing to forsake whatever has come before. In the famous balcony scene, Juliet expresses this:
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?And that is what it all comes back to, how do we say I love you. This is the very thing Paul is getting at in our reading to the Philippians. He is pleading with them to forsake their fathers and forsake their name. He did, and he didn’t look back!
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet…
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
In Christ he had found what he had always been looking for. When he studied the Law of Moses, the Torah, he wanted to know what God required. When he persecuted the Church in the very name of God, he was attempting to uphold what he thought to be true. Then in a moment of revelation, he saw the truth and the truth set him free. We look to that moment, but we forget the years in Arabia he spent wrestling with this newfound truth and learning to live in the path of peace, the way of Grace and Love.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, this is his driving force. And how does he say I love you to Christ? He says the words. He does the first century equivalent of renting billboards and proposing at a sporting event on the Jumbotron. He travels and preaches and suffers and eventually dies to let others know the wonders, the glories, the Grace he has found. He is so in love he strives to know Christ all the more.
C.S. Lewis castigates us for being half-hearted in our love.
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”We are in the season of preparation for the greatest story ever told, of how God loved us so much that God took away all hurdles and excuses. God slipped into our skin and moved into the neighborhood so we could hear it directly what he asks of us, to love God, Others, Self with all we have been given. Just like God loved us. And so we would get the picture God showed us this, that he loves us to Death. And then when we thought the story was over, he showed us that LOVE ALWAYS WINS. That story has been given a name, the Passion, because it is all about LOVE. As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has repeatedly said in person and on the world’s stage, “If it’s not about Love, it’s not about God.”
If someone loves me that much, I want to know everything about them that I can know. I step up, and give my very best. My alabaster jar of nard, whatever that is for me. It may be shouting it from the rooftops, or the pulpit. It may be visiting the friendless and the forgotten. It may be using a special skill, like accounting, to help the Church keep its financials ship-shape. It may have been coming to sweep down the cobwebs yesterday morning. It may be polishing the silver in the Sacristy, and ironing the linen. It may be showing up on Thursday to rehearse, to sing the glories of God on Sunday. It may be fixing coffee so we can gather and share the love after services. We all have our ways loving God. Let us not be Judas and pooh-pooh anyone else’s I love you.
Embrace that love. Live that love. And don’t look back. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hi! Thanks for wanting to comment. Please add it here, and after a moderator reviews it, it will be posted if appropriate. Look forward to hearing your opinion.
Blessings, Rock