March 20-21, 2010
Lent 5 C
John 12:1-8
Salem Lutheran Church, Sycamore, Illinois
I saw it again and again this last Wednesday morning: first a nurse practitioner, then her rheumatologist, then after x-rays were taken a foot doctor: all kneeling at my mother’s feet gently probing up and down, top and bottom of her right foot, asking if it hurt. It did, of course, for she has a stress fracture in one of her toes. And now she’s in a boot and off her feet for the most part for the next six weeks to let it heal. They were kind and gifted and they got to the root of her pain in a matter of minutes, really… but then, that’s their job. Done well, it’s a marvelous gift, and while it is reminiscent of the posture we witness in our Gospel lesson today, it doesn’t even come close to Mary’s gift as she kneels at the feet of Jesus in the image before us now. Indeed, as I sat on the spare chair across the room watching doctors exercise their best gifts, it was yet another old picture that flashed across my mind’s eye. Closer, I think to Mary kneeling at Jesus’ feet and anointing him with that flask of expensive perfume. It was nearly 15 years ago: a warm Sunday afternoon in June. My dad was just home from the hospital and my sister Martha and I had caught up with them that day at their home on South Main Street in Rochelle. It had already been a tough stretch --- for his initial recovery from heart surgery was taking longer than what anyone had expected. And not only did he have the usual healing wounds in his chest and his legs that most anyone would have after such a surgery, but during his extended stay in the hospital he got up one night and took a fall and he had a shiner on one eye that rivaled any he would have gotten in his younger years of playing hockey or football. He was a mess. So there we sat in the living room, the smell of sickness and death barely averted was all around us. The tv was on in the background and there was a lull in the conversation as we had run out of words, when suddenly Martha jumped up and disappeared. Pretty soon she was back with a bottle of lotion in her hands. And I watched as she knelt at my dad’s feet and rubbed that lotion into his swollen legs: over those still raw wounds where they had removed the veins for his bypass surgery.
It was unexpected, unsolicited. It was a reversal of roles. And it was an act of pure devotion. It was a kneeling down that spoke of more than thirty years of having been on the receiving end of a father’s love for a child. It was a concrete, gentle act of kindness borne of love. And it is an image I’ve carried with me all these years since.
So I kept seeing all these images of people kneeling at the feet of others as I sat with the story of Mary kneeling at Jesus’ feet. Only in her case, her kneeling not that of a professional caring for a patient. Not that of a child tending to an ailing parent. No hers was out of gratitude for Jesus having brought her brother, Lazarus, back to life again. Still, it was unsolicited. It was unexpected. It was an act of service borne out of devotion and love. Out of a very human devotion and love. But seeing it as we do today, we also know that it was even more than that for it also points to what is soon to come. For tradition had it that the feet of a man were only anointed if he was dead. One seldom poured expensive perfume on anyone, but if it were to happen anywhere, it would have been more likely for her to pour that jar of perfume on Jesus’ head. For even though Jesus is still very much alive, Mary sensed something, somehow.
Indeed, what should be a time of only joy as family friends come together celebrating Lazarus’ return to life, has the echo of doom in the background. It seems that the very smell of suffering and death have made their way into this place. We know this is so for right before this we hear that they are plotting to take Jesus’ life. And right after this story today we hear that Lazarus is most likely headed for the same fate as Jesus. Mary must understand this at some level. And in spite of the fear that must have been in the pit of her stomach, the wonder is that she responds not by hanging on to what is most precious in her cupboard, but instead pours it all out on the feet of her teacher and friend and savior. Perhaps sensing that this chance would never come again, she kneels at his feet and offers an extravagant gift of pure love.
Oh, it’s easy sometimes these two thousand years distant, to forget the very real humanity of Jesus. That he was just like you and me with his friends and his habits and his aching, tired feet. That he must have felt safe and sheltered for just a little while in the home of his dear friends, Lazarus and Martha and Mary. That he must have leaned back in wonder to take in the pure love of Mary and the fragrance of that ointment washing away his tiredness and keeping at bay his trepidation at what waited for him when he walked out that door. We forget that the dust, the sweat, the devotion, the struggle was every bit as real as what you and I encounter when we step out into the world every single day. Only we mustn’t forget that for if we do, we also forget that we live in the same tradition as Mary did with Jesus whenever we kneel down in service to Jesus by kneeling down in love and service before any of God’s own. Perhaps with something as extravagant as a year’s salary worth of perfume. Perhaps with something as simple as a bottle of lotion found in the bathroom cabinet. If it is all that we are and all that we have poured out in love and devotion and gratitude? Then just as with Mary it is simply beautiful. And in ways we can’t fully comprehend, but have come to believe, that kind of love will be stronger than any struggle, any suffering, any death that waits outside our doors. For it is in the same kind of such pouring out that Jesus died. And it is in the wake of such pouring out of his all and his everything that Jesus rose again, defeating death that you and I might have life. Amen.
