Extravagance

Extravagance — a very great outlay of resources exceeding the limits of reason and necessity; an instance of excess.

“Mary too a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.” (John 12)

Martha, Mary, and Jesus are sitting around the table having a resurrection party with Lazarus. Perusal, Martha is the busy body, and Mary in one way is no help at all, that is, until she helps the rest of the world see Jesus, really see Jesus. Just a few days ago he told them all the was resurrection and life, and then made Lazarus the parable. Now the Sanhedrin had an all points bulletin out. It was the promise and reality of resurrection that put Jesus on the most wanted list. Consider that both Mary and Judas are there considering the one who is about to suffer and die for both of them!

Somewhere in the celebration something happens to Mary. She is overwhelmed with the sense that what has happened to Lazarus is also in store for her. Mary, that one who sat down at Jesus’ feet to listen and learn about him, she remembers that as he rose up her brother he put his finger in his chest and said, “I am resurrection and life…everyone who believes in me will never die”, and that word everyone, everyone just lingers with her, and she realizes right in the middle of dinner that the words are for her, and she is overwhelmed, and has to do something. So she gets up and finds her treasure, a pound of costly perfume (that’s a year’s wages!) and comes and kneels down again and pours it all out over the feet of Jesus. Then she lets down her hair and dirties herself to wipe his feet clean.

What she does in ludicrous, wasteful, inappropriate, completely beautiful and extravagant. She anoints him not as a king which would be oil on the head, but as a corpse, the anointing of the feet being the final stage of burial. And immediately Judas, the chair of the Messianic trustee board, judges it all to be such a waste. But Jesus doesn’t think so, and tells them to let her go, and leave Mary alone.

In John’s gospel this action of Mary begins the passion narrative of Jesus. The Passover festival is only six days away, and here already and all ready is the Passover lamb of God, the lamb who is God. Mary herself is the parable of God’s love for the world in Jesus. What we see Mary do on this day with perfume we will watch Jesus do in days to come with his very life and breath….break it open and pour it out, all of it, because of love. The precious vessel in God’s hands will not be preserved; the precious substance will not be saved. It will be opened and poured out for the life of the world, emptied to the last drop.

Mary comes face to face with the impending death of Jesus, and all driven by God’s extravagant love. She is overwhelmed. So too may we be as we realize how God once and forever has loved us.

Hallelujah!

Peter Hawkinson

Somewhere around the Spring of Deception…

About this time, every year since I moved to the Midwest, a meme starts circulating on my Facebook feed.

It lists, with a few variations, in chronological form the 11 seasons of the Midwest, starting with winter.

Next up is fool’s spring, second winter, the spring of deception, then third winter, mud season, and only after alllllll that: actual spring.

I’ve seen a few others that add “the great pollination” in – particularly important, and poignant, for those seasonal allergy sufferers among us. I think this comes just before actual spring.

It’s always good for a few laughs, a few more groans, and the reminder to recalibrate expectations for the wildly looping, backwards and forwards journey that is the pathway to spring in this part of the country.

I was thinking about it a lot today, not just because I’ve gotten my parka and my dog’s winter coat back out for another morning walk in 20 degrees, but because of our Backyard Pilgrim prompt for today.

We’re invited to walk around our neighborhood and look for something that is “growing – or struggling to grow – into what it was created to become.” I think every single flower on my street feels that way right now, but Matt (the author) invited me to think about how I might feel that way too.

How I, like Jacob, might be wrestling with God or otherwise struggling to become who God wants me to be.

Lent is a particularly good and important time to look deeply at that kind of wrestling and to engage in it. After all, we’re trying to place ourselves in the wilderness with Jesus, a place where there are much fewer distractions, and more time and energy to focus on that wrestling or struggle.

What’s so great about the story of Jacob is that he was always wrestling – grabbing his brother Esau’s heel as they came out of the womb, vying for birthrights, conniving for his wives – and it was usually not to the glory of God. But one time, he wrestled all night long, refusing to give up until his mysterious wrestling partner would give him God’s blessing. That was the night when Jacob did indeed get a blessing, and also a new name: Israel, he who wrestles with God.

Jacob and his wrestling were redeemed and ultimately used as an important part of God’s story.

Even though he, like the flowers on my street waiting to bloom, like the many things that are struggling to grow at any given moment, went backwards and forwards on his journey.

In this moment, somewhere around the third winter or the spring of deception, the fourth week of Lent, the third year of COVID – if you feel that way too, if you feel deeply inside of you the struggle of becoming who you are meant to be, take heart.

Not only are you not alone, you’re in really, really good company. So many of the enduring characters in our scripture stories are men and women who moved forward, and backward; who stalled out; who stopped and started again. Who wrestled and wrestled and wrestled.

It’s a journey, and not a linear one.

But ultimately that journey will lead us toward God using or redeeming all parts of us, and to me that seems eminently worth sticking it out for.

So today, I am going to take some deep breaths, to witness the flowers in their struggle to bloom, and to feel the kinship we have with each other. The wrestling will endure for a time, but joy always – always – comes in the morning.

-Pastor Jen

Somewhere around the Spring of Deception…

About this time, every year since I moved to the Midwest, a meme starts circulating on my Facebook feed.

It lists, with a few variations, in chronological form the 11 seasons of the Midwest, starting with winter.

Next up is fool’s spring, second winter, the spring of deception, then third winter, mud season, and only after alllllll that: actual spring.

I’ve seen a few others that add “the great pollination” in – particularly important, and poignant, for those seasonal allergy sufferers among us. I think this comes just before actual spring.

It’s always good for a few laughs, a few more groans, and the reminder to recalibrate expectations for the wildly looping, backwards and forwards journey that is the pathway to spring in this part of the country.

I was thinking about it a lot today, not just because I’ve gotten my parka and my dog’s winter coat back out for another morning walk in 20 degrees, but because of our Backyard Pilgrim prompt for today.

We’re invited to walk around our neighborhood and look for something that is “growing – or struggling to grow – into what it was created to become.” I think every single flower on my street feels that way right now, but Matt (the author) invited me to think about how I might feel that way too.

How I, like Jacob, might be wrestling with God or otherwise struggling to become who God wants me to be.

Lent is a particularly good and important time to look deeply at that kind of wrestling and to engage in it. After all, we’re trying to place ourselves in the wilderness with Jesus, a place where there are much fewer distractions, and more time and energy to focus on that wrestling or struggle.

What’s so great about the story of Jacob is that he was always wrestling – grabbing his brother Esau’s heel as they came out of the womb, vying for birthrights, conniving for his wives – and it was usually not to the glory of God. But one time, he wrestled all night long, refusing to give up until his mysterious wrestling partner would give him God’s blessing. That was the night when Jacob did indeed get a blessing, and also a new name: Israel, he who wrestles with God.

Jacob and his wrestling were redeemed and ultimately used as an important part of God’s story.

Even though he, like the flowers on my street waiting to bloom, like the many things that are struggling to grow at any given moment, went backwards and forwards on his journey.

In this moment, somewhere around the third winter or the spring of deception, the fourth week of Lent, the third year of COVID – if you feel that way too, if you feel deeply inside of you the struggle of becoming who you are meant to be, take heart.

Not only are you not alone, you’re in really, really good company. So many of the enduring characters in our scripture stories are men and women who moved forward, and backward; who stalled out; who stopped and started again. Who wrestled and wrestled and wrestled.

It’s a journey, and not a linear one.

But ultimately that journey will lead us toward God using or redeeming all parts of us, and to me that seems eminently worth sticking it out for.

So today, I am going to take some deep breaths, to witness the flowers in their struggle to bloom, and to feel the kinship we have with each other. The wrestling will endure for a time, but joy always – always – comes in the morning.

-Pastor Jen