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. John 12:3

  How close does someone have to be to you before you will “let your hair down,” before you will let your weaknesses and vulnerabilities show, before you can reveal your less-than-presentable parts?

This can be very difficult for us to do. So often we are told to lead with our strengths, to put a good face on things. And certainly a large sector of our economy is based on convincing us as consumers to buy products and services that will improve or camouflage our imperfections and short-comings, whether those goods be cosmetics or resumé-writing services.

So when we decide to confide in another person, to “let our hair down” with them, we generally want to be pretty sure that we can trust him or her with what we say, and who we are, and what we reveal about ourselves.

It can feel very risky to share who we truly are with another person. We see that in this morning’s Gospel – Mary anointing Jesus.

But first we need to get a couple of things clear. A version of this event appears in all four Gospels: Matthew’s and Mark’s version are pretty similar to each other; Luke situates the story much earlier in Jesus’ ministry and identifies the woman doing the anointing as a prostitute; Mark and Matthew don’t identify her at all.

John, however, tells the story very differently. Jesus is at the home of his friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus in Bethany, outside of Jerusalem.  Some days before this Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead – he was four days in the tomb – and restored him to sisters.

This family of siblings were probably Jesus’ closest friends, in addition to the Twelve. Mary was the one who wanted to sit and listen to Jesus’ teachings when he came to dinner; Martha was concerned to treat her guest right by making sure the meal was getting served on time – and yet even before Lazarus had been resuscitated, she professed her faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

At some point during this dinner party, as John tells it, Mary took very expensive perfume – it would have cost a year’s wages – and poured it over Jesus’ feet. And then she took off her head covering, unbound her long hair, and began to dry his feet.

What an intimate moment this is: Mary literally letting her hair down with Jesus, which in those days was not done outside of the family, and using her hair in place of the servant’s towel – the servant who would have already washed the feet of the dinner guests.

Judas protests at the waste and the expense; the Gospel writer wants us to see Judas as a greedy embezzler. But 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.’

Mary was anointing Jesus for burial, anticipating his death.  Somehow she heard and understood in what Jesus had been saying and doing that it would come to this – that he would die, and that this was probably the last time she would be able to share a moment like this with him; the very next day would see Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey to the acclamation of the crowds, and all that would come after it.

By contrast Peter – just five days later – refuses to let Jesus wash his feet, when Jesus takes up the servant’s towel and basin at the Last Supper. Jesus tells Peter: “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Now this being the Gospel of John, that statement has meaning on several different levels, but one of those meanings is that unless Peter can accept the intimacy and humility of Jesus taking on a servant’s role for those who follow him, he won’t really have gotten who and what Jesus is all about.

But Mary had gotten it – she understood that her friend Jesus was also her Lord, the one who was going to suffer and die for her – and the truest and best response was to serve him, to act as servant in the way that she could do. As a disciple, she became a servant, and in her service she acted prophetically – by anticipating Jesus’ death and by recognizing his kingship; anointing with oil carried both those connotations in the ancient world, and healing, as well. The closer Mary drew to Jesus, the more willing she was to be vulnerable, the more truth she saw and understood, and the more real her service was. The truth that Mary saw was difficult and painful; we can’t kid ourselves about that. But it shaped her response to Jesus, even in the face of Judas’ criticism; it allowed her to be a truer disciple.

As we have been walking through Lent our purpose has been to draw closer to Jesus, to put aside the habits and attitudes and predilections that keep us from intimacy with God. And if you are like me, you start with very good intentions – and even a good plan – only to have it pushed aside by events, unforeseen circumstances, inertia, or just plain tiredness; and we let ourselves down.

But when this happens, it’s an opportunity to come closer to God – to be honest, to acknowledge to ourselves and to God who we really are, and what is the nature of our short-comings and failures (particularly when we know that it is a pattern or a character trait with us). The gift of recognizing and owning our sin is not that it can be extracted from us, like having a bad tooth pulled; but rather that our whole self will be available to God, and that God can then use even the things that cause us so much trouble – usually in ways we could never have anticipated.

But that won’t happen unless we can let our hair down with the Lord, unless we are willing to be vulnerable with Jesus and sometimes with others. Staying and facing the truth about ourselves - rather than running away from what we don’t want to see – makes us much better disciples, much better servants of the Lord.

In these last days of Lent learn from Mary: sit at Jesus’ feet; let your hair down; be willing to give God your all; and know intimacy with Christ.

Let us pray.

O Lord, who has taught us that to gain the whole world and to lose our souls is great folly, grant us the grace so to lose ourselves so that we may truly find ourselves anew in the life of grace, and so to forget ourselves that we may be remembered in your kingdom.  Amen.                                                                                           ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Fifth Sunday of Lent
March 17, 2013

Jesus, looking at [the rich man], loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." Mark 10:21

This Gospel passage this morning is one that appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke – each with a few small differences in details – but all with the same exacting demands of following Jesus and with the over-the-top illustration of a camel attempting to go through the eye of a needle. I said last week that Jesus often makes challenging statements, things that are really hard; if you ever thought Christian discipleship and following Jesus was a comfy-arm-chair sort of faith, you would be sadly mistaken. There is comfort, yes, and peace and joy and healing – but there is also challenge, and the need for strength and courage and spiritual fitness.

So here is Jesus, speaking to a rich man who has many possessions, whose place in the community is assured and whose status of  being blessed by God is taken for granted by others because of his wealth. The attitude of the day was that riches were a sign of God’s favor and blessing. What Jesus says to the man knocks the wind out of his sails, rocks the disciples who are witnessing the conversation; Jesus up-ends the conventional spiritual wisdom and piety of his day.

And here we are in the season where we focus on our stewardship in a concentrated way. There is much that could be said about this passage – far more than any single sermon could encompass. So rather than make a single, sustained analysis or argument, I’d like to touch briefly on three things: possessions, talent and money.

First off, possessions.

My siblings and I own a wonderfully cranky two-hundred year-old house in a beautiful part of Connecticut; it came to us when our parents died nearly five years ago. Besides having been our parents’ home for the last twenty years of their life, it is also full of family possessions – furniture, books, paintings, photos, dishes (both antique china and everyday crockery), all kinds of memorabilia that stretch back (in some cases) nearly six generations. Some of it may have financial value; nearly all of it has emotional value.

What do we do with all this stuff? How do we divide it up? What do we do with the huge painting of our great-great grandmother that’s really not very good? What do we do with the things that have surrounded us for our whole lives, these possessions?

There are certainly practical questions here, and emotional, and relational, but fundamentally these are spiritual questions – about God, and home, and family and stewardship.

Next, I want to say something about talent.

When we talk about stewardship we so often mention the “holy trinity” of time, talent and treasure – and for good reason – but so often think of them    only in the context of what we will give explicitly to the Church. Today we have an opportunity to experience talent (backed up by time and treasure) in our Community Art Show. It’s being held in the Parish Hall; we have 16 artists – children and adults, parishioners and community members – who have offered their artistic talents to share with all of us, and with the public. And there are additional people who have worked hard and spent some funds to make the show come together - and why?

Because by pursuing their God-given talent, by honing it through practice and time and hard work and commitment, by being willing to share it with the rest of us, they are honoring God.

Each artist is opening a door into another way of seeing, and inviting us to come along, to look in the same direction they are looking, to have a glimpse of what reality looks like from their perspective. They are making themselves vulnerable so that we may have a wider picture of truth and beauty and the way God is in the world.

I hope that you will take time this afternoon to come and experience this show; I know I am profoundly grateful for the talent that has been shared – a giving away to others of God’s gifts.

Finally, I’d like to ask each one of you to do something right now.

Please reach into your pocket or wallet and take out a coin or a bill – it doesn’t matter which. Look at one side or the other until you find the motto: “In God we trust.” Those words have been on some of our coins since the Civil War, and on all of our currency since 1956. Like the Gospel reading, there’s a much longer story involved  – some of it having to do with northern states that wanted to proclaim their sense of God being on their side during the Civil War, and other chapters that had to do with our nation’s response to the fear of atheism engendered by Communism.

But think about those words on our money – “In God We Trust;” is that true? Do we trust God with our money? And if we do, then how does that trust guide the decisions we make about how we spend, how we save, who we share it with, what we give away, what we keep?

If we trust God, if we have a life-giving relationship of love and reliance on God, then the way we use our money will be less anxious, less constrained, less under our control than it would be if we did not trust in God. God knows each of our hearts, God also knows each of our needs and what will bring us joy and inner freedom.

Perhaps the next time you take out a coin or a bill – and by extension, a check or a credit card – you can think about the way God wants you to use the treasure he has given you. I don’t know what the answer to that is, but God does, and he would love to have a conversation with you about it; just ask him – he’ll get back to you with answer in one way or another.

So – possessions, talent and money; they all come from God, God has given them to us for our use, for the benefit of others and for God’s glory. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2012

[Jesus] asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah."… He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”                                                                                                                                              Mark 8:29, 34

We have a challenge before us this morning: Jesus has upped the ante, thrown down a gauntlet, raised the stakes…call it what you will. It’s a challenge that calls us to get clear about who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. We hear this challenge as it’s spoken to the disciples, but it is addressed to us: “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks us; and “If anyone wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Those are strong words – perhaps even daunting. In this year we have been reading the Gospel of Mark, and we should be pretty used to Mark’s plain, unvarnished approach to telling Jesus’ story by now – it’s spare, stripped down – but even by Mark’s standards we’ve reached a new threshold.

Today’s passage comes just about in the dead center of Mark.  Up to this point Jesus has been teaching, healing, casting out unclean spirits, preaching, announcing the immanence of God’s kingdom, calling and gathering followers, selecting those who will be his inner circle and will receive the most intense training. There have been a few instances of tension, a few whiffs of danger – especially when Mark related the fate of John the Baptist at the hands of King Herod – but nothing like what we hear in this passage.

Jesus has taken the disciples up to Caesarea Philippi, a Roman city twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee; if last week we heard about Jesus lying low in Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, this week Jesus has intentionally pulled his followers away from the usual arena of their work and taken them to Caesarea Philippi on the slopes of Mount Hermon. From there, if they looked, they could look straight down the Jordan River valley, south towards Jerusalem - the seat of spiritual, religious and political power.

And Jesus poses a two-part question to the disciples: Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? This is not Jesus having an identity crisis; in asking about identity, he’s asking about the meaning that people attach to him, how they understand him, wanting to know what the word on the street about him is.

And in answering: some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets, they are saying that people are equating Jesus with some of God’s most fearless representatives who stood up against evil and injustice and offered hope to God’s people.

OK, the public is getting the picture in a general way, and there are many people today who would answer the question in the same way, but then Jesus brings the question home: Who do you say that I am? Peter has a flash of insight and says: You are the Messiah, God’s Anointed One. Jesus doesn’t say: good job, that’s the right answer, you get a prize, you are to be commended for your spiritual insight…instead, Jesus starts to teach the disciples that the Messiah will suffer, and be rejected by the religious authorities, and will be killed, and will rise again on the third day.

That completely blows apart the disciples’ ideas of who and what the Messiah was to be – they expected a political king who would cleanse or rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, would liberate God’s people from their foreign enemies, and bring God’s justice to fruition  - for Jews and Gentiles alike. The Messiah suffering and dying was not the way they understood the plan, and so Peter starts to rebuke Jesus, to tell him off, to set him straight.

But it is Jesus who sets Peter – and the disciples and the crowd that was with them – straight:   "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Another translation puts it this way: “If any of you want to come the way I’m going, you must say “no” to your own selves, pick up your cross and follow me.” From this point on it is very clear – Jesus is heading into danger, into certain death, and those who choose to follow him will be open to the same.

So why did he say all that?  It’s certainly not a very inviting welcome or enthusiastic recruitment speech; who would want to follow Jesus if they knew that rejection and death would be the ultimate outcome? But Jesus had to be as clear as he could so that the disciples would understand that all of the more comfortable and comforting things that Jesus said and did in the first part of his ministry were part and parcel of what would come next.

To restore health and sight and life, to give hope to the poor and down-trodden, to right injustices, and to do all of this in the context of announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom – not Herod’s kingdom, or Cesar’s kingdom – but God’s kingdom, meant that sooner or later Jesus’ mission would bring him into direct conflict with the ruling authorities. It meant that God was king, was Lord, and not the Roman Emperor – Caesar’s claims to the contrary – and that God’s kingdom was beginning to unfold here and now in the lives of God’s people.

The powers-that-be, whether political or religious, could not countenance such a threat, could not stand competition for loyalty and allegiance. Jesus knew this and was doing his best to prepare those who were willing to make the journey with him; they, too, would have to expect danger, censure, rejection and even death. So why would anyone follow Jesus after such a speech?

Because what they had been seeing and hearing and experiencing with Jesus up until this point was the very thing that faithful Jews had been longing for throughout centuries – the signs of God’s kingdom breaking in to human life, coming to fruition in their midst, the ancient hope becoming a reality, here in their lifetime. So the disciples heard Jesus’ words, even if they didn’t absorb them, even if they struggled to put disparate pieces together, and they kept going, kept travelling with Jesus.

So what about us?  What do we hear other people saying about Jesus? That he’s a teacher, a prophet, a great religious leader? Or maybe he is irrelevant to their lives, someone they rarely think about? Or maybe they think Jesus is a pretty good guy, but his followers, the Church, has really messed up and has some serious problems.  You’ve probably heard all that, and more – and maybe even said some of these things yourself.

But what do we say about Jesus?  That’s the real question.  Who is Jesus for us? For you? For me? For us?

Do we see in the life and teaching and character of Jesus, the face of God? Do we hear hope in Jesus’ words and an invitation to healing and joy? Do we recognize that the power of God in Christ is greater than death? Do we know that the kingdom of God is not just about heaven, but about earth, as well?

This is what Jesus calls us to, this is the journey he asks us to make with him. He doesn’t promise it will be easy or pain-free; being a follower of Jesus won’t garner us money or status or accolades or earthly power; we may well encounter criticism, scorn, or rejection – death on lots of different levels. But at the same time, we are called to work and walk with the very source of all that is good, all that is holy, the fountain of all blessing, the life and light of the world.

When we walk with Jesus, when we follow him, when he is Lord and we serve him by helping to make God’s Kingdom a reality in our own corner of the world, then we know a peace and purpose and centeredness that no one else can give and that nothing can ever take away – in this life or the next.

In the words of the Covenant prayer from the Northumbria Community, let us pray.

I am no longer my own, but Yours.
Use me as You choose;
rank me alongside whoever you choose;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
raised up for you, or brought down low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty;
let me have all thing, let me have nothing;
with my whole heart I freely choose to yield
all things to your ordering and approval.

So now, God of glory,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine, and I am your own.  Amen.
                        ~ Celtic Daily Prayer

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 16, 2012

Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house…..He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  Mark 6:4, 7

Do you know someone who is a prophet?

Your answer is probably “no” – there is no one you know who is a prophet…and maybe you’re just as glad, because prophets can be difficult, uncomfortable to be around, telling us things we may not want to hear. So, can we just skip over this idea altogether? Not so fast!

First, it’s important to get clear what a prophet is and is not from a Biblical perspective. A prophet is not someone who foretells the future, just so we can plan out our life, knowing what opportunities to make the most of, what situations to avoid, and what difficulties to prepare for – like getting the long-range weather forecast. Nor does a prophet announce God’s judgment and punishment as a fait accompli, an inevitable event that will be visited upon us from on high to which we cannot respond in any way except to run and hide.

Instead, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, a prophet is one who speaks God’s truth and wisdom and purpose and perspective into a human situation so that the People of God can wake up and take a clear and hard look at what they are doing, and then make the changes in their actions and attitudes that will bring them into closer alignment with God. The prophets role isn’t nearly so much about saying “God will get you for that!” as it is about saying “Look at what’s going on here; if you don’t take steps now to make some changes, the results could be very dire; but if you do choose to act in accordance with God’s purposes (even if some of those actions may be painful in the short run) your faithfulness will be a blessing to you and to the whole community or nation.” Prophets speak what they hear and know to be true, to the best of their abilities – recognizing, of course, that they are still limited human beings and may not have the full picture.

Some modern-day prophets that we might think of are Martin Luther King, Jr. who spoke God’s truth about civil rights, and the worth and dignity of all people, and the importance of non-violence; or Mother Theresa, who spoke and lived so clearly God’s love and value for the poorest, the meanest, the most unlovely, the sick and dying homeless. Another person who acted similarly from a secular perspective was Rachel Carson, the marine biologist and conservationist whose work “The Silent Spring” announced clearly the devastating connection between the pesticide DDT and cancer and other illness in animals and humans; her work moved conservation and environmental awareness onto our national stage.

And on a very local level, in 1960, Helen Fenske of Green Village organized and led a group of people from the surrounding area preserve the area we know as the Great Swamp – protecting it from the Port Authority who planned to build a regional jetport smack in the middle of the swamp, and kick-starting the environmental movement in New Jersey. I don’t know that Helen had any particular faith connections, but I do know that Marcellus and Geraldine Dodge, the wealthy couple who helped to buy the property so it could be donated to the National Wildlife Refuge, were long-time members of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison. We can only imagine what our community would have been like today if Helen, the Dodges and all those who worked with them had not spoken the truth with clarity and boldness.

OK, prophets – so far, so good; but what does this all have to do with Jesus and with this morning’s Gospel? Jesus had returned home to Nazareth after healing the woman with the hemorrhage and raising Jairus’ twelve year old daughter from death, as we heard last week. He taught in the synagogue in which he had been raised, and the people who heard him were amazed, and not in a good way – they were offended. We had a hint of this four weeks ago when the Gospel mentioned that Jesus’ family heard about what he was doing, was afraid that he had lost his mind, and went to Capernaum to try to take him home. No doubt this news had gotten back to the home-town folks and so they were primed to be very suspicious of anything Jesus said or did. But even more than that, it is always difficult to go home again and take on a role of authority if  you had not had that role before, if others remember all-too-clearly things that you wish they would forget.

In Jesus’ case, there would have been questions about who his father was (Mark doesn’t even mention Joseph), what was his mother’s background – really, and who does he think he is, coming back here and trying to tell us something new and deeper about God and our own Scriptures?  He should just shut his mouth and remember what his place in this town is! No wonder Jesus said what he did about prophets not being honored in their own home-towns; and no wonder he couldn’t do any of God’s deeds of power there – he was blocked by their unwillingness to receive what he had to offer.

But before we get too smug about those stubborn, know-nothing people from Nazareth, let’s just stop for a minute and think about how it is when someone shows up and starts telling us that the boundaries of our beliefs and world-view, the opinions we hold most dear and upon which we have built our lives, are too narrow or too shallow or misguided or just flat out wrong – particularly if that person trying to enlighten us was raised with the same views and values? We get uncomfortable, defensive, angry, we don’t want to listen to what they have to say because maybe it’s too hard or too painful or just too different.

And what did Jesus do when he encountered all this in his home-town? He said his piece, he did what he could, and then he walked away and let his words and actions fall where they may and bear whatever fruit they could. And then he took that experience and made it part of his instructions to the Twelve when he sent them out in mission to the surrounding villages to share in the work of preaching, of calling people to repentance, of healing and announcing the Kingdom of God. Jesus said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them."

So, with honor or with dishonor, whether people recognized or received it or not, the prophetic role was part of Jesus’ ministry and mission; and it was part of the mission he shared with the Twelve and with all of those disciples who followed him.

And those early disciples – we may think of them as historical figures, or as the core of the Church in its earliest days – but they are also our elder siblings in the faith, connected to us not in some antique-historical-museum sort of way, but connected to us in the household of God, the family of faith. And their mission is our mission, because we are all Jesus’ disciples. And that prophetic role is part of our mission and ministry, just as it was the disciples’, and just as it was Jesus’. We who follow Jesus and who live to bring the goodness of God’s kingdom to fruition on earth as it is in heaven are called to act as prophets when and where and in the manner the Holy Spirit shows us.

That doesn’t mean, most likely, that you’ll start carrying a sign that proclaims repentance, or walk up to another person and tell them that they are way out of line with God’s values and purposes. But it does mean that we all need to speak God’s truth with and for God’s people and God’s creation whenever and however it is called for.

You may be called to lead a march in support of human rights, like Martin Luther King; you may be called to shape your life in a way that is hard and uncomfortable in the service of others, like Mother Theresa; you may be called to write and organize others and address legislative bodies, like Rachel Carson and Helen Fenske.

You also may be called to assure a child that he does not deserve the bullying he is receiving at school or on the bus, and then take steps to stop the bullying in whatever way you can - for that child and for the whole class or school.

You may be called to tell a person important to you in a calm, clear way that their addictive behavior is out of control, and hurting you and them both, and that you can’t support them in what they are doing, as much as you love them.

In our life as disciples, as partners in Jesus’ mission, there are times when we, too, will be called to act as prophets; and as scary as that may sound, we do so knowing that Jesus has gone to that place before us, and the Holy Spirit is with us and within us, giving us strength and courage and guidance to do and say whatever is needed. A prophet’s role may be an honorable one, but it is always with an eye to the establishment of God’s Kingdom and to God’s honor and glory and sovereignty.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that we may do our part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  ~ For those who Influence Public Opinion (adapt.), Book of Common Prayer, page 827

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
July 8, 2012