What does belonging to Jesus look like?
I could talk about what it means, the words, the ideas, the things we say we believe.
But today is not for that.
Today is about what it looks like to belong to Jesus, the touch, the feel, the smell.
How we live tells us what we really believe, not what we say.
Today is about the sensual, the physical, embarrassing and humbling expressions of adoration, and overwhelming aromas.
Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, a family that Jesus sought out repeatedly and truly enjoyed, Mary of Bethany, she is the one who shows us what it looks like to belong to Jesus.
Judas provides contrast to Mary in John’s Gospel. In John’s Gospel the twelve disciples are largely minor characters carried along by events. In John’s Gospel Mary is the example of discipleship.
Judas and Mary are central characters whose actions move the story showing us two different ways to live, showing what they really believe.
Judas knows how to conceal things with words and ideas, sayings he cares for the poor but ultimately he is only able to care about himself, he is trapped, lost in false logic that justifies horrible things, theft, betrayal, suffering, capital punishment. Have you ever been trapped in false thinking, in a bad idea?
Ideas and words so often conceal what we are afraid to see in ourselves or what we don’t want others to see.
What does belonging to Jesus look like?
Mary adores Jesus, she knows that Jesus is running out of time, nobody else has caught on yet, she knew. She has been preparing for his death, she has the extremely expensive aromatic oils ready and waiting, costing most of a life’s savings.
Why wait till he is dead to express her love? Do it now.
She prepares Jesus for what is about to happen only days away.
Washing his feet, anointing where the wounds will violate his body, kneeling, using her hair to wipe and cover where we are most vulnerable.
Simple extravagant love.
What does belonging to Jesus look like?
When Jesus raises her brother, Lazarus, from the dead we see who Jesus really is, the fullness of God, life itself, foreshadowing Jesus own resurrection.
When Mary anoints and washes Jesus’ feet she reveals what it is to belong to Jesus, foreshadowing Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.
In John’s Gospel with all its poetic language and philosophy about Jesus it also shows us without words or abstraction what belonging to Jesus looks like, it looks like extravagant love that serves, it looks like Mary.
On Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, we honor Jesus’ mandate to love one another and to wash one another feet by doing just that, we obey Jesus’ command and follow Mary’s example by washing one another’s feet.
Today we are warned to beware of the false logic, the logic of Judas, that justifies the suffering of others, that dismisses the physical actions that make love real.
Where is God found?
Where true love is found God himself is there.
We can never pass that over.
To do so is to reject Jesus, to fall to the concealment of words and reasons.
Jesus is the logic of God, the Logos, the Word present in the world, showing us the true word and reason that holds creation together, the true order of things.
There is a proper God intended order to things that we strive to find and that disturbs us when we see it violated, we feel it in our guts when it is broken. Southerners are sometimes described as having an over developed sense of perversion, that is why we are angry so much, we see that the rightness of things is missing and we usually misplace that frustration.
That proper order of things is Jesus and Mary of Bethany shows us what we look like when we live according to God’s purpose.
When we believe and belong to Jesus we look like Mary, who loves extravagantly, who simply serves without excuse or justification.
It’s just love plain and simple because God is love.
Love is the word, love is the reason, love is the logic of God present in our lives. Will we be part of that anointing or dismiss it? Mary or Judas?
Jesus is that anointing love of God washing over us.
And Mary of Bethany, she gets that, she shows us.
Jesus reveals God.
Mary, she reveals belonging to Jesus.
If Grace Church had a patron saint it would be Mary of Bethany. We are not named after a saint but rather the power that holds all things together, Grace, the gift, and Mary of Bethany is grace filled.
Do we dare live lives of such adoration?
Do we dare take up the logic of love beyond reason?
That is who we are as parish. Grace Church adores and serves. That is simply who we are and what we do. We adore. We serve. Period.
What does belonging to Jesus look like?
Look around you and believe.