Letting Your Hair Down

Transcription

1 Letting Your Hair Down Promises, Promises Ruth 1:1-18 John 12:1-8 By By Rev. Jeffrey V. O Grady March 13, 2016 Rev. Jeffrey V. O Grady Pastor January 14, 2007 San Marino Community Church 1750 Virginia Road San Marino, CA (626) San Marino Community Fax: (626) Church Virginia smcc@smccpby.com Road San Marino, CA (626) Fax: (626) smcc@smccpby.com All rights reserved. These sermon manuscripts are intended for personal use only and may not be republished or used in any way without the permission of the author.

2 March 13, 2016 To the extent possible, effort has been made Letting to preserve Your the Hair quality Down of the spoken word in this Rev. written Jeffrey adaptation. V. O Grady, Pastor The flight to and from Israel is long and somewhat arduous, especially for those of us over 6 feet 3 inches tall. It is five hours to New York; then through Israeli security, and another eleven hour flight to Tel Aviv, through ten times zones all together. One of our Holy Land adventurers discovered at the Tel Aviv airport that her luggage was still in New York, so we were delayed leaving the airport for our hotel. It took several days before her luggage arrived at our second hotel. We awarded her the Fashionista award for the most resourceful way to wear one outfit for three days. Tired and hungry but excited to have finally arrived, we all looked forward to dinner and a bed on our first night in the Holy Land. One of the things you have to be aware of when traveling internationally is the differing ways countries handle electricity. Israel uses 220-volt service That s twice the power of our American 110-volt electrical plugs. Your home probably has 220 service for the washer and dryer and some other industrial plugs for heavy equipment. Think of it like the difference between having a ½ inch water pipe and a one-inch water pipe. You get twice the amount of flow and power. My wife and I came prepared with several different kinds of adapters. As we were getting ready for bed, we plugged in our phones and ipad, computer, etc. Everything was going smoothly. Then my wife, Lynn, tried to plug in a heating pad to relieve the stress of a neck muscle and we saw a flash of light and then were suddenly cast into utter darkness. The circuit breaker had blown, we hoped, only for our room and not the entire hotel. I had noticed the panel in the closet earlier so I grabbed a flashlight and began to try to fix the problem. Meanwhile, Lynn was moving to assist and felt something crunching under her feet. It was the control panel for the heating pad. When that 220-volt electrical surge went through the control panel of the heating pad it not only fried it, it exploded, sending bits of plastic flying. I found the breaker panel, flipped the switch and we had electricity again. We fell into bed laughing. 2

3 I learned that there is a difference between an electrical adapter and a transformer. For electrical devices that don t produce heat, you only need an adapter but for those using heat, like hair dryers and heating pads, you need a transformer. There seems to be a similar problem when I read the story of this exchange between Mary of Bethany and Judas and Jesus. Judas is using an adapter and Mary, a transformer. There is power in this faith of ours. In fact the New Testament uses the Greek word dunamis, from which we get the English word dynamite. In Romans, Paul writes, For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith... 1 Dunamis! Most of us are using a 110-volt circuit for our faith. A little charity here and there, attend worship occasionally, maybe volunteer to assist with a task or two at church, but with little significant change to our lives. We are content with small adjustments and minor distractions. Others are more desperate about their lives; things are falling apart, relationships are fractured, mental and emotional health is in jeopardy, we worry about ourselves and are in need of some greater power for healing and forgiveness than we can manufacture ourselves. We need a 220-volt circuit of faith to get us through, even if it blows up our current lives. That faith leads to much more radical and extensive change in our lives. We need a transformer and not just an adapter. Going to the Holy Land, you feel like your faith receives a jolt of power. Mary of Bethany had that kind of faith that which led to radical and extensive change. A little background may help shed some light on the story. It was customary in those days to provide water for a guest when they arrived at the home for washing, especially their feet. The roads and walkways were made of dirt and people wore sandals. Water for washing was often stored near the door and provided for guests to wash as they entered the home. If you ve ever traveled in the developing world you know that water is often of two varieties; potable or drinkable water, and water for uses other than consumption. Water for washing feet was not potable or drinkable. 1 Romans 1:16 3

4 A respectable woman would not let her hair down in public. This was a violation of etiquette and custom, for only loose women behaved this way. And if it wasn t bad enough to let her hair down, for Mary to use it as a towel to wipe the feet of Jesus was unseemly and offensive. When she used expensive perfume it became too much for Judas, who protested against the extravagant waste of resources. Judas was onto something central to the Gospel. Indeed it has something to do with being good news for the poor! Jesus announced his ministry in the words of the prophet Isaiah, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives... 2 The command is right there in Deuteronomy to... open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land. 3 So Judas wasn t wrong to focus upon the poor. This was an important and even central matter of faith. Jesus certainly wasn t being dismissive of the poor in his response when he said, You always have the poor with you. Judas was content with simply using an adapter. What is rejected is setting up a dichotomy between one and the other; between the act of extravagant worship and caring for the poor. In other words, there is value in both! Each have their place. There is a place for adoration and worship in matters of faith. You need both adapters and transformers. But Mary was responding to a 220-volt faith, and had been so transformed by her experience of Christ that adoration and worship was the only appropriate response, even if it appeared inappropriate to the customs of the day. Jesus doesn t say that we should always have the poor with us a prescriptive way but simply in a descriptive comment, he suggests that there will be other opportunities to respond to their needs. There is little to suggest in this passage that Jesus is not concerned for the poor, but he does elevate Mary s need to express her worship and adoration over theneeds of the poor in this case. Judas neither felt the inclination nor the motivation that inspired her act, which says a lot about Judas too. At least one disciple was becoming disenchanted with Jesus and the values of his ministry. When religion becomes a matter of certain principles rather than the person of Jesus Christ, watch out! 2 Luke 4:18 3 Deuteronomy 15:11 4

5 Faith challenges our value systems, just as it did for Judas and Mary. We re likely to spend our money, time, and effort differently as people of faith. We may even have to take some politically incorrect positions. Are you defined by your politics or are your politics defined by your faith? Which is the noun and which is the adjective? Christian? Republican? Democrat? Are you an American Christian, or a Christian American? Which one modifies the other? For Mary, all other definitions and customs fell by the wayside. She had discovered real power in faith in Jesus Christ and it led most naturally to devotion and adoration in worship, even political incorrectness. She let her hair down with Jesus. Rev. Dr. Gary Demarest, the former pastor of the La Canada Presbyterian Church for twenty five years, who served the Presbyterian denomination and has spent a lifetime in ministry, and who worships with us with his beloved wife Marily, writes in his musing, One, But Not the Same: I m going to do my best to think and live in obedience to Jesus Christ under the authority of scripture, and continually be guided by our confessions, as I promised long ago. (The same promise every officer and pastor of this church has made in our ordination vows)... I will always keep John MacKay in this conversation. For many years this former missionary to South America, who served as President of Princeton Theological Seminary (from and famously opposed McCarthyism, a politically incorrect position in its day in the 1950s), became a trusted friend in his later years. In what was my last conversation with him a few weeks prior to his dying, on a cold day in Georgetown, he walked me to my car, bundled up in topcoat and earmuffs. As I prepared to drive off, he said Remember, Gary, hold fast to Jesus Christ and stay loose with all the rest. 4 Mary of Bethany had grasped that insight. Her faith was more than a political position or an ideological framework. She was prepared to hold fast to Jesus Christ while Judas was evaluating Christ through the lens of an ideological position. Ministry to others flows 4 Demarest, Gary, One, But Not the Same, Faith and Culture (AuthorHouse: compiled by Jim Symons 2013) p

6 from our adoration for Christ. The Gospel of Christ calls us to worship the Lord and to include in our worship care for the poor. Gary Demarest concludes with the words from Eugene Peterson s translation of I Corinthians 13 in The Message: We don t yet see things clearly. We re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us. But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward consummation: trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly. Love extravagantly. And the best of these is love. You shock to shame my poor prudential soul I, who have kept my vase of life too whole, Living in legal caution all my days, Set in convention s calculated ways. Self-giving soul, Mary of Bethany! o blest denial of denarii! The shattered alabaster of your deed Has spoken to my spirit s wistful need, And I am stretched from pain to tearing pain That time, self-spent, cannot come back again. And heartbeat is infected with heartbreak, To think Christ poured his life out for my sake. No longer, reasoning, I can withhold, Your act convicts, inspires, shall make me bold, I, too, forgiven much, and hungering, haste To Him, most Holy and most Sacred Waste! 5 5 Wilkinson, Marjorie, To Mary of Bethany (Christian Century March 26, 1958) p