Letting Down Your Hair Sermon by Rev. Aaron Fulp-Eickstaedt Immanuel Presbyterian Church, McLean VA March 17, 2013 John 12:1-8 Our scripture text for today comes from the 12 th chapter of the gospel of John, the first eight verses. It is a story that has parallels in each of the other three canonical gospels, but in each of those versions the woman who anoints Jesus is not named. Mark and Matthew have the woman anointing Jesus head with a jar full of expensive nard at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany during Holy Week. They both point out that people complained at the wasteful nature of the act of pouring out the perfume. Luke has the woman anointing his feet, bathing them with her tears, and drying them with her hair, much earlier in Jesus ministry at the home of a Pharisee named Simon. When Simon thinks to himself that Jesus doesn t know what sort of woman she is, and if he did, he wouldn t allow her to do such a thing, an opening is provided for Jesus to make a point about forgiveness and gratitude. That is in Luke 7, you can look it up! Only here in John does the woman who anoints Jesus get a name. John says she s Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus had just the chapter before raised from the dead. One can imagine that she is filled with gratitude. She shows that gratitude, and her devotion, by taking down her hair (a sign of intimacy, something women just did not do in mixed company), pouring out a whole pound of nard, (a very expensive perfume), and doing all of it, right then and there, less than a week before Jesus was to die. Listen for the story as it is told in John s Gospel. Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 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. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor? (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 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. Three hundred denarii was a lot of money back in the day. Do a full day s work as a laborer, and you might get paid a denarius if you were lucky. So three hundred denariuses denarii- would be equivalent to 300 days wages. That s not chump change. So it s not surprising that a question or two might be asked when a person poured out that kind of money - in the form of perfume or anything else. It was an extravagant act. In John s gospel, it is Judas who raises the question. John s gospel is not content with just throwing Judas under the bus. John has to back the bus up over Judas a couple of times. Pointing out that the disappointed and disappointing Judas betrayed Jesus is not enough. John wants to paint him as a real snake in the grass.
2 So when Judas asks the obvious question, Couldn t this resource, this perfume which could have been sold for three hundred day s wages, have been better deployed, say, I don t know, to help the poor? John has to make sure that we understand that Judas said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because, as the treasurer for the disciples, he was skimming money off the top, stealing from the common purse. That s why the extravagance bothered Judas, according to John. Be that as it may, Judas question is a natural one, one we should sit with from time to time as individuals and a church. We ought to consider how we spend what we have been given by God: the resources of time and energy, talents and material wealth God has entrusted to us. It s good to wrestle with where they d go to the best use, to give the most glory to God. Now relax, this is not a stewardship sermon. Although I do think every good sermon has a stewardship angle, because every good sermon is about how we use our time, energy and resources to the glory of God. And helping the poor ought to be right up there, at least if you take the Bible seriously. When Jesus says in response to Judas, You always have the poor with you, he is evoking a bit of Torah, from Deuteronomy 15:11, which says, Since there will never cease to be some in need on earth, I therefore command you to open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land. But after recalling that passage, after saying, You will always have the poor with you, Jesus goes on to say, But you will not always have me. So leave Mary alone. She poured out this precious perfume, which she had saved for the day of my burial, as a way of showing her love and gratitude while I m here with you. It is as if Jesus is saying, There will be plenty of opportunities to care for the poor, and you should, but right now, be present to this moment of extravagant grace and devotion. Let her show her love for me. Footnotes in study Bibles are not always all that helpful, but I love the one that says, essentially, An extravagant love for Jesus will have more than to go around for others, including the poor. It strikes me that this passage is about more than how a grateful woman dumped out a pound of nard 2,000 years ago and whether or not that resource could have been better deployed. It is about how you and I spend the precious resource that is our life and faith. And in that, Mary, Lazarus sister, can be our teacher. I think of Mary Oliver s famous poem, The Summer Day, which ends: I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? 1 How do you spend the wild and precious resource that is your life and faith? Do you carefully measure it out, always holding back, always measured, always careful? Or do you realize that the kids are right, You Only Live Once, and the people with whom you share this ride only live once - and take the opportunity to be extravagant in your appreciation of them and of life and of God? Do you take the pure nard of your faith and gratitude to God to be poured out so that the
3 fragrance fills the room, or do you squirrel it away, hide it, mete it out in tiny compartmentalized bits on Sunday from 10 to 11 (or 5:30-6:30), or maybe if we re lucky from 9 to noon some Sundays? Do you mete it out in tiny compartmentalized bits, or does it affect the whole of your life? Because what you do for God is not summed up in what you do in and for this institution. Mary, in pouring out the nard, teaches us that there s an all-in quality to life and living. Almost without fail, when I conduct a memorial service, people come up and say, I learned so much about so and so that I never knew. The remembrances friends and family share, the meditation I deliver, all seek to sum up some of what the deceased s life meant to those who remain. More than once, I ve heard a friend or family member say, I wish I would have done a better job telling that person what she meant to me, what he meant to me, while her or she was alive to hear it. What if we were more lavish, more extravagant, in our praise and appreciation of people in the here and now? I love what Fred Rogers, that s Mr. Rogers to you and me, said on the occasion of receiving his Lifetime Achievement Daytime Emmy. In his acceptance speech, he said, Oh, it s a beautiful night in this neighborhood. So many people have helped me come to this night. Some of you are here, some are far away, some are even in heaven. All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take along with me ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are, those who have cared about you and wanted what is best for you in life. Ten seconds. I ll watch the time. (And he watched it.) Whomever you ve been thinking about, he went on, How pleased they must be to know the difference they ve made in your life. They re the kind of people television does well to offer our world. We all have only one life to live on earth, and through television we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways. 2 How will you use your one wild and precious life? How are you using it? Another thing that Mary, Lazarus sister, teaches us about how to use this life we ve been given is that she models a certain realness, a certain intimacy for us. She lets down her hair. I never thought about the origin of that expression until making the connection with this text. This week, in fact. You know that women in Jesus day - as in some Muslim and Orthodox Jewish communities today - were supposed to keep their hair under wraps, tied up tight. Loosening your hair, letting it fall down, was a sign of intimacy that was reserved for people with whom you were in familial relationships. You didn t just let your hair down willy-nilly. Garrison Keillor says of Lutheran ministers from places like Lake Wobegon, that they have to go to conferences to let down their hair, (but what hair they have is not all that long to begin with!). 3 It strikes me that letting down your hair is code for being really and fully yourself - which means letting people see who you really are. Intimacy. Into me see. What Mary does is not just an act of emotional intimacy, it is an act of physical intimacy. And in that Mary models something for us, too. Part of intimacy is tied up in physical touch.
4 Psychology Today had a great article about that recently 4 : about how important physical touch is to communication. I posted the article to my Facebook page and a friend of mine who is a social worker wrote this in response: I have seen people who others typically avoid contact with based on awkward appearance, being frequently disheveled and/or malodorous, being in some way disfigured, or who have a malady or disease others fear or do not understand respond more to simple touch (a handshake, hug, simple hand placed on a shoulder, etc...) than to even the most supportive words... Even simple body language of an open, relaxed posture that is within closer proximity to someone than is typical of most interactions can have an impact... It seems Jesus knew this very well and of course did just as much healing (if not more) by touch than he did verbally...especially with those who others in society were hesitant to do this with... : ) 5 You all know that I am a hugger. I appreciate that not everyone is. And believe me I do not want to hug you if you do not want a hug. I promise that. But I want to let you know that if you want a hug, you can have one. And I want to let you know that if you don t want a hug, stick your hand out, because I grew up in a hugging family. My daughter Martha is preaching today for Youth Sunday over at Judith s church. Judith and I have this thing where we compare our sermons week to week and say to each other, There s no shame in the silver with a sermon. Not everybody can get the gold. I think Martha is going to get the gold today in our family, because her sermon is amazing. 6 Martha didn t start off as a hugger. But she has been loved, by my mother, into being one. And I give thanks to God for that. So Mary expresses her love physically. But she does one more thing. She doesn t wait to do it. She seizes the moment and does it then. She does it right then. Last Sunday morning, when a bunch of us were together here worshipping, Maynard and Barbara Ball were down at The Homestead. They were doing a little worship of their own. They were going out on a hike. And many of you already know this, but right as they were beginning the hike, Barbara keeled over. Maynard caught her, thinking at first that she was just fainting at first, but he quickly discovered that it was more than that. It turned out she was having heart failure. He was able to hail some people down the road and together they tried to keep her alive and breathing while they waited for the ambulance and the LifeFlight helicopter to transport her to Roanoke Memorial Hospital. That s where she was from Sunday afternoon through Friday afternoon. Now let me hasten to add that she s okay. But it was not at all clear that she was going to be. On Monday, Judith and I got in the car and drove to Roanoke, carrying a prayer shawl from this congregation. When we walked in the room, and saw Barbara in a coma, Maynard broke down and said, You came all that way. And you brought a prayer shawl. I never thought I would need one of these. And he quickly put it on Barbara s body. She woke up at 2:30 Tuesday morning. When Judith and I walked into her hospital room later that morning, and saw her sitting up, let me tell you, I have to tell you, that there are only a few times in my life when I ve been happier: my wedding day, the birth of my children, but to see Barbara sitting up, to know that she recognized Judith and me, even if she had no memory of us being there the day before, was amazing.
5 Maynard and I hugged, a long hard hug, before we knew she d be all right, and then again later when we saw that she d be okay. And we gave thanks to God. It was like the nard poured out. On the way home Tuesday, Judith and I listened to a gospel CD of music by Stephen Curtis Chapman. And I wept. I wept the whole way through. Grateful and more appreciative than ever of the fragility of life. I turned to Judith and I said, I want you to know how much I love you. So, what are you going to do with this wild and precious life? You get one. Live it to the glory of God. And help the poor, while you re at it. In Jesus name. Amen. Aaron D. Fulp-Eickstaedt
1 Mary Oliver, The Summer Day from is New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992) is reprinted here: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html 2 You can watch the speech and a similar lifetime achievement award speech of Mr. Rogers, here: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=upm9lnucbum and http://www.youtube.com/watch? feature=player_embedded&v=pi_9gegvoyk 3 Keillor refer to this in his story: Pastor Ingqvist s Trip To Orlando reproduced on compact disc by Dan Rowles. The original material is copyright by Garrison Keillor and Minnesota Public Radio and was shared on his show A Prairie Home Companion in 1985. You can listen to it on the CD Gospel Birds and other stories of Lake Wobegon. 4 Rick Chillot, The Power of Touch Psychology Today (March 11, 2013). You can read the article here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201302/the-power-touch 5 A post from my friend and former congregant Warren Musick on March 13 th. 6 You can read her sermon here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0b055txhedimmu1z2wlnqu1bkouu/edit