Matthew
26: 1-13
March 30, 2014
First Presbyterian Church,
Sterling IL
Christina Berry
This is the fourth Sunday in our
Lenten series, “Sensing the Glory of God.” This week we focus on the sense of
smell. It was perhaps the sense that was easiest to think of a text for,
because this story came to mind immediately. But it took a while to think
through how to talk about smell, a very powerful sense.
Our sense of smell is so critical
to our functioning – to taste, to memory, even to our ability to discern when
there is danger. But there are also smells that we laugh and joke about –
unpleasant smells, usually. And we didn’t want to find ourselves inviting all
of you to start thinking about how Jesus smelled, or smells!
I don’t know about you, but when
we start talking about smell, I think of
pleasant aromas like bread baking, or flowers, or English lavender soap.
But I also think about Pepe le Peux, the cartoon skunk, and spoiled milk, and
diaper pails. So, now that we maybe have skunks and sour milk out of the way, let’s
engage all of our senses as we listen to the gospel.
This 26th chapter of
Matthew finds us in Bethany, at the home of a leper. Five chapters back, Jesus
has entered Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. Now he is in the last week of his
life. He’s been teaching them in parables, telling stories like he does. And
now we will hear of the plot to kill him. When next we gather for worship,
we’ll be at the last supper with Jesus. The time is drawing near when Jesus
will be arrested. Listen for God’s word to us, and breathe in the fragrance of
the anointing oil in Matthew 26: 1-13.
When Jesus had finished saying
all these things, he said to his disciples,
2 "You
know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be
handed over to be crucified."
3 Then the
chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high
priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4 and they
conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. 5 But
they said, "Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the
people."
6 Now
while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 7 a
woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured
it on his head as he sat at the table.
8 But when
the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, "Why this waste? 9 For
this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the
poor."
10 But
Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you trouble the woman?
She has performed a good service
for me. 11 For you always have the poor with you,
but you will not always have me. 12 By pouring this
ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. 13 Truly
I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the
whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."
What, for you, is the fragrance
of love?
Perhaps it is one of these
things:
bread baking, soup on the stove,
your grandmother’s soft perfume,
deep in the folds of her scarf,
your father’s pipe tobacco,
your baby, just out of the bath,
diapered and powdered, ready for bed,
your wife’s hairspray,
your husband’s aftershave,
a child in from play, smelling of
grass and summer…
For me it is the smell of homemade
fudge, the recipe from the Hershey’s cocoa can, cooking on the stove. My father
was the candy cook in our house, and for special occasions, like Christmas, he
would make fudge. Using only the best ingredients – all butter, no margarine, evaporated
milk, to make it richer, he would cook the fudge to the exact right stage, then
beat it by hand to aerate it.
Sometimes he’d take it out on the
back porch, in the winter’s cold, where he’d put a towel on his lap because the
pan was still hot, and he’d beat the fudge smooth, smooth in the cool air. When
we were older, and we’d come home for a visit, Dad would make a batch of fudge.
Just because we were there. With him and
mother. The aroma of chocolate filled the house, and it smelled like love.
What does devotion smell like?
Is it spicy, or sweet? Flowery? Citrusy?
When Jesus came to the house of
Simon the Leper, perhaps love smelled like a whole mix of things – men crowded
into a tiny house, food cooking on an open fire, dust and sweat and wine. But
for a moment, when that woman broke open her alabaster jar, and poured that oil
out on Jesus’ head, the way you anoint a king, for a moment, as the scent of
that oil filled the room, that was the scent of love. It was the fragrance of
devotion, a devotion that foreshadowed Jesus’ death. It was the scent of a
great gift, of sacrifice. It was the aroma of grace.
Throughout the scriptures, both
the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament, there is a description of
offerings to God – as fragrant offerings. In the days of Exodus, an offering at
the altar included fragrant incense. And St. Paul, in Ephesians five, carries
that image forward as he considers another offering: “Therefore be imitators of
God, as beloved children,” he says, “and live in love, as Christ loved us and
gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Scientists tell us that the sense
of smell is far more refined than we ever knew. Research had said that the
number of smells we can distinguish is about 10,000. More recently, research
has increased that number to about a trillion. That’s right, a trillion.
An interesting thing about smell
is that it is invisible, just molecules floating in the air.
You can’t see a smell – you can
only experience it. But when an aroma is strong, it can pull us in close. And
when a stink is powerful, it can push us away in a hurry.
Have you ever thought about what
neglect smells like? What carelessness, or meanness, or prejudice smell like? I
think we can sense such things, even if we can’t identify them. We sense them
the way a horse can smell incompetence in a rider, and the way a dog can smell
fear.
When I was a Christian educator,
I ran across a quote from an early educator, from the 19th century,
when Sunday Schools were set up to educate poor factory children. They came to
Sunday school because they worked the other six days of the week. They came to
learn to read, because they couldn’t go to school. This educator commented,
about these children, “The odor of the house is in
their garments.” And it is still true today, and it is true of us as well. Maybe
not the odor of cooked cabbage, or spoiled food, or wood smoke or unwashed
coats. But the odor of our house is in our garments – whether it is the aroma
of superiority and judgment or the scent of grace and forgiveness and love.
There’s a little village in
France, in Provence, that is considered to be the perfume capital of the world.
For hundreds of years, this village has been making perfumes from flowers. They
supply the fragrance for about 2/3 of France’s natural aromas. This village is
the home of a perfume museum, and every year they have a parade, which features
floats with young women throwing flowers into the crowd. Everyone is soaked by
the perfume of the flowers.[2]
Even today, after hundreds of years and the development of synthetic perfumes, around
3500 people are employed in the making of perfumes there. It is said that if
you are in the streets around five o’ clock, when the bell rings to signal the
end of the work day at the factory, the workers head for home. As they pour out
into their separate streets,
the town is permeated with the
scent of lavender.
Like those workers in Provence, we,
the people of God, when we leave the church and go out into the world, carry
the fragrance of love with us. Our community should be permeated with the love
and grace we absorb in our life together here in church. The odor of this house
is in our very garments! Christ gave himself as an offering for us, fragrant to
God, and calls us to offer ourselves as well – fragrant offerings, acceptable to God.
So what does love smell like?
It has the sweet aroma of a woman
who brings an expensive oil to anoint her Lord.
Love smells like the crayons and
markers our church bought for a school.
Love smells like gravy on
biscuits down at Loaves and Fishes,
like a hearty supper taken to the
PADS shelter,
like bean soup mix given away to
anyone who wants it.
Love can smell like cookies, too,
and like a potluck dinner,
like flowers given for the glory
of God,
like apple juice served to the
Vacation Bible School kids,
like the soil turned up in a
community garden,
like coats and blankets given to
those who are cold.
But most of all, love smells like
humility, and generosity and hospitality.
Love smells like the bread and
cup, like the water in the font.
Love smells, well, it smells like
church.
Like us.
Amen.
Sensory
Prayer – Breathing in Love
Close your eyes and sit as still
as you comfortably can. Pay attention to your breathing.
As you breathe in, pray this
silent prayer: Come, Lord Jesus
As you breathe out, pray this
phrase: teach me to love.
Sit quietly and repeat the
phrases in your mind for several minutes. Allow the prayer to take on the shape
of your breathing, so that the words flow with your every breath.
Now let the prayer phrases move
in and out with the rhythm of your breathing.
When the woman came to anoint
Jesus, she brought an alabaster jar of valuable and fragrant oil. Her gift was
beautiful, for it was a gift of deep love. When she opened the jar, the scent
filled the room. All who were present, with every breath they took, could sense
the aroma of her devotion, the fragrance of her love.
She did not count the cost of her
gift; she was not ashamed of her history; she only knew that her love moved her
to action. To be in his presence was a treasure beyond words. She anointed
Jesus for his burial, and she most certainly knew of his resurrection. She
understood that his death was not the end, but his love, our love, would never
end.
The fragrance filled the room.
“Come Lord Jesus, teach me to
love.”
Carry the prayer with you
throughout the day, throughout the week, through your whole life long. Amen.
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