Extravagant
Expectations
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 3/17/2013
Based on Isaiah 43:
16-21 & John 12:1-8
Last
Sunday we focused on the power that comes through praying and Jesus telling us:
whatever
you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. This week, I would like to follow up with
that statement by exploring a portion out of Isaiah 43 and John’s story about
the situation that occurred between Jesus, Mary sister of Lazarus, and Judas Iscariot.
The
book of Isaiah is written by several authors, speaking to three different
periods in the life of Judea. The first
part of Isaiah was speaking about Judea’s sin and its downfall. The last part of the book speaks to the
restoration of Judea after those in exile return to Jerusalem. The middle portion of Isaiah which includes
chapter 43, written near the end of captivity, speaks about hope for the
future.
In
this chapter we see where Isaiah is talking to the Hebrew’s about their memories
of how God had freed them from slavery; God parted the waters so that they
might escape Pharaoh’s army and it was God who un-parted the waters drowning Pharaoh’s
army. There was a lament within this
community of people whose life’s had been uprooted by the Babylonian Empire and
forced to live in Babylon. Granted their
live in Babylon was far more comfortable than was their ancestors who were
enslaved in Egypt, yet they were feeling abandoned by God. It seemed to them that God had turned his
back upon them, orphaned, and abandoned in a foreign land. These were a people whose hope for the future
came through reminiscing over the “good old days”, the things that “had been.”
It reminds me of
watching T.V. shows from the 1950’s.
Shows like “Leave it to Beaver”, or “The Ossie and Harriet show”, or “My
Life with Joan.” These shows reflected
what life was like in those years following the Second World War. Well, maybe “reflecting” isn’t exactly the
right word to use. These shows spoke to
what America “wanted life” to be, not what life was really like. For those of us who lived during that time,
we might do well to remember that life at home was rarely like it was at the
Nelson or Cleaver home. Yet, to younger
generations watching these re-runs on T.V. understand this as what life was
like 50 or 60 years ago.
Yet God tells these
exiles (and there’s a message for us as well), “Do not remember the former
things, or consider the things of old. I
am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” God
wasn’t telling these people to forget the past.
First off, it is never advisable to forget the past, for the past has
several important functions. One is, we
learn from events of the past. Secondly,
it gives us a marker as to how things presently are going. Thirdly, there is comfort and security that
comes with remembering the past. When
all three of these aspects are used in a healthy balance it helps to give us
the courage to move forward. It is when
we reminisce to the point that we want to re-create the past as our future that
it becomes unhealthy and actually prevents our ability to live expectantly and
to move forward.
I see this often
when a person has worked most of their lives for one company. They seem to do pretty well for the first
twenty years or so being flexible when the company makes changes in its
business practices but by the last five years or so prior to retiring, there
grows a greater resistance to company changes (and I ‘m not speaking whether or
not the changes are good or bad) making those last few years become very
unhappy for that individual. There seems
to be a propensity to remember “the way it use to be” and a lot more voicing
“we’ve never done it that way before.”
What happens when this type of thinking starts, it becomes very hard for
the company to bring everybody on board as it moves toward its new set of goals,
and those who are unable to make those transitions move by being pushed and
feeling very miserable, often times making it miserable for those they are
working with.
It also inhibits
the ability to “envision” what the future holds when we start to cling to the
past. I wonder if this was a part of
what was going on at Lazarus’ banquet when Mary broke open a bottle of nard and
began to anoint Jesus with it. For most
of the last three years, Jesus’ focus was on teaching and healing out in the
countryside and small villages, but now Jesus’ focus has changed, he is now on
his way to Jerusalem to confront the spiritual leaders about the injustices of
a system that is beneficial to the upper class at the expense of the poor.
Jesus had spoken to
his disciples three times before arriving to Bethany about his pending death
should he go into Jerusalem. Each time
his disciples resisted these conversations.
Jesus had been presenting a new plan, a new vision, but they could not
hear this new plan, let alone having the ability to envision what Jesus was
getting ready to do, except for one woman, Mary the sister of Martha and
Lazarus. Mary seems to have been the
only person who actually was hearing what Jesus was saying about what would
happen to him if he went to Jerusalem.
After the raising
of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus knew that his life was in danger and went into
hiding. Then six days before the
Passover Feast, he comes back to Bethany and is the honored guest at a large
banquet. I assume it was a “thank you”
dinner for bringing Lazarus back to life.
Mary is often described as the one who would sit along with the men and
listen to what Jesus was teaching.
Nard is an ointment
used in the burial process and I suspect because Lazarus had died, they had
purchased this ointment and probably had some left over. Scripture says that Mary took this ointment
and poured it on Jesus’ feet. Generally
when someone is being anointed, you pour the oil upon the persons head, yet
Mary started with Jesus’ feet. According
to historians this is what one does as part of a burial ritual. So John is telling us that Mary understands
what is going to happen to Jesus, in the act of her anointing his feet. In Mark 14, Jesus tells those who are
hassling Mary, “8 She did what she could.
She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.”
Judas is another
key figure in this story as John tells it.
John indicates that Judas is very upset with Mary “wasting” this
ointment on Jesus in this way. I can
just hear him screaming, “Why are you
being so extravagant in using this oil that could be sold for a year’s wages.” If Judas was so pre-occupied with doing
business as usual, of doing things the way we’ve always done it, then of course
he would see the advantages of selling the oil because the money could be used
to promote the ministry as it had been operating in the past.
Yet scripture makes
it very clear that Judas was also dishonest and was skimming money from the
communal purse. I wonder if when we get
into the “remembering the way it use to be” mode and not open to new
opportunities, if we too are not “stealing” from God’s treasury! If we are unable to see the new things that
God has in store for us, and we keep spending our resources to continue to do
the status quo, are we not actually stealing from “the purse?” My mother use to say it in this fashion, “Why
throw good money after bad?”
We as people of God
need to be listening to the ever speaking God who says, “See,
I am doing a new thing!” Remembering the past is a proper thing to
do. But to honor our past, to honor our
history, we must live expectantly, trusting the words that God spoke through
Isaiah and know deep in our heart that God is doing a new thing with us! It is in our history that we can gain the
courage to trust in God’s leading. It is
through listening to God’s Spirit that we will gain the vision, the “new
things” that God has in store for us.
God asks, “Do you not perceive it?”
Let us be like Mary and act with “extravagant
expectations.” Amen
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