Sermon: Passionate Living & Giving
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Passionate Living & Giving 21 March 2010
The Revd Jenny Wilkens
- Isaiah 43:16-21
- Philippians 3:4-14
- John 12:1-8
http://cathedral.wellington.net.nz/index.php/Sermons
One evening last week I had a passionate experience! I hasten to add it was at the St James' Theatre enjoying a French dance company giving a passionate performance of the songs of Gershwin. Passionate as only the French can dance with style and energy and fluidity and abandon, a bit like how they play rugby!
I was thinking about that as I reflected on today's Gospel reading and Mary's extravagant gesture at Bethany, taking a pound of hugely expensive perfume, and pouring it over Jesus' feet, such that the fragrance of the perfume filled the whole house. Such a bold gesture, such abandon, such passion … Such waste??
This is certainly Judas' response, and we watch on with horror as we see the unravelling of Judas' discipleship, of his character. What seems first to be a genuine and liberal concern for the poor is unmasked by the writer as nothing but deceit, a self-righteous rant, and an attack on the generosity of spirit of the woman who still kneels, perhaps cowers, at Jesus' feet.
I wonder what Paul would make of that scene, for in our reading from his letter to the Philippians, he plays with images of profit and loss, of cost and value. He looks back on his own pristine pedigree, his heritage in the faith, his blameless track record according to the norms of his time, and then shocks his listeners by saying, "Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than this, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Phil 3:7, 8)
The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It's been said that our society knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing. Like Judas, we know all about prices, how much things are worth, how much they cost. But what do we know about what is really of value? Paul had come to know Christ Jesus as Lord, and in comparison to the supreme value of that in his life, everything that came before, even good things, he counted as loss, he counted as rubbish - Paul uses an even more earthy word to describe them.
And what drives Paul now? 'I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.' (Phil 3:10). This relationship with Christ is so valuable to Paul, that he will walk with Christ even into suffering and death, because at the same time he will know the power of the risen and living Christ with him and in him, giving him hope and encouragement.
Mary too has come to know Christ as the one she is willing to follow, to be his disciple, to walk with him from Bethany to Jerusalem, to walk the way of the passion to the cross and beyond. She doesn't know all that will happen yet, but she knows enough to make this extravagant gesture of love and commitment, a prophetic action of anointing Jesus for burial, a burial which will come all too soon into the story.
What about us? Where do we find ourselves in the story? I'm tempted to think it is very easy to be like Judas, as we fill out our Dedicated Living & Giving forms today. It is very easy in these days to be calculating and self-protective in the way we invest our precious time, our skills, our finances. Times are tough, jobs are vulnerable or simply not around. Our discretionary time seems ever more limited.
What would it take for us to have some of that generosity of spirit of Mary, that risk-taking ability, that willingness to make a spontaneous extravagant gesture without counting the cost? We Anglicans are not too hot on this, we are not too keen to make ourselves open to embarrassment or ridicule, though perhaps the current Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has shown a willingness to make such prophetic gestures in our midst, and indeed has been respected for it.
What about us as a Cathedral family? Today we will be having our AGM, we will be electing a number of people to leadership positions in our church community.
We are asking them to go out in faith, to be personally stretched and challenged, but I hope we ask nothing of them that we do not ask also of ourselves, for all of us need to be joining with Paul in his words: 'forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, we press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.' (Phil 3:13, 14).
'Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead' is always a challenge in a Cathedral setting, for we are at the same time a community of memory and a community of mission, a community who value the good things of our tradition and a community who are on a trajectory together to new places in Christ.
We are a very diverse community and that is one of our strengths as we seek to be a place of welcome and hospitality to all who enter our doors. But that also means that we have to work harder at finding our unity in Christ, and in that surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord.
Are we willing with Paul to weigh up all that we value about being part of this Cathedral community against the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord - the one whom we worship day by day, week by week in this sacred space?
A civil rights proponent, Lillian Smith said "To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives is the only way we can leave the future open."
I think I would want to adapt that for our Cathedral community: To believe in Christ, and to underwrite that with our lives is the only way we can leave the future open to God to work in our midst. May we do that today, for the glory of Christ among us. Amen.
