Readings appointed for today can be found here
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4 Jars, 2 Sinners, 1
Command
Three alabaster jars. Actually, there are four alabaster
jars and four women in four Gospels. In three of the Gospels, Matthew and Mark,
the woman is a prophet and her act of loving service will be told in
remembrance of her. The focal point in
these narratives is the prophetic action and the love of the women. In neither Mark
or Matthew, Mark being the earliest written, is the woman described as being
sinful.
There is also a woman with an alabaster jar in the Gospel of
John, and likewise an emphasis on the woman’s anointing being a for-shadowing of
Jesus’ death. In John, the woman with the Alabaster jar of nard is named Mary
and is the sister of Lazarus.
Held up against these other narratives, Luke is unique in
this description of the woman with the alabaster jar as a sinner. There is a
sinful woman who is forgiven in the Gospel of John, but she appears at a separate
point in the story and she has no alabaster jar.
So, two Gospels, John and Luke, with sinful women who are
forgiven. But, are you following me? There is a major difference. In John the
command to the woman is “go and sin no more” in Luke, it is “go in peace”. So
the part of this narrative that is unique to Luke, with no other appearance in
the Gospels is this command to “Go in peace”
Go in peace… as I read and spoke these words I found myself
considering a moment of peace in my own life…
I remember the day that I decided that I was going to say “yes”
to the call of priesthood. I was 23 and
living in a studio apartment on Lake Ave. in Cleveland. I had been out late the
night before, Lona’s 25th birthday party actually, and arrived home
in the wee small hours. So exhausted and in no mood to drag myself to church,
where I was scheduled to chalice, I was sitting in an ugly brown chair in my
living room and trying to get up the energy to head out. And, as I sat, I was
suddenly filled with a peculiar sense of peace. And, in that moment I knew that
I was going to do this.
A confidence in the path I was on, a path that was by no
means certain and which had seemed challenging to follow on the best of
days.
I’ve always wondered about that moment. About that peace.
And, this past week while I was reading a book about Christian discernment, I
came across a passage that described this feeling as one of “confidence at a
very deep level [that] indicates that we are moving in the right direction”.
(Grounded in God, 28) And, with that language affirming that my experience of confidence
was not without precedent…I turned to the Book of Common Prayer and the prayer
of quiet confidence,
“O God of peace,
who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness
and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we
pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (BCP 829)
Peace as a defining
quality of the God whom we serve. Peace in that still moment of communion where
all is right and good and we are ourselves, just as we are, and God is God and
we are made whole.
Go in peace.
in the passage we
hear today, this is the bidding, the dismissal, that the woman who anoints
Jesus’ feet receives following her absolution for sin. Having chosen for herself
to adopt this position of servitude and adoration, she is forgiven and sent out
with peace.
And, I imagine that
peace was imbued with that gift of quiet confidence. The sense that “all will
be well and all will be well and all matter of things shall be well”, as Julian
of Norwich uttered in her famous prayer of calm. In entering into this place of calm and certainty
it strikes me that the passage does not indicate the nature of the woman’s sin,
but it is emphatic about about the nature of her love.
So, despite the
efforts of scriptural revisionists to tell us otherwise, nowhere in scripture
does it say that this woman was a prostitute—and just to be clear, since I want
you to be clear on this, no where in scripture are we offered ANY indication
that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. What
she has done ceases to matter in the face of the transformation she has
undergone. This is ultimately, not about sin, it is about transformation—her transformation
and that of the community that refused to see her and her full humanity.
And, with that, the
continuation of the narrative “he went through cities and villages, proclaiming
and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” takes on a sense that this
good news is one of peace and newness of life to those who have been broken by
the structures and strictures of the social and political landscape.
It is no wonder
then that this movement was provided for by the women of the community—Mary,
Joanne, Chuza, Susanna—I feel certain that they could see, in Jesus, a future
in which their full humanity would be recognized. We’ve been hearing portions of Paul’s letter
to the Galatians, a letter written specifically to endorse the call to follow
Christ as one being meant for all of God’s children.
In Frederick
Buechner’s commentary on the passage we heard today in Galatians "And how
long was the whole great circus to last? Paul said, why, until we all
become human beings at last, until we all 'come to maturity,'
as he put it; and then, since there had been only one really human being
since the world began, until we all make it to where we're like him, he said -
'to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Ephesians 4:13).
Christs to each other, Christs to God. All of us. Finally. It was just as easy,
and just as hard, as that."
This idea that in
Christ, in Jesus, we are called to see each as fully human must have seemed and
been experienced as a radical and welcome departure from the norm for these
women—and in particular for the woman found weeping over Jesus’ feet. The
ignored, disparaged, fearful and exploited people of the world have long
grasped upon this liberating idea that what Christ offers is recognition of the
belovedness of every man, woman and child in creation—regardless of what the
world might say of those self same individuals.
What would our world
be like? What would our newsfeed, our newspapers, our twitter accounts look
like, if we could hold to this core understanding of shared and full humanity?
If the way of the world was one grounded in the peace of God. What if the
bidding to go in peace was one embodied, embraced and offered to our children
and all those they, and we, will encounter? I can begin to imagine, and it is
this imagining to which I will strive.
Next week in the
passage from the Galatians (part of this series we are hearing on the letter)
we will hear the famous passage, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no
longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's
offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
This is not an if,
it is a truth. We belong to Christ and in this there is perfect freedom. But,
our freedom is compromised, if we, like Simon cannot bid our brothers and
sisters that same peace.
Go in peace, Jesus
says to the wounded. Go in peace. This phrase becomes a liturgical action—and one
of immense power. Think on this, what does this mean for us in the here and
now. Because, we will say these words, we will declare peace to those who here
have sought forgiveness of sin. We will greet each other with these words and
declare it so. Peace, at the shaking of a hand, peace at the quick embrace.
Peace. This is not our peace, but the peace of God we share…and this is holy.
This is not coffee hour or hospitality time—this is a moment of radical welcome
and reconciliation.
In this moment, we
are invited to truly see each other and declare God’s love to all those we
encounter. In this moment, we set aside all hurts or offenses and that all too
human tendency to objectify our kindreds here on earth. In this moment, we are
invited to say yes to God’s invitation to a different way going forward.
Go in peace, and,
in that moment of peace, be filled with the quiet confidence that the way we
are taking is the right way and the way to which we are called by the God who
calls us to peace. Amen.
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