The Scent of Salvation, The Posture of Possibility
By Griff
Martin
On Isaiah 43:14-21 and John 12:1-8
For
the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On
the Fifth Sunday of Lent
April
7, 2019
Incarnate and Resurrected God, we
ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and
breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of your
presence here in this space and in these words, God, for if we are present to
you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you then
nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the
Comforter. Amen.
Close
your eyes and take a deep breath. Can you smell that wonderful grape soda smell
of Mountain Laurel blooming, or the aroma of Robert’s rolls baking in the oven
downstairs filling this place before Agape meal, or the bookstore smell of an
old used book opened for the first time in a long time, or the vanilla and
cherry smell of tobacco burning in a pipe, or the fresh and perfect smell of
rain falling to the ground, or the smell of baseball fields in the spring, or
the unique intoxicating scent of the one you love, or the sweetness of puppy
breath…?
“Smells are surer than sounds or sights to make your heart-strings
crack -- they start those awful voices o’ nights that whisper, ‘Old man, come
back’!” These are the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling’s magnificent poem “Lichtenberg,”
in which an Australian trooper who smells the blossoms of a tree called Golden
Wattle is reminded of his home in New South Wales.
Smells can do that.
It’s why last weekend, when we were rearranging a
closet and found Blake’s first baby blanket, without even knowing it, I found
myself putting the blanket to my face to try and smell that newborn baby smell.
It’s why months after my grandmother died, I found myself holding her clothes
and trying to smell her on them before the smell was gone completely. It’s why
when you walk into a place that you have not been in some time – your parents’
home, the place you vacation each summer, the beach – it’s why the first thing
you do is take a long inhale.
Smells can open you up.
For good and for bad. For every good smell, I can
also remember the smell of the hospital room where Jude stayed for 2 weeks as
an infant (a combination of strong bleach cleaners and medicine and
institution). I can still remember the smell of Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(as Abby taught our children, this is the smell of sad, bad choices). How many
of us can still remember the smell of our middle school cafeteria or a gym
locker room (these alone should give us a theology of hell)?
Smell, olfaction, is deeply powerful. Psychologists
now state that smell is more linked with memory than any other sense. It’s also
highly emotive; it’s believed that kissing came from sniffing…you smelled first,
and then you tasted. We can detect one trillion distinct smells and our scent
cells are renewed every 30 to 60 days. It’s believed that smell is linked to
evolution, emotion and memory. Losing your sense of smell is a big deal and is
often an indicator of disease, and in one recent study was a leading indicator
of death within 5 years.
Our Old Testament prophet for this morning, Isaiah,
is writing to a group of people who have lost their sense of smell; they have
forgotten what home smells like. This passage comes from Second Isaiah
(remember, Isaiah is really three books in one). The second book is written to
those in Babylonian exile, which is not the worst of the exiles. They are not
being enslaved – in fact, they are being given quite a bit of freedom. But it’s
not home, and they are quickly adapting to the ways of a new empire (how
quickly we do so). They are getting comfortable as a conquered people, and they
are forgetting who they are and the work they are called to do. They are trying
to find a new future; a new way forward.
I don’t know if you can picture that or not….a
people who feel they are not where they belong, a people who are trying so hard
not to get too comfortable in a new empire, a people whose way of life has been
taken from them and a new way has been given, a people who thought the future
looked like this and suddenly it looks like that and now they have to decide
who they are here and now, a people who have forgotten who they are and what
work they are called to do.
And there, here, the preacher enters with a message
for them, part of which we read this morning. It begins by reminding the people
of what God has done for them, the central event of their faith up until this point….Remember the God who saved you from slavery,
and when you were fleeing from the Egyptians who had enslaved you and when you
came upon a river that you could not cross and you were looking at death behind
you and death in front of you and suddenly then God made a way where there was
no way, the river parted and you walked across on dry land. Remember that, can
you smell the fear and the river and the land you walked across because the mud
from a river has a distinct smell? You there?
And all heads are nodding because of course they
remember that. This is the central act of faith, and remembrance is a pretty
big deal in the Torah. And the preacher, once he has the community on the edge
of their seats, remembering what God has done for them, he says to them, Well forget it now. In his words, “Do
not remember the former things, or consider the old.”
It’s the record scratch of all record scratches; the
organ hitting the wrong note in the middle of a hymn we all know well. Wait,
what? That does not sound right. Do not
remember.... Don’t send me a nasty email, I am just reporting the words Isaiah
preached, words we have long clung to as believers. Of course, we cling to the
words because of what comes next.
“I am about to do a new thing, now it springs up, do
young perceive it?” And Isaiah then gives this beautiful poetic picture, a
complete reversal of sorts. This time God is not going to provide dry ground in
the midst of a river; this time God is going to provide streams of fresh water
in the desert (don’t anticipate God always acting the same way).
It’s a total mind twist. To understand and
comprehend and get the new thing God is doing, we have to forget all that God
has done before? How do we do that? How does a church like ours with almost 200
years of history forget all that has come before us? Do we forget the
incredible progressive stances we have made as a community? Do we forget our “all
people” language? Do we forget our commitment to downtown Austin? Do we forget
our calling to be a cathedral in the heart of the city? Do we forget the saints
that have sat in these pews and made us who we are today? Now, by no means am I
a person who often gets called nostalgic, but I also don’t want amnesia.
So, what do we do?
Forget. The word is important because God is telling
a people who are often told to remember to forget. I knew I had to be missing
something, so I did the thing I hate having to do, I started looking into
language and what the word meant. The word we are looking at does not mean “to
remove from memory.” It means something closer to “blot out.” I did not find
the comfort I was looking for yet, so I kept digging and then I found this:
“this word is not about the absence of something, it’s the freedom from it.”
It’s not forgetting the past as much as it is not
holding onto it too tightly. It’s the Pastor Nadia Bolz Webber: “I really feel
strongly that you have to be deeply rooted in tradition in order to innovate
with integrity.” Breathe again. I am not asking us to forget who we are
and all that has led us to this moment, but I am asking us to assume a new
posture.
But what does this look like? Don’t remember, let go
so you can hold onto the new thing I am doing.
Here is what I think it looks like: A woman, a dear
friend of Jesus, someone that he considers home, a woman who has just been
through a tough chapter, her brother died and Jesus – who she loves and
considers a friend – did not come back to heal him when he was sick. In fact,
Jesus was not there when he died. Forget the healing at this point; he was not
even there during her first 3 days of grief, and then he was there, and so much
of what has just happened is a blur to her. Because not only was Jesus there,
but suddenly her brother, who was once very much dead, is now very much alive
right in front of her.
And she is at dinner with both of them right now and
a host of other people. Think of the smells in that room. The smell of death
has to still be very present (remember her first words about Lazarus being
raised: "but Lord, he stinketh”). There is the smell of grief still in the
air. There is the smell of supper and a crowd stuffed together in a small
space. There is the smell of fear because what Jesus just did has gotten a lot
of attention. Maybe she is uttering that line again, “but Lord, it stinketh.”
It’s a tough space. There are a lot of feelings.
Grief still in the air. Confusion over Lazarus suddenly being alive. There is
certainly a feeling that now that Jesus has done this and now that he has left
the safety of being away from Jerusalem and is back, what will happen to him
next? The best word I can think of is things in that room are tender.
And in Mary walks, not carrying a dinner tray, but a
bottle of perfume. And then before anyone can stop her, she has taken this
perfume and broken the bottle open and poured it onto Jesus’ feet, and she is
anointing him and wiping his feet dry with her hair, breaking every rule she
could about a single woman touching a man on his feet.
And the room suddenly smells differently.
There is still the smell of death, but over that is
the smell of new life. She has Eastered before Easter.
That is what forgetting the old and beholding the
new looks like. It’s the very posture of Christ-following: gratitude and faith.
Mary enters that room, and I am not certain she is
100% certain about this whole “anointing the body of Jesus before he dies”
train of thinking that we give her credit for, looking back on the story
(hindsight is always 20/20). I think she suspects it; I think she knows that
something big is about to happen, but so does everyone else in the room. They
know Jesus is now too close to the powers of the day and they know he has now
done something that is going to cause a commotion. They know a confrontation is
coming.
I think Mary comes from a place of gratitude. This
Jesus just brought her brother back from the dead and this is how she wants to
say thank you. I think in her heart that is the primary reason that she goes to
her room and gets the most expensive thing she owns and finds a way to bring that
to Jesus, to let go, to fill the room with a new scent.
And I think somewhere in doing that, in acting out
on this gratitude, she begins to sense that she is doing something much deeper;
that there is a truth to her act that she does not even fully understand. I
think somewhere, while wiping the feet of Jesus dry with her hair, she hears
the prophet Isaiah speaking in her heart: “Mary, don’t hold too tight to this,
because God is about to do something so new that it will blow your mind.”
It’s God’s pattern – a path in a river, streams in
the desert, a brother brought back to life, Jesus resurrected from the dead….
Behold I am doing a new thing. And pay attention to that first word, because
it’s not believe I am doing a new
thing, it’s behold.
And to behold something, we have got to get our
hands free. You cannot hold onto the new if your hands can’t let go of the
past. And I think the posture of beholding is the tension of gratitude and
faith.
It’s the prayer of Daj Hammrjkold: “For all that has
been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.”
What does the world smell like to you these days?
Because the winds I am smelling are winds of fear and tension and pain. I know
a lot of people who hurt these days and who are scared. I think the atmosphere
of our world is very much like that first dinner where the formerly dead
Lazarus is sitting at the head of the table now very much alive. I think our
world is tender like that. I think your lives and hearts are tender like that.
I think our church is tender like that right now.
And what we need is someone brave enough to behold
among us…to take the position of gratitude and faith, someone who can remember
with gratitude all that God has done and can look out at the new context and
see what form the new thing takes today.
To assume the posture of beholding with gratitude in
one hand and faith in the other.
Someone (or even better, a community) that is brave
enough to walk into our tender world today and say to God, “For all that has
been, thanks, and for all that will be, yes.” It’s all God needs to change the
world, to bring water in the desert, to bring life where it is most needed.
Behold I am doing a new thing and it smells like
Easter lilies, sunrises and hope. Amen and amen.
*artwork: Unction of Christ, Painting on wood by Julia Stankova, 2017, juliastankova.com
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