Bodegas and Nard

The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 12^th Chapter

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

The hypothesis was that the process people have used for centuries to turn wine made from European grapes into Sherry in Spain could mask or eliminate the less desirable flavor characteristics of wine made from the native Muscadine grapes of North Carolina.  In Spain, where true Sherry is from, they make wine, fortify it by adding additional wine spirits and then age it in large oak casks in the hot, Spanish sun in large warehouses called Bodegas because, let’s face it, “Bodegas” sounds way more romantic than “warehouses.”    

THAT was the hypothesis.  Next, the hypothesis was tested.  Wine was made, a small scale replica of a Bodega was made and the telltale flavor chemicals that characterized real Sherry were measured as they developed.  In the end, Sherry was made, but the hypothesis… that the sherry flavors could mask the less desirable flavor characteristics of native North Carolina grapes, was proven false.  The skunky, funky flavor of Scupernog Muscadines would not go away, no matter how many romantic, Andalusian, terms you used for the process. 

Things didn’t turn out as hoped and that was a bit of a bummer to be honest.  If it had worked, the grape growers in North Carolina might have found a new market for their grapes.  But what we did learn is that the grape growers in North Carolina shouldn’t invest their money creating a Sherry Bodega.  It also got a kid a Master’s Degree in Food Science and a job at The Coca-Cola Company where he met his future wife.  So, it wasn’t a total waste. 

Things don’t always turn out the way we’d like or think they should.  When Jesus showed up in Bethany at Lazarus’ house, nobody thought things were going the way they should.  Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and THAT had become the final straw.  He wasn’t just annoying to the Romans and their allies any more, he was gaining a following and that was dangerous.

Nobody needed to be psychic to know what was going to happen when Jesus walked the one and a half miles from Bethany to Jerusalem.  When he walked in, they would kill him.  What was up for grabs in Lazarus’ dining room that evening was not what would happen to Jesus, but what would the folks gathered there DO with the real, devastating, disappointing, overwhelmingly sad fact that things were not going to end up as they had hoped or expected.  Their hypothesis had been that Jesus would become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!  Kick out the Romans and rule like King David, ushering in an era of peace where swords got beat into plows and spears transformed into pruning hooks and everyone had time to sit under their own fig tree!  But now it was clear.  It wasn’t going to be like that.  The question that night was how would they react now that things didn't go as they expected or hoped?

Today’s Gospel shows us four ways folks can react when things go terribly, horribly wrong.  Option A:  Lazarus’ reaction…  just sit there at the table in stunned or accepting silence… we’ll never really know which.  Option B:  Martha’s reaction…  run from the truth, stay busy and push the thought from your head.  Option C:  Judas’ reaction… Try and change the subject from Jesus’ obvious, impending death to something else… anything else.  Option D:  Mary’s reaction… Lean into the truth… even though the truth is horribly painful.   

The “right” answer we’re meant to learn to pick from this lesson is what Mary chose, but why is THAT the RIGHT answer?  What she did was strange… She went into the bedroom and found a jar of perfume.  She came to Jesus and didn’t anoint him on the head, as you would the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but anointed his feet as you would a body for burial and wiped it from his feet with her hair in an overwhelmingly intimate gesture and the house was filled with both aroma of his coming death and her intimate, deeply felt grief.

Jesus knew what going to Jerusalem meant.  The hypothesis that Jesus would become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and rule from Jerusalem for a thousand years was proved false. They all knew it.  By returning to Bethany, Jesus was not simply acknowledging that reality, but leaning into it… leaning into The Way of the Cross and one of the most annoying things about The Way of the Cross is that it ends in death… real, terrible, painful death… and Jesus was leaning right into it and everyone in the room knew it… everyone in the room saw it… but only Mary chose to lean right into it WITH him.

I don't think she was thinking that night that real transformation only happens through death and resurrection... that real change requires giving up our own agenda... that the promised land only comes after a long walk in the wilderness... I think the only thing she knew in that dining room was that Jesus was determined to walk the path to the Cross... and in faith and love and devotion for Jesus, she decided to walk with him on that path. 

You may have noticed that even here in Maine, things STILL don’t always go the way we expect or hope they will go.  The Way to the Kingdom of God, STILL takes unexpected turns in the wilderness and the story is STILL strewn with unexpected and frankly, unwanted plot twists even here… thousands of miles away from Bethany and thousands of years later.  And you and me… we STILL face the exact same choice that Lazarus, Mary, Martha and Judas had in Lazarus’ dining room when things don’t go as expected or how we might have hoped... We can sit in stunned silence, run from the truth, try to change the subject or lean into it, acknowledging the pain and walking forward in faith.  

We do, however, have something those four didn’t have.  We, unlike them, live on this side of Easter.  Even in the midst of Lent, we hold onto the promise of Easter each Sunday… the Sundays in Lent aren’t counted as part of the 40 days you know.  So each Sunday we remember that Easter really does follow every Good Friday and so we proclaim the mystery of faith… Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  And with that promise, with bread and wine nourishing us for the journey, we have a bit more strength to choose like Mary chose and lean into the path that Jesus is walking even when that path isn’t the one hoped we would be walking and isn’t at all the way we had expected to go. 

You may have noticed that things have not gone as hypothesized here at 209.  The experiment has gone in a way we didn’t expect.  The author of the story has added in a plot twist and yet, Jesus continues to walk the Way of the Cross, continues to call us to follow, to be transformed, and continues to ask us to TRUST that the path he walks, even when the path leads through pain and tears, disappointment and grief, doesn’t end in a tomb.  The path Jesus calls us to walk continues THROUGH the wilderness, through the hurt and through death itself and into an abundant, resurrected, transformed life that is more than we could ever ask or imagine.  Amen.