<html><body>This is good, Allison. I have no problem about your hair discussion and think most would understand.<div><br></div><div>I had a thought that, since you’re giving this in a hospital setting, you might be able to work in hospital smells, good or bad - I’ve always enjoyed the smell of antiseptic disinfectant - and maybe a hospital reference... healing? Hope? Comfort?</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for sharing.<br><br>Bob<br><div class="reply-new-signature"></div><p>-----------------------------------------</p>From: "Allison Dean" <aaclinedean@gmail.com><br>To: "Propertalk"<br>Cc: <br>Sent: Saturday April 6 2019 7:10:57AM<br>Subject: [Propertalk] Lent 5c Reflection<br><br>
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Another rare reflection probably going to be preached via hospital radio tomorrow as the noise of drills and hammers construct a temporary hospital chapel below our current one in preparation for a move the week after Easter. Barbara Brown-Taylor and Kathryn Matthews were the inspiration for me this week. Comments and thoughts welcome as it is a bit different from what I would normally prepare.<br>
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Allison Cline-Dean,
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Lead Chaplain,
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East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
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Based at Colchester Hospital, Colchester, Essex, UK<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%">Isn’t it odd how scents can trigger memories?<span> </span>Remember the smell last summer when the first rain came down after the six weeks of heatwave – the odour as the rain hit the ground?<span> </span>Earthy, damp, unmistakable, wonderful. <span> </span>It was a long, generous rain for parched ground and crops as well as for children wanting to jump in puddles!<span> </span><span> </span>And then there are perfumes and after-shave colognes.<span> </span>When I smell Chanel No. 5 I think of a certain person who is no longer with us – a crusty, to the point lady with a heart of gold and she loved Chanel No. 5.<span> </span>She would not leave the house to go and clean the school without a spritz of her Chanel – she was subtle in the application yet the fragrance left a trail as she walked by.<span> </span>As we recall certain scents that trigger memories, our gospel invites us to experience God’s extravagant generosity as portrayed by Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with the fragrant nard.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%">This story is also used by the other Gospel writers but in different ways and in different contexts.<span> </span>John is the only writer who states that the woman is Mary.<span> </span>These 12 verses are the turning point in John’s gospel.<span> </span>This is where Jesus, the popular itinerant rabbi leaves the world behind and heads for Jerusalem where in six days time he will be brought before Pilate and eventually crucified.<span> </span>Jesus knows that when he came to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead that he left the safety of the lands across the river and put himself in the position where various officials can plot his arrest.<span> </span>He has jumped from the fat into the fire – he knows he is no longer in a safe place.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%">Yet before Jesus heads for Jerusalem he attends a dinner party thrown by Martha in Bethany, just on the edge of Jerusalem, to celebrate Lazarus’ raising from the dead.<span> </span>It was a lavish party because the men were reclining at tables.<span> </span>This was not just a simple dinner amongst friends around a table with people seated on chairs or sitting on the floor.<span> </span>No!<span> </span>This is a dinner where there is the equivalent of a chaise longue for each guest.<span> </span>Martha would be bustling around the kitchen ensuring that the very best food and wine was being prepared and served.<span> </span>This was a celebration.<span> </span>This was a lavish banquet with an abundance of food – Martha’s way of thanking Jesus for bringing her brother Lazarus back from the dead.<span> </span>The men reclining gives us a foretaste of the Last Supper in a few nights time. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%">And in the midst of it all, Mary enters the room with a beautiful alabaster jar, breaks the neck of it, and the pungent smell of spikenard permeates the room and the house, going into all the corners.<span> </span>It is a musky, sharp scent halfway between mint and ginseng, according to Barbara Brown-Taylor. <span> </span>It is in contrast to the four day old “stench” that Martha spoke of when Jesus told her to take him to Lazarus’ tomb.<span> </span>Possibly this jar was the last very expensive bottle left from having anointed Lazarus’ body before it went into the tomb.<span> </span><span> </span>Or this bottle of spikenard may have been Mary’s dowry, started by her parents when she was born, added to by relatives over the years, each time a little more put in the alabaster jar and then re-sealed with wax.<span> </span>However, the heady scent would have been quite a contrast to the smell of the empty tomb so recently vacated by Lazarus. <span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">After breaking the neck of the bottle, Mary kneels down, loosens her hair, and begins to anoint Jesus’ feet.<span> </span>She uses all the nard, rubbing it into the crevices and cracks of Jesus’ feet with her hair.<span> </span>Mary breaks all the rules with this lavish, generous, and extravagant gift.<span> Just as Jesus breaks down the barriers, so Mary too breaks rules and boundaries.</span><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 26.05pt 10pt 36pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt">She does things not acceptable in polite company in that culture and time: she unbinds her hair, loosens it as women did only for their husbands or when they were in mourning; she pours expensive balm on the feet of Jesus (his feet, as one would anoint a corpse, not a king; a king would be anointed on the head).<span> </span>And Mary touches Jesus even though she's a single woman – again, not "appropriate" - and then she wipes his feet with her hair.<span> </span>(Kathryn Matthews)<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt">Mary does not hold back the bottle – she uses all the ointment at great cost to herself, and in effect, prophecies as to what will happen in the next few days.<span> </span>. . . “Jesus began his ministry with an extravagance of excellent wine at a wedding feast, so his ministry comes to a close here in an extravagance of expensive ointment, a passionate display of love and caring that even the woman who offers it does not fully understand.” (Barbara Brown-Taylor, <i>Bread of Angels</i>).<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt">I wonder if, as Jesus and his disciples gathered for the Last Supper a few evenings later, reclining at the table, if they recalled that evening with Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.<span> </span>As Jesus washed the feet of his disciples after the Last Supper, were he and the disciples drawn back to those moments when Mary bent over Jesus’ feet and washed them.<span> </span>In that single act did Mary give Jesus the idea for the new commandment that he gave the disciples that night as he washed their feet:<span> </span>Love one another, as I have loved you. <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt">Mary’s demonstration of her love for Christ gives us much food for thought this week.<span> </span>Mary’s love shows us the lavishness and generosity of God’s love and mercy for each of us. <span> </span></span><span style="font-size:12pt">In that one single extravagant act, Mary shows the disciples, Jesus, Martha, Lazarus, and us what it means <span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 26.05pt 10pt 36pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt">to love our Lord so much that we break open our hearts to those around us and to our world – to give of ourselves and not count the cost.<span> </span>In that moment of lavishly anointing Jesus feet, foretelling of his death and burial, Mary demonstrates how an extravagant </span><span style="font-size:12pt">gesture of love and generosity can transform a situation. A generous spirit offers forgiveness and healing, a spirit of kindness offers healing and hope and speaks words of encouragement, a spirit of freedom gives out of the abundance we live in so that others have enough to live.<span> </span>(Kathryn Matthews). <span> </span></span><span style="font-size:12pt"><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0cm 0cm 10pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12pt">This is a story of contrasts – Mary’s generosity vs. Judas’ miserliness.<span> </span>Mary’s love against the fear that others in the room are experiencing.<span> </span>It is a story that shows us just how extravagant, generous, and lavish God’s love is.<span> </span>God’s love is not stingy, it is not miserly, it is not fearful, and it won’t run out.<span> </span>God invites us to open our hearts, our minds, and spirits, in the midst of an world filled with fear, violence and political machinations, and experience God’s extravagant, generous, and lavish love anointing us, pouring into our spirits, giving new life and new hope, filling us with the fragrance of Christ.<span> </span>When we are filled with God’s love, “</span><span style="font-size:12pt">There is no reason to fear running out--of nard or of life either one--for where God is concerned, there is always more than we can ask or imagine--gifts from our lavish, lavish Lord.” <span> </span>(Barbara Brown-Taylor)<span></span></span></p>
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