5 Lent C April 6, 2019
Is.43:16-21 Ps.126
Phil.3:8-14 Luke 20:9-19
The letters PDA have come to be the abbreviation for the "Public Display of Affection," and this has become a more sensitive issue in the wake of the "Me Too" movement and the previous habits of encroachment on private space that have been too long tolerated because of assumed access by mostly men.
More specifically though, PDA refers to mutual public display of affection between persons who are so in love that they cannot help themselves from expressing it even in public. And the cynical and offended public say or think, "Get a room," because of embarrassment and because the outsiders are not the lovers in love.
We have such an event of PDA in our Gospel for today. Mary of Bethany is unembarrassed to display her unabashed affection and devotion for Jesus. Even though she is in the privacy of her own home, she is in the company of friends. And she obviously hoped that her friends would understand her act of excessive devotion.
Mary is not embarrassed but who is? Judas Iscariot. Judas lived in a society where men and women did not touch or speak or interact; men and women were segregated. And this is what is interesting about the presentation of the Jesus Movement; on various occasions Jesus is in situations of violating this rule of the segregation of men and women in Jewish society.
Mary of Bethany, is certainly transgressing the social boundaries for women of her time. And Judas is totally embarrassed and he used financial waste as his excuse for criticism. Remember this is the one who is going to take a bribe for 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. Remember too, the infamous PDA of Judas with Jesus; a kiss of betrayal to initiate his seizure by the soldiers.
Judas was not okay with Jesus allowing such an encroachment upon his body, particularly his feet. Judas was implying that Jesus should have prevented Mary from even initiating such an act.
Why did Jesus permit such an act? The feet of a person are at the lowest part of the body. You can't get lower than the feet. In Indian society an elder or guru might be greeted with prostrations and touching of the feet as a sign of respect. I once did a baptism for some Indian Christians and the baptized person and his mother insisted on bowing and touching my feet. Certainly in the American context, it seemed out of place even though one did not want to reject their way of expressing respect and gratitude.
The washing of feet was the duty of the host in the time of Jesus and if the home had servants, they would get the assignment. Jesus himself, at the Last Supper, was not ashamed of being a foot-washing servant for his disciples.
In the narrative of John's Gospel, Jesus had just brought Lazarus back to life and it could be that Lazarus was the financial sponsor for his sibling sisters. Mary was very grateful to Jesus for the return to life of her brother Lazarus.
After we read this Gospel for the immediate face value of the words of this story, we further should ponder that this story was being written for the church of the community of John probably forty years after Jesus lived. And we must ask, "What did the recounting of this story mean in the churches which gathered forty years after Jesus was gone?"
In the early church, Mary of Bethany and Judas Iscariot had become "types" of person known in the Jesus Movement. We know from the Epistles of Paul that he had persons who had experiences of the Risen Christ and leaders in the church, yet they betrayed their callings. There were people like Judas in the early church who were involved in the Movement but who could not identify with the experiences of devotion of those who had mystical experiences of the Risen Christ. Mary of Bethany and Judas Iscariot represented contrasting personality of persons who were exposed to the experience of the Risen Christ, but with different responses.
As we read this for our lives today, we ourselves need to assess the places and situations where we have honestly come to express our devotion to Christ. I think most people keep their mystical experiences of God private because they are so individual that they might be misunderstood if they are openly expressed. We also can be worried about how someone else might characterize our experiences of devotion to God and so we are reticent to display our public devotion to God for being an intervening Higher Power at important times in our lives.
And that brings to what we are doing today in our liturgy. Lots of people would observe our liturgy today and like Judas say, "What a waste of time and money. Why can't you spend your money on the poor? Why maintain a building and a property? Why pay for clergy and everything that goes into keeping the parish going? Why are you kneeling in church to nothing that you can see? Why are you drinking wine and eating bread and thinking that you are participating in Christ's body? Why are you praying to one you can't see?"
Many people forsake the liturgy because they have become embarrassed by such expression of devotion to God in public. "I've got a private room; I can express that devotion at home."
We need to resist the cynical attitude of Judas regarding our expression of excess in our public display of affection for Christ in our "embarrassingly irrational" liturgies.
So why are we here today, expressing PDA for Christ? Why are we being so silly? We are being silly because we are recognizing how small we are when faced with the Plenitude of God and how that Plenitude gets expressed toward us. And in our silliness, we are obliged to bow low before God's greatness and before Christ who made the greatness of God's love more readily knowable by us.
Let us today resist the cynicism of Judas toward worship and devotion. Worship and devotion are something we need to do because of what God has already done for us and for for what we yet need God to do for us.
How did St. Paul characterize the person who had the mystical experience of the Risen Christ? He said that their lives were like a fragrant offering. As Mary of Bethany wanted to offer the very best fragrance to Jesus for his power to give new life, so we want to offer our lives as a fragrance to God in our hopes of being winsome in this world to the point of being able to cover the stench of sin and death and point to the hope of our future in God.
Go forth today and do something excessive for Christ and do something excessive for your parish too as a sign of your recognition of the Plenitude of God and the love of Christ. Amen.
More specifically though, PDA refers to mutual public display of affection between persons who are so in love that they cannot help themselves from expressing it even in public. And the cynical and offended public say or think, "Get a room," because of embarrassment and because the outsiders are not the lovers in love.
We have such an event of PDA in our Gospel for today. Mary of Bethany is unembarrassed to display her unabashed affection and devotion for Jesus. Even though she is in the privacy of her own home, she is in the company of friends. And she obviously hoped that her friends would understand her act of excessive devotion.
Mary is not embarrassed but who is? Judas Iscariot. Judas lived in a society where men and women did not touch or speak or interact; men and women were segregated. And this is what is interesting about the presentation of the Jesus Movement; on various occasions Jesus is in situations of violating this rule of the segregation of men and women in Jewish society.
Mary of Bethany, is certainly transgressing the social boundaries for women of her time. And Judas is totally embarrassed and he used financial waste as his excuse for criticism. Remember this is the one who is going to take a bribe for 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. Remember too, the infamous PDA of Judas with Jesus; a kiss of betrayal to initiate his seizure by the soldiers.
Judas was not okay with Jesus allowing such an encroachment upon his body, particularly his feet. Judas was implying that Jesus should have prevented Mary from even initiating such an act.
Why did Jesus permit such an act? The feet of a person are at the lowest part of the body. You can't get lower than the feet. In Indian society an elder or guru might be greeted with prostrations and touching of the feet as a sign of respect. I once did a baptism for some Indian Christians and the baptized person and his mother insisted on bowing and touching my feet. Certainly in the American context, it seemed out of place even though one did not want to reject their way of expressing respect and gratitude.
The washing of feet was the duty of the host in the time of Jesus and if the home had servants, they would get the assignment. Jesus himself, at the Last Supper, was not ashamed of being a foot-washing servant for his disciples.
In the narrative of John's Gospel, Jesus had just brought Lazarus back to life and it could be that Lazarus was the financial sponsor for his sibling sisters. Mary was very grateful to Jesus for the return to life of her brother Lazarus.
After we read this Gospel for the immediate face value of the words of this story, we further should ponder that this story was being written for the church of the community of John probably forty years after Jesus lived. And we must ask, "What did the recounting of this story mean in the churches which gathered forty years after Jesus was gone?"
In the early church, Mary of Bethany and Judas Iscariot had become "types" of person known in the Jesus Movement. We know from the Epistles of Paul that he had persons who had experiences of the Risen Christ and leaders in the church, yet they betrayed their callings. There were people like Judas in the early church who were involved in the Movement but who could not identify with the experiences of devotion of those who had mystical experiences of the Risen Christ. Mary of Bethany and Judas Iscariot represented contrasting personality of persons who were exposed to the experience of the Risen Christ, but with different responses.
As we read this for our lives today, we ourselves need to assess the places and situations where we have honestly come to express our devotion to Christ. I think most people keep their mystical experiences of God private because they are so individual that they might be misunderstood if they are openly expressed. We also can be worried about how someone else might characterize our experiences of devotion to God and so we are reticent to display our public devotion to God for being an intervening Higher Power at important times in our lives.
And that brings to what we are doing today in our liturgy. Lots of people would observe our liturgy today and like Judas say, "What a waste of time and money. Why can't you spend your money on the poor? Why maintain a building and a property? Why pay for clergy and everything that goes into keeping the parish going? Why are you kneeling in church to nothing that you can see? Why are you drinking wine and eating bread and thinking that you are participating in Christ's body? Why are you praying to one you can't see?"
Many people forsake the liturgy because they have become embarrassed by such expression of devotion to God in public. "I've got a private room; I can express that devotion at home."
We need to resist the cynical attitude of Judas regarding our expression of excess in our public display of affection for Christ in our "embarrassingly irrational" liturgies.
So why are we here today, expressing PDA for Christ? Why are we being so silly? We are being silly because we are recognizing how small we are when faced with the Plenitude of God and how that Plenitude gets expressed toward us. And in our silliness, we are obliged to bow low before God's greatness and before Christ who made the greatness of God's love more readily knowable by us.
Let us today resist the cynicism of Judas toward worship and devotion. Worship and devotion are something we need to do because of what God has already done for us and for for what we yet need God to do for us.
How did St. Paul characterize the person who had the mystical experience of the Risen Christ? He said that their lives were like a fragrant offering. As Mary of Bethany wanted to offer the very best fragrance to Jesus for his power to give new life, so we want to offer our lives as a fragrance to God in our hopes of being winsome in this world to the point of being able to cover the stench of sin and death and point to the hope of our future in God.
Go forth today and do something excessive for Christ and do something excessive for your parish too as a sign of your recognition of the Plenitude of God and the love of Christ. Amen.
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