George A. Mason Palm Sunday Wilshire Baptist Church 28 March 2021 Sixth in series, Dying to Live Dallas, Texas “Remembering What She Did” Mark 14:1-10 In remembrance of me. That’s the children of Israel from slavery in phrase carved on Communion Egypt. The Romans understood tables all over Christendom. that it was a time ripe for a Jesus said to eat the bread and revolt against them as occupiers drink the cup in remembrance of of the Jewish homeland. They him. But in our Gospel story sent extra troops into Jerusalem today we have a different every year to keep the peace. pronoun: In remembrance of … HER . Jesus says: Wherever the Jewish leaders also wanted to good news is proclaimed in the keep the peace. They had an whole world, what she has done arrangement with Rome that will be told in remembrance of protected the people and their her. religious observances, even though they didn’t like it. Wow, now, there’s a woman Betraying Jesus to the Romans as whose name is forever inscribed an insurrectionist was pragmatic in the hall of fame of faith. Oh, politics: it would keep the status wait … We don’t know her name. quo and avoid unnecessary We don’t even know why we bloodshed. One man for the don’t, but we do know that what many. A sacrificial lamb, don’t she did is why we should. you know?! Just like one that would be slaughtered and eaten Today is Palm Sunday. Last night on the first night of Passover. was the first night of Passover, so our timing is perfect. The irony is thick. The tension is Passover—also known as the building. Feast of Unleavened Bread— was one of three major Jesus is close by, in Bethany at pilgrimage festivals that brought the house of Simon the leper. people from all around to crowd Even a leper has a name in the streets of Jerusalem. It is the Mark’s Gospel, as do most male Jewish freedom festival, the characters. Not the women. Not spiritual equivalent of our even this woman we are secular Independence Day. It supposed to remember every recalls God’s deliverance of the time the gospel is preached. You have to die to live . Some things never change. Here we are 2,000 years after what This is why she anoints his head Jesus said about this woman with oil, and presumably pours it being remembered every time on thick. In other similar stories, the gospel is preached, and we women anointed Jesus’ feet. But still can’t get our churches to call here we hear from Jesus that she women to preach the gospel! has symbolically prepared his Time after time we hear even body for burial. Anointing the our progressive Baptist churches head was something a prophet say they believe women may would do for a king. But she gets preach but their church isn’t the irony where no one else ready. Ready? Really? does: this king will die to save his people. Culture is like crabgrass; it’s dug in deep and hard to get out by While Jesus was at the table in the roots. Assumptions about Simon the leper’s house, this male privilege are deep-rooted woman, whoever she was, broke in Christian culture, but it’s high open an alabaster jar of time the Christian part roots out ointment and poured it out on the patriarchal part of church his head. This ointment was culture. This is not social from spikenard in the Himalayan tinkering we can take or leave as region of modern-day Tibet or Christians, Christians. This is Nepal. It would have cost about a directly linked to the gospel as year’s wages in Jesus’ time. Jesus tells us right here in this Which tells us this woman was story. Wherever the gospel is probably wealthy. That accounts proclaimed, what SHE has done for the scolding she received will be told in remembrance of from others who were there, her. presumably men. The nard could have been sold to take care of So, what did she do to receive the poor, they say. And that’s this blessing that we would true. But what she did was rather ignore than honor? She priceless. It came from seeing understood the gospel, that’s what everyone else was what. She recognized the missing—except Jesus and her. meaning of Jesus’ life and work that so many were missing then We know from Mark’s setup to and still are today. Which is this: this story that the religious 2 leaders are plotting to have Jesus a semiautomatic rifle, and just arrested and killed. The disciples six days later kills 10 people in no doubt held out hope that Boulder, Colorado grocery store. things could still be salvaged. By the way, in 2018 Boulder had Jesus would prevail. But this passed a law banning the sale of woman knows in her heart what assault rifles, but the NRA sued, love knows: love is the most and a judge overturned the law threatening thing in the world, just 10 days before he bought because love is what holds the the weapon. world together . Everything else tries to unseat love, because love We don’t know his motive yet, requires you to give up yourself but it appears he was a more in the interest of others. It calls left-leaning ideologue than the on you to go to any length—even right-leaning Atlanta killer. to the cross—to save your Which only reinforces the point neighbor. And we would rather that our problems are about go to any length—even putting right and wrong more than right our neighbor on a cross or on a and left. When we would rather lynching tree or in substandard protect ourselves at the expense housing, jobs, schools or jails— of the lives of others, we don’t in order to save ourselves or get the gospel that is summed up preserve our privilege. in our Lenten theme this year, Dying to Live . Look at what’s happened in our country the past two weeks. Two The unnamed woman does get it. more weeks, two more mass When she pours out the nard, shootings. The first in the she is pouring out herself. She Atlanta area is a man who can’t doesn’t dab it or drip it. Love control his own sexual pours itself out. Like a Savior temptation, and so he goes out who pours out his life on the and buys a 9mm handgun and cross. This kind of love saves, later that same day kills the and it holds the world together. women he considered objects of his desires. You can’t even One of Pope Francis’ favorite register to vote in Georgia the images about the unity of the same day as an election, but you church and the world is a can buy a handgun and take polyhedron. That is, it isn’t a eight lives that same day. And sphere, like a smooth, round ball. then another man buys an AR15, It has many facets, like a soccer 3 ball with raised sections, Eliza lived fifty years longer than connected underneath by an her ill-fated husband, Alexander. unseen substance. The pope She dedicated her life to telling likes to say that what connects his story, finishing his work, us are small acts of kindness, honoring him with her own gestures of love, little ways of work. One way she did that was honoring our neighbors and to remember his own painful sticking by them as if our life too story of being orphaned. So, she depends upon it. started an orphanage that continues to this day. When she One of our Wilshire members, died, The New York Times wrote Lindsay Bruehl, is a seminary of her: To a mind most richly student at Perkins. She preached cultivated, she added tenderest on this text for a preaching class, religious devotion and a warm and then she preached it again sympathy for the distressed. for the church our former pastoral resident, Jakob Topper, In other words, she understood in Norman, Oklahoma, pastors. the gospel. That it’s about Lindsay saw another woman in pouring out your life for others. this unnamed woman, a woman That small acts of kindness hold who was also almost lost to the world together. That love history, overshadowed by the means dying to self so that man in her story. But when Lin- others might live. Manuel Miranda decided to tell the story of Alexander Hamilton We will never know the name of in his astonishing musical, it was the woman in Bethany whom we his wife Eliza who shined are supposed to remember. But brightest. The musical was we can all remember her by named Hamilton; and now we doing what she did. understand that we can’t understand his story without Look first at the people in your understanding her story, just as life. Find the most vulnerable, Jesus told us that we can’t the neediest, the child with understand his story without learning challenges, the elderly understanding her story—that parent with declining health, the is, the meaning of what the teenager having trouble finding unnamed woman did that day in a place in the social network. Bethany. Break open the alabaster jar. Pour out the love. Remember 4 what she did. Then look for ways to care for people the world too easily overlooks or casts aside.