Jesus' dinner with Mary, Martha & Lazarus

Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

by Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor

traditional services, 3/28/04

Text: John 12:1-8

Sermon:

You Have Six Days

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I’m not sure how you might have initially reacted to today’s sermon title: “You Have Six Days.” You probably would hear words like that with some anxiety: six days of what; six days before what? Am I talking about six shopping days until Christmas? Six days before the bill comes due… to complete the mission… or to finish the project? Maybe we’re talking about six days of vacation, leave time.

You have six days. – Maybe it’s a devastating prognosis: six days before the meteor hits the earth, or six days before you or someone you love are gone. Then it’s a reminder of how fragile and how suddenly short life can seem — when there are only 6 days. One week, counting today and now what do you do?

The ushers have passed out a half sheet of scrap paper. I want you to take a pencil or pen and imagine that you have just received this news—maybe from on high, maybe from your doctor, or maybe from the news channel that you have six days. Take a minute and write down in a word or phrase three things you would want to do if you knew you had six days. [Pause for a minute for everyone to think and write.]

Yesterday, we had our annual council and staff retreat. During lunch at Clifford’s Restaurant one of the council members sitting across from me was mentioning that—because of some of his own experiences losing loved ones—he now makes the small, but incredibly important effort, everyday, to somehow show or tell each of his kids and wife that he loves them… whether they want to hear it or not.

Not long ago, I lead a service at the funeral home here in town. Their mom had battled cancer. At some point near the end she had them record some final words for her family. To each of her kids she expressed her love, but told them—one by one she asked each of her grown children—commanded each of them: “Don’t always wait for some tragedy like this, like death—before pulling together and loving each other like the family we are.”

They played her words back during the middle of the service. It was an eerie moment for me to hear her for the first time after she had died—this woman I’d never met. It was also powerful for the family and for me. They had known she was dying for a year… and yet it seemed so sudden at the end for some of them, and others had waited too long. Now they had each other again. What would they do? What would they do differently?

What would we do—differently—if we knew, if we were aware of the importance of… this moment? My loved one, my mom, my dad, brother, sister, children, the importance of each friend, or the next person you meet: what would we do differently if we really understood the importance of moments in the presence of each other, in the presence of God… and Jesus Christ?

Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Our gospel began by stating to us that this happened six days before the Passover. Jesus went to eat with the siblings Martha, Mary and Lazarus. In fact, it says, they gave a dinner for him, perhaps to show their gratitude and joy after Jesus called Lazarus out from smelly death. They also seemed to sense a need for this meal, an impending need to do…something…while there was time.

Six days, before the Passover, before the betrayal, six days until Jesus would be taken. You see, they remembered this detail—their last week with Jesus.

I don’t think they knew what was coming—but because of Jesus’ warnings and by their actions, especially Mary’s, they seemed to know something was up. Six days before—and what did they do?

Lazarus hosted a dinner. If time was short, would you be like him? On your half-sheet of paper, is that what you wrote? You would call your friends together—your closest friends…family. Or, maybe a friend: to spend one more day …one more day to laugh, talk, joke and reminisce.

Martha served. She used this time to do what she did best. Pastor Messler-Early wrote in a recent Bible study that Martha’s way was similar to our typical approach to Lent. “She serves. She gets her house in order and makes sure that she sees to [people’s] needs.”W A careful meal, lovingly prepared, and served.

Is this what you would do? Is that what you wrote on your paper—that you would get things in order for those you love?

And Mary, in an incredible, prodigal and intimate way, she anointed Jesus’ feet, wiped them with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of her action. It seemed almost reckless at the time—wasteful to some eyes. But worth it.

Mary worshipped and gave lavishly—for a moment, for this moment. She gave in a way that the memory and the significance of that moment would be remembered, retold, and—in that way—it would last forever. Lazarus would ask, “Do you remember when Mary poured all that nard on his feet?”

Martha would answer, “Yes, I remember perfectly… It took months before I got the house completely aired out!”

Is that what you would do with 6 days? Make it full, somehow, rich and big…to be remembered after you? Would you leave a lavish gift behind—to show forever what was important to you, dear to you? Would you make sure that something you valued would go on after you—so that there would always be at least a hint, a lingering reminder in the world, that you were here? You were here.

“You will always have the poor,” our lesson ended, and in another place, Jesus and the Bible added, “so feed them.” “You will always have the poor (so feed them), but remember that you will not always have me.” For us, this is a reminder that we will always be charged with service to those who need, the needs in our community and in the world, and we must answer that charge.

However, we will not always have this moment, this person, this chance, to see Jesus in the moment and in face of others, each one, one-by-one. We sill not always have the chance to see or show love, to show importance and significance, to have fellowship and meals and, yes, to serve.

This week is the last week of Lent before Palm Sunday and Holy Week, all coming up next Sunday. Our usual invitation into Lent can often include extra prayers, fasting, almsgiving, spiritual disciplines. I would like to suggest a slight shift in your Lent…for this last week before Holy Week.

I and others have sometimes said that “if it’s good enough for Lent, it’s good enough for all year.” Still others have said that “if it’s worth doing in your last few days, it’s probably worth doing… now.”

Here’s my challenge: Take a look at your small list of three things you would do if you had six days left, and choose at least one of them to do this week. You might have to change it slightly to do it now, but do it. Some of you might look at your list, now, and feel a bit guilty that some or all of it seems too selfish for a “Lenten discipline.” In this context, I promise you that God will work through it, somehow, for your benefit, or someone else’s. So pick at least one, and you have six days to do it, starting tomorrow.

And, as we leave here with this challenge, I want you to think on my favorite line from the musical Les Miserables. Near the end Jean val Jean, Fantine and Eponine join in singing, “Remember… the truth that once was spoken: to love another person is to see the face of God.”

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