Kitchissippi United Church March 17, 2013, The Rev Dr. George Hermanson
John 12 - 1-8 Misdirecting the issue
The gospel of John brings together a story found in the other gospels with a puzzling addition of “the poor will always be with you.” A phrase that has been misused over the centuries, to justify economic systems that maintain a class of poor people.
To get at the story we need take at trip back to those days, to understand it in its worldview If we do that we will get the first level of transformation.
Society was organized in an honor/shame structure. It gave all who were part of it an identity. Those who were not part of it or resisted it were consider non human. They were disposable.
We have hints of honor/shame in parts of our world. We see it in the Arab world where women cover their face and head. It was in our past where modesty was the highest moral action of women.
However, in the honor/shame, the word shame is used differently. It was to be sought. To be immodest was to act without shame - shamelessly. A good girl was always shameful ... knew her place and role, and accepted the father’s protection. To be shameless was to dishonor the father, and to lose honor was destruction of that person.
When we see the world as it was, the honor/shame as a system of meaning, we will experience the radical nature of this woman. For she acts without shame. She bursts into this room of men and touches Jesus in very intimate ways. A servant or a male could have done the feet washing but not a woman. As well, she takes down her hair and with her tears washes Jesus feet. We have echoes of that in folk songs about taking down your hair, so we know the narrative is a challenge to some preconceived notion of intimacy.
John adds to this story by giving the woman a name. This means she is part of the group, has a place within the group. Mary claims a place within the community by her shameless act.
Mary’s action is an affirmation of abundance of unlimited love that can motivate us now and we can share with others.
The narrative opposes the nightmare of scarcity, questioning the empire’s anxiety which is based on a preoccupation with scarcity Jesus’ response is one of mercy, for Mary and by extension to all of creation. Mercy to the oppressed.
As a good story teller John brings in Judas. Judas is the great. let us change the subject. The great diversionary technique. Something radical and transformational is happening and someone steps in to divert us.
Diversions always appeal to some good, some value we have. Judas accepts that reality is scarcity - if you give to one thing you exclude another thing. It is a preoccupation with scarcity. Of course in one sense he is correct - think of the poor that could have been fed. The problem: he diverts us with his appeal to our humanitarian side.
John’s use of Jesus’ response about the poor is not a justification for maintaining a society where poverty is accepted. It is not an either/or situation, but one of paying attention to the issue before us. Of course the reality of poverty was there, and is still here. That does not justify it, it only reminds us that our vocation includes creating a society that will make poverty history.
This is still an active question before the parliament. Churches and others continue to remind MPs that a commitment that has been made to make poverty history. Even if we solve this there are other issues to deal with.
The claim of mercy must be have been a stunner to those who view the world out of a scarcity model, so “soft, so human, so risky. It is a challenge to all who have penultimate power because ultimate power is mercy. Judas represents the interests of idea of scarcity of love, and catches us with his appeal to the poor.
Like any good prophet Jesus brings us back to the issue of mercy to be practiced by those who are claimed by the resurrection. By extension he is alive in the care of the common good
Policies we put in place political have implication to the kind of the world we want to create - how do taxes really benefit the poor? So the Empire is expected to be merciful even to those who were vulnerable and subject to poverty.
However, Judas’ response is a protest against the prophetic poet: “you never said anything about mercy!” Of course not. It does not need to be voiced. Mercy is implied. It is always the will of the persuasive God: anyone who comes to power must know this if they understand at all the true nature of power - God wills mercy.
The story imagines the world from the point of view of abundance, that it can be different. Smell the rich perfume being spilled, filling the room with its sweet smell. And Jesus saying let her be! Live with the fact of my presence - So now we hear the comment about the poor in a new way, as place to share our abundance.
We, as the community of Jesus’ way, are equipped with this master story, the narrative, story and poem. It continues by irony and by otherness.
James C. Scott of Anthropology teaches that the oppressed live by a hidden transcript, a coded account of reality. The hidden transcript empowers, to eventually defeat the false script of scarcity.
The hidden script is one that we utter and enact every time we take part in liturgy, in worship, whereby we imagine the world differently. We commit ourselves to a master story over against the one of scarcity, we live in one of abundance, the unlimited love of God. The life of faith requires irony, whimsy and shrewdness. We learn that task by learning to read and hear the text. It is to listen to the subversive wonder of God’s unlimited love as real power.
Luke said, Blessed are the eyes that see. We gather around Jesus to become the body that sees and knows that power is persuasion, not force. We gather around that strange term mercy. We will know that it is call to action, to remake the world in the image of the inclusive kingdom of God, where all are feed and poverty is no more. It is a visionary actions that we have seen lived by others Now all we have to do is live it ourselves.
Based on
Alien witness by Walter Brueggermann
John 12 - 1-8 Misdirecting the issue
The gospel of John brings together a story found in the other gospels with a puzzling addition of “the poor will always be with you.” A phrase that has been misused over the centuries, to justify economic systems that maintain a class of poor people.
To get at the story we need take at trip back to those days, to understand it in its worldview If we do that we will get the first level of transformation.
Society was organized in an honor/shame structure. It gave all who were part of it an identity. Those who were not part of it or resisted it were consider non human. They were disposable.
We have hints of honor/shame in parts of our world. We see it in the Arab world where women cover their face and head. It was in our past where modesty was the highest moral action of women.
However, in the honor/shame, the word shame is used differently. It was to be sought. To be immodest was to act without shame - shamelessly. A good girl was always shameful ... knew her place and role, and accepted the father’s protection. To be shameless was to dishonor the father, and to lose honor was destruction of that person.
When we see the world as it was, the honor/shame as a system of meaning, we will experience the radical nature of this woman. For she acts without shame. She bursts into this room of men and touches Jesus in very intimate ways. A servant or a male could have done the feet washing but not a woman. As well, she takes down her hair and with her tears washes Jesus feet. We have echoes of that in folk songs about taking down your hair, so we know the narrative is a challenge to some preconceived notion of intimacy.
John adds to this story by giving the woman a name. This means she is part of the group, has a place within the group. Mary claims a place within the community by her shameless act.
Mary’s action is an affirmation of abundance of unlimited love that can motivate us now and we can share with others.
The narrative opposes the nightmare of scarcity, questioning the empire’s anxiety which is based on a preoccupation with scarcity Jesus’ response is one of mercy, for Mary and by extension to all of creation. Mercy to the oppressed.
As a good story teller John brings in Judas. Judas is the great. let us change the subject. The great diversionary technique. Something radical and transformational is happening and someone steps in to divert us.
Diversions always appeal to some good, some value we have. Judas accepts that reality is scarcity - if you give to one thing you exclude another thing. It is a preoccupation with scarcity. Of course in one sense he is correct - think of the poor that could have been fed. The problem: he diverts us with his appeal to our humanitarian side.
John’s use of Jesus’ response about the poor is not a justification for maintaining a society where poverty is accepted. It is not an either/or situation, but one of paying attention to the issue before us. Of course the reality of poverty was there, and is still here. That does not justify it, it only reminds us that our vocation includes creating a society that will make poverty history.
This is still an active question before the parliament. Churches and others continue to remind MPs that a commitment that has been made to make poverty history. Even if we solve this there are other issues to deal with.
The claim of mercy must be have been a stunner to those who view the world out of a scarcity model, so “soft, so human, so risky. It is a challenge to all who have penultimate power because ultimate power is mercy. Judas represents the interests of idea of scarcity of love, and catches us with his appeal to the poor.
Like any good prophet Jesus brings us back to the issue of mercy to be practiced by those who are claimed by the resurrection. By extension he is alive in the care of the common good
Policies we put in place political have implication to the kind of the world we want to create - how do taxes really benefit the poor? So the Empire is expected to be merciful even to those who were vulnerable and subject to poverty.
However, Judas’ response is a protest against the prophetic poet: “you never said anything about mercy!” Of course not. It does not need to be voiced. Mercy is implied. It is always the will of the persuasive God: anyone who comes to power must know this if they understand at all the true nature of power - God wills mercy.
The story imagines the world from the point of view of abundance, that it can be different. Smell the rich perfume being spilled, filling the room with its sweet smell. And Jesus saying let her be! Live with the fact of my presence - So now we hear the comment about the poor in a new way, as place to share our abundance.
We, as the community of Jesus’ way, are equipped with this master story, the narrative, story and poem. It continues by irony and by otherness.
James C. Scott of Anthropology teaches that the oppressed live by a hidden transcript, a coded account of reality. The hidden transcript empowers, to eventually defeat the false script of scarcity.
The hidden script is one that we utter and enact every time we take part in liturgy, in worship, whereby we imagine the world differently. We commit ourselves to a master story over against the one of scarcity, we live in one of abundance, the unlimited love of God. The life of faith requires irony, whimsy and shrewdness. We learn that task by learning to read and hear the text. It is to listen to the subversive wonder of God’s unlimited love as real power.
Luke said, Blessed are the eyes that see. We gather around Jesus to become the body that sees and knows that power is persuasion, not force. We gather around that strange term mercy. We will know that it is call to action, to remake the world in the image of the inclusive kingdom of God, where all are feed and poverty is no more. It is a visionary actions that we have seen lived by others Now all we have to do is live it ourselves.
Based on
Alien witness by Walter Brueggermann