Monday: Presence

Matt Shedden should enjoy this one. You see Matt and I are students at Mars Hill Graduate School where we talk about presence and "being with" all the time. I like it, but Matt has some pretty strong reactions against it. You'll have to have him explain it to you sometime...

Here we have Jesus hanging out with his friends. But this can't be just a time of hanging out together, right? We've got Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead, Mary who dumps perfume on Jesus and cleans it with her hair, and Judas who is going to betray Jesus. Can you imagine anything more awkward? It makes me wonder, if Jesus had clued his disciples into a specific kind of plant that if rolled and burned might just change the way things are perceived. But I could be wrong and this could a completely normal experience for this group of friends.

Then again, looking at the narrative, it makes complete sense. John has written brilliantly here, because we are in the house of a dead and risen man, where because of Judas another man is going to be killed and then rise is present. If that isn't enough the symbol of perfume, which Jesus explains is for his burial is in the center of the story, because the house was filled with the perfume's fragrance. I wonder if it is anything like walking into a department store like Macy's and the fragrance section nearly kills you when you walk through it. Often it makes me dizzy and sometimes nauseous.

This just doesn't seem like a great situation to be in to me. Yet Jesus is able to keep his wits about him and Judas pops a good question. It is a question that I would likely ask to be quite honest. Why are you letting her do that? It's a waste of perfume! We could have sold that and given the money to the poor! There are probably many reasons why Jesus did what he did and said what he said here, but I think they all come back to being present in the moment. Jesus seems to know Judas's intentions with his line of questioning and that can only come through attentiveness to the relationship that they have together. By Judas making that statement he is also cutting himself off from Mary by excluding her and de-meaning her act of pouring perfume on Jesus feet. Jesus chooses to remain present to Mary and bring her back into the room as it were by validating what she is doing. My suspicion is that he didn't really think this was a precursor to his death, but used Judas' inability to be with Mary and Jesus in this moment as a way to teach them all something.

The question is how do we remain present with others? How are present with Jesus at his feet? What does it mean to be present with Christ, especially in the house of death, dizzying smells, tough questions, wrong motives, and new life simultaneously. People do crazy things. We all ask good questions, but sometimes with poor motives. What does it look like to really be present in the midst of this. Being with is very different than hanging out. Being attuned to the reality that we are in the midst of is probably one of the hardest things Jesus calls us to. I hope that this week of lent will be a week of being present in the realities that we find ourselves in. May we speak truth like prophets to the ignorant and arrogant. May we be the embrace of companionship and understanding to the lost and the ones who do the best they can.