Considerations for Holy Week

"You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

This is a slightly-revised version of a homily I was invited to give at my church today for Holy Monday.

There is a saying about travel: A trip is lived three times. When you dream of it, when you go, and when you remember it. I loved this idea when I first heard it. I hate to see the last day of vacation coming, so the idea that my experience of it begins far before I take the trip and lasts long after I get home makes me very happy. The trip itself, which is bound by time and a need to get back to daily living, is not the only chance I have to enjoy and savor the benefits of travel. I also can include the hours I spent dreaming, planning, scrolling Pinterest, having conversations with friends, and reading travel reviews as part of my travel experience. I can also count all the time afterward that I spend sharing stories and photos with my loved ones, writing down potent memories, and reminiscing about a great meal or a particularly great day. There is some balm, too, for trips that don’t live up to my expectations. They aren’t a total loss, for the time spent in anticipation was often a good experience in its own right.

As I have considered the season of Lent this year, and the arrival to Holy Week which asks us to travel the whole way with Jesus to the cross, I’ve found myself applying this travel logic to my understanding of this sacred time.

St. Marks, Newnham, Cambridge. April 2018

We have had five weeks of Lent to prepare for Holy Week. We have study groups and fasted from certain habits or consumptions. We have added practices of prayer and reflection and we have considered our own deaths. We have subscribed to extra newsletters or read extra books. We have made extra donations to charitable organizations and we have engaged in, or removed ourselves from, many other possible rituals to prepare for Holy Week and Easter. These have been good and holy endeavors.

This time next week, we will be enjoying the season of Eastertide, marked by abundance and celebration. We will reflect on the steps taken throughout Lent and this Holy Week, marveling at Christ’s presence along the journey, and at God’s power to transform our hearts as we took on small, meaningful practices that gave shape to our Easter preparation.

But this week? This is the journey. This is the trip for which we have spent so much time preparing. This is the time for us to experience it, to be fully present, to be paying attention for the stories and formation we will want to remember and share about later. This is the week we rely on all the disciplines and formation we’ve practiced throughout Lent, knowing they prepared our hearts and our minds to have the endurance to walk this path to the cross with Jesus.

So how do we do that? How do we stay present, not looking back or rushing ahead? I invite us to consider two ways to frame our week, using John 12:1-11, today’s lectionary reading, as a guide.

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

It is common for people to pit Mary and Martha against each other in these stories of Martha filling the role of busy host and Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet. Some suggest that instead of keeping ourselves busy behind the scenes as server or host, we should simply sit at Jesus’s feet in worship and praise. But this logic falls short, because in the words of catholic social activist Dorothy Day, “Everyone wants a revolution but no one wants to do the dishes.” Mary was able to sit at Jesus’s feet because Martha was handling the details. Their work goes hand in hand. Martha’s care of the home and the meal was a worshipful task that created the space Mary needed to offer her revolutionary act of worship.

A second consideration is how those acts of worship are measured and understood with such proximity to Jesus’s death. I wouldn’t blame the disciples for having whiplash.

Jesus has spent so much time with them over the last few years, teaching them to care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow. And now Mary comes in with a year’s salary worth of perfume that she uses up in a single moment. They would have good reason to feel confident in calling out such behavior. Wait! We know the answer to this one! Jesus, you taught us! Care for the poor! But then Jesus turns around and chastises them for saying so. Make it make sense, Lord!

But then he does. Jesus reminds them that his death is imminent. And who among us hasn’t done seemingly unreasonable things in such circumstances? Consider a time in your own life when someone you love was dying. When my grandmother was in the hospital with a life-threatening illness, my mom bought plane tickets for international travel within days of my trip. That was not in the budget, and any budgeting expert would say that to put such a purchase on a credit card was a frivolous, bad idea. But our concern that week was not financial. Our concern that week getting me near a person I dearly loved for my own sake and for hers. We would figure out the financial details later. The question wasn’t, “Should we give $2000 to the church’s outreach ministry or should we buy a plane ticket?” For that time and that week, it was about my grandmother. There would be time later to support my community. In contrast, I wasn’t sure if I’d have much more time with the first Barbara Janette.

Our sensibilities for what is good and reasonable changes when those we love are ill, nearing the end of their lives, or otherwise going through impossible circumstances. We use up our PTO days from work, we eat out every day because it’s easier, we make expensive travel arrangements, we let our to-do list fall to the wayside. All for the sake of doing what needs doing. All for the sake of being where we need to be.

That is the spirit in which Mary’s extravagant gift is good and holy. Jesus reminds them:

You will always have the poor. There will always be needs. But you will not always have me. This week is for worship and keeping watch. This week is for deep devotion. One day soon, you will look back and remember this time, and you will use all that you have seen and heard to inspire good works. But in this moment? This space and time is for presence and devotion.

To travel this path of Holy Week, it’s important to reflect and consider that varying acts of worship are needed so that the whole community might draw closer to Jesus. Beautiful music and candles and altar cloths and lilies are needed because they call our attention to what is good, beautiful and true.

And it is in such contemplation that we feel inspired to worship and live out our faith by giving freely to those in need. We need not pit these things against each other, but we should consider what this week requires of us as we are in such close proximity to the death of our Lord.

I am grateful to our priests and pastors and deacons and altar guilds and lay leaders and musicians and technicians and administrators for the work they will put into this week that enables us to sit at the feet of Jesus. Their work is an act of worship. To them I offer a sincere thank you for handling the details and organizing our gatherings so that we might draw closer to our Lord during these sacred days.

As we all are now on the journey after weeks of planning, as we walk this path with Christ, I challenge you to consider these questions:

What act of worship is mine to do this week?

What extravagant, unreasonable gift of time and presence might be necessary for me to draw near to Christ in worship for these six days, giving back the good gifts which God first gave to me?

When I look back on this week, what will I be glad to remember?

In love and prayer for a blessed Holy Week,
Janette