Lent 5 - discipleship
Isaiah 43:16-21, John 12:1-8
What a great family Mary, Martha & Lazarus are. It seems that their home in Bethany was Jesus’ home-from-home when he was not in Galilee. In today’s reading John tells us it was just 6 days before Passover, and Jesus chooses to be in Bethany, about 2 miles from the temple in Jerusalem, surrounded with this family he loved and who loved him. I think as a family they teach us so much of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
We first meet Mary & Martha in the gospels when Martha is working hard to get a meal ready for Jesus while Mary sits at his feet. Martha is a practical disciple of Jesus, and Jesus has to remind her that listening to him is ‘the better part’ that Mary has chosen.
Martha only has a brief mention in today’s reading – but it’s a really important phrase “Martha served”. Martha reminds us that service is a vital part of discipleship.
But in case you think Martha is just about serving – remember what happens when Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick, and comes.. seemingly too late.. to help. Martha says to Jesus ‘If only you had been here, our brother would not have died’ – she has faith in Jesus’ ability to heal.
And when Jesus says ‘I am the resurrection and the life – do you believe this, Martha?’ she proclaims her faith “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God.”. Martha shows us that discipleship is also about faith and trust in Jesus as saviour and Lord.
Meanwhile Lazarus doesn’t have much to say – we are only told he is ‘at the table with Jesus’ in today’s story. But this is Lazarus whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
What a witness his very presence is to the power and grace of Jesus.
In fact, people come from far and wide to see Lazarus, so much so that the very next thing that John’s gospel tells us is that the chief priests make a plan to kill Lazarus, because of his witness to Jesus’ healing power.
Lazarus reminds us that a disciple has to be ready to be a witness for what Jesus has done in their life.
And so we come to Mary – who is the main character in today’s story. She has already proven her devotion to Jesus the teacher by sitting at his feet, even when her sister wanted to see her helping out with the meal. She teaches us that disciples must listen to Jesus.
At the meal we hear of today, she performs an act of pure devotion – pouring costly perfume over Jesus feet, and wiping them with her hair. The whole house is filled with the perfume. Her love for Jesus, her worship of Jesus, is extravagant and she doesn’t stop to count the cost or hold back in any way.
Mary teaches us that a disciple is one who worships and loves Jesus.
In fact, you could say that love is the common thread running through the whole of this family in their interaction with Jesus – the love that serves, trusts, witnesses, listens and worships.
And we are here, in worship – perhaps wondering how best to be disciples of Jesus in this world of infections, and invasions, and declining institutions.
Like the family of Bethany, we want to serve, trust, witness to, listen to and worship Jesus, because of our love for him.
But we know that some of the old ways we are used to doing that as a church seem not to be working. Many people don’t know why we worship, or what it’s meant to be for – it just seems strange to them. People find it hard to trust – there have been too many scandals, too much human failure, and we have become tongue-tied in our attempts to witness to what God has done for us and in us.
Even serving other people can feel like an alien concept in a world where we are often told we should look out for ourselves first and foremost. And as for listening to Jesus – we know that often the loud clamour of the world drowns out our saviour’s voice.
I hope the word of Isaiah are a comfort to us all, if we wonder how we can move forward, as a church.
Isaiah reminds his hearers that God is the one who made a road through the sea – he is reminding them of the great rescue of Exodus – but God then says
“Do not cling to events of the past or dwell on what happened long ago.
Watch for the new thing I am going to do.”
God promises to make a road through the wilderness. The God who led his people out of Egypt will lead them into a new future.
As we think about what discipleship means for the 21st century, what the church should look like today, we need to remember that in some ways it looks the same as it did to the Bethany family of Marth, Lazarus and Mary. We recognise Jesus among us, we listen for his voice and remember what he has done for us - how much he loves us and how much we love him. Then we work out how best to show our love in service, trust, witness and worship.
We need to be ready for the new thing God is doing, and ready to be part of it.
Three years ago I was fortunate to visit Bethany – in fact I visited an amazing girls’ school “The Orthodox School of Bethany”. In the school grounds, which is in the Palestinian occupied territory of the West Bank there is a small stone shrine, said to mark the spot where Martha met Jesus on the day he raised Lazarus. It was run by the most energetic nun I have ever met – Sister Martha Wall. In this photo she has taken us up onto the roof to show us the solar panels she had just had installed. She also insisted we took away a year book of the school, packed with photos. The school began as a school for Christians girls, but over the years it has broadened its outreach to Muslim girls, too – and it is now they celebrate a wonderful mixture of Christian and Islamic festival – you’ll find pictures in here of Advent and Christmas (p23) as well as Ramadan (p83).
Named after Martha – when I met her, and now, since being given the title ‘Mother’ – being Mother Maria - the principal of the school embodied discipleship, to me.
This was how she summed up the school:
WE ARE glad that our former students are experts in various fields
WE HAVE faith that our school is needed and our work is not useless
WE KNOW that the work of the Bethany's sisters Martha and Mary continues, and that this work preserves Love in this ancient Holy Land
WE PRAY that our Saviour, who visited His friends here, will continue to visit our Bethany Community
Staying true to the call of discipleship yet adapting to the needs of the world around is not something confined to amazing women like Sister Martha/ Mother Maria.
I was talking to the Steve White, the Salvation Army Major for the South West, on Thursday. He was explaining that the community development manager, Angie Carney, from the Salvation Army here in Sidmouth, together with Steve Santry from the Methodist church and our own Aiyana Gardner-Houghton, have felt challenged to explore together new ways of being church for Sidmouth. I would encourage you to find out more about it, and see whether God is challenging you to be part of something new. I’m sure Aiyana would be delighted to talk to you about it as part of her new role as Transition Minister for Cornwall & Devon.
So may God strengthen you as you follow the path of discipleship, may you serve, trust and witness to Jesus – and may you know his love with you always.
Amen.
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