The sermon text is below the sermon audio.
Sermon preached at Zion Episcopal Church, Washington NC
Sunday April 3rd, 2022
The Reverend Alan Neale
“Bullies – Be Gone!”
In the spring of 1954, McCarthy picked a fight with the U.S. Army, following his attempt to identify and purge Communists in government positions. The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to make its case. At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch’s clients had ties to a Communist organization. As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” Overnight, McCarthy’s immense national popularity evaporated. Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.
Maybe as the woman in our Gospel so passionately, so sensuously, so lovingly treated the body of Jesus… Judas was not the only one to feel “have you no decency, woman?”. Yes, he was the only one to articulate such a response but it is likely that one or more of the other disciples felt similarly.
There is a difficulty for scholars in deciding how many women anointed Jesus and on how many occasions. Mark, Matthew and John describe an anointing in preparation for burial. Luke describes Jesus being anointed by a woman who is a sinner!
But there is no difficulty in recognizing the profoundest, sweetest, most delicate love the woman has for Jesus. Why she would use her hair is puzzling, it is hard to think of a less absorbent material for removing such an unguent; a pound of perfume, think of two packs of butter! But though this may not be practical, it is intensely personal. It is certainly sensual. “It is unsettling to witness an act of obvious love and devotion” – Amy Cook.
Many years ago I heard of the story of a woman who began to interrupt the preacher’s sermon with cries of “Praise God! Praise the Lord”. She was clearly (such a dread to God’s frozen chosen) an “enthusiast”. Ultimately one of the wardens was charged by the Vicar to silence the woman. “But I can’t, I can’t” cried the woman, “I’ve got religion”. To which the steady warden responded, “Madam, I don’t care what you’ve got… but you didn’t get it here.”
Our perfume-pouring, hair-wiping, Jesus-focused woman had religion and nothing could dampen her enthusiastic love for Jesus. Contrast the parsimonious bishop who baptized by dipping his thumb in the font and touching it three times on the child’s forehead. When I baptize a child, you see… you hear the water!
This past week, I was reading Psalm 42. Verse 2 “My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God. When shall I come to appear before the presence of the living God”. Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, I invite you to join with me this week and pray for souls athirst for God!
I cannot let this Gospel pass, though, without reference to Judas the Bully! I have compassion for Judas; without him the whole plan of salvation apparently would have remained a plan… without him no primal example of regret… without him no test for God’s unlimited, unconditional love.
And yet as a bully strides across our newspapers and televisions, as a bully makes homeless millions of men, women and children, as a bully crucifies the weak, the helpless, the young and the old… so today we also face a bully in our Gospel.
Judas has all the marks of rixatorism! I learned the word yesterday, Latin for bully or brawler.
Quickly…
1. Judas the bully chooses a dispossessed minority. Mary was the perfect target; already a figure of offence in her sister’s eyes and other activist disciples. She was a woman. So the bully attacks… the more vulnerable the better. Sir, do you have no decency?
2. Judas the bully assumes community silence. Oh yes Judas speaks (John 12:4); but we hear not a word, not a sigh from those disciples of Jesus.
3. Judas the bully embraces generalities, repudiates specifics. John 12:5: “This could have been sold for three hundred denarii” (really?!), and “given to the poor” (really?!). Oh Judas could put a price to the perfume but not a name to the poor. I recall Oscar Wilde’s dictum, “He knows the price of everything, the value of nothing.” Judas will not even mention Mary’s name; the unnamed are easily the most vulnerable.
4. And… Judas the bully has his own internal agenda of pathetic need and addictive cravings. John 12:6 “Judas said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief.” He had stolen often and intentionally from the common purse. The bully is wounded at some deep psychic level and “hurt people hurt people”.
And, would you believe it, Judas the bully even expends energy in bullying Jesus but there he is met with majestic passivity and victorious acceptance.
Sir, do you have no decency?
Friends, bullies surround us on many levels, in many scenarios, in many types. The bully at home, at school, at work needs be named; in political as psychic arenas the bully must be identified. We carry within us the bullies of self-deprecation, addiction and unreasonable expectations. We are buffeted by bullies that threaten our physical, emotional health.
In John 12:8 Jesus speaks the dynamic one word “ares” – “Let her be, let her alone”. But in that one word Jesus disables the bully and empowers the bullied.
On our behalf Jesus speaks these words of liberating command, “Let her, let him, let them be free; leave them alone. And as a compassionate, prophetic church we are called to advance and advocate His ministry to the world. AMEN.