Imagine sitting at the supper table with your family. Imagine their faces; look intently at the table arrangements. Where are they sitting? Who’s on your right and your left? How many people are there? What shape is the table itself? Can you smell dinner, the warmth of the candles or the smell of the freshly cut centerpiece? Are you wondering now like I am, “Who’s table is this and where did mine go?” Often times, we only set this scene of a happy family meal complete with cloth napkins, name placards and full service for eight or more guest during those holiest of family gatherings such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. Whether times have changed or just because we’re not that into traditional dinner party fare, most weeknight dinners these days tend to be quick bites to eat, then homework or the evening news and ultimately time for bed and a couple hours of sleep. Being single, dinner in my home usually consists of me making something within five minutes of walking through the door and eating on the couch while the puppies beg and my interest is kept by my favorite T V Show or the evening news. Don’t get me wrong, I have a dinning table…it’s quite nice. It’s a pub style table, sits four and has been set warmly placemats and silk flowers in a wooden vase. Oh, and there’s last week’s mail, my checkbook, and few sundry items of various usefulness. If you’re anything like me, and it’s a good possibility that you aren’t, you too have a dinning table that, should you have an unexpected guest for dinner, you’d have to clean off or dust off in order for them to have a place to eat.

The family table has long been a symbol of hospitality and inclusion among any culture that values the eating of bread and the drinking of good wine. Whether it is a communal table set for the whole tribe or a family table set with the evening meal, the table represents a hopeful comfort for those invited to sit and eat. Today, we use table language in worship as well in our Great Thanksgiving and Invitation to the Table when we celebrate together our Lord’s Last Supper. The table is special because it is where we celebrate life together, where we honor each other with special meals such as anniversaries or birthdays and where we comfort each other in times of mourning. The table is where we sit and worry about paying bills, where we laugh at our friends miserable stories over a glass of wine and where we sit alone in silent reflection with a cup of tea or coffee before starting our busy days.

I am reminded of the many times tables are a part of the scenery of Jesus’ most intimate moments of ministry. Jesus knew the importance of community when it came to times of hard living. In our text today, we are invited to sit with Jesus, Lazarus, Mary and Martha and even Judas and a host of other unnamed disciples as they sit down to dinner as usual. But to Jesus, in the retrospection of our evangelist writing the gospel story down, this was no dinner as usual event. Jesus seems different today, knowing that something is coming that will make life difficult for his dear friends. Gazing around the table he spots each of his friends sitting where they all usually sit. It’s funny how people tend to do that around the table. Jesus’ gaze falls on Lazarus…his dear friend whom he raised from the dead not too long ago. Jesus can hear the hustle and bustle of the kitchen as Martha and her servants prepare the meal. No doubt the scent of freshly prepared bread has filled the room. The wineskins are at the table and the cups have been filled and possibly refilled once or twice. The conversation is typical dinner talk. Someone talks about the politics of the day, others talk about religion. Someone may even be bold to enough to talk about Lazarus and his ghostly walk out of the tomb. I’m sure there is plenty of laughter, plenty of eye rolling and the ever plentiful glass of wine and basket of warm bread.

This story didn’t make it into the gospels because it’s an everyday dinner party. No Mary makes sure the evening’s revelry comes with more than a full stomach and friendly conversation. In fact, she makes sure this dinner party is something to be talked about for weeks, months and ultimately becomes a memorial to her own lavish expressions of love for her Lord in response to the measure of grace and mercy she has somehow received from Jesus. I imagine Mary like the crazy, wild-eyed bag lady who lives under the bridge or the one who lives next door with a hundred cats and smells of catnip. To me, Mary had to be a bit of a drama queen to be able to pull off such a socially awkward moment. Put Mary in the context of her own time and place…to be able to do what she did took guts…the kind of guts that people get when they’ve reached their emotional limit and the social norms of the day become less restrictive and the expression of how they feel becomes the only priority.

Mary doesn’t just suddenly feel a flood of emotions. No Mary has had a river teeming with gratitude flooding her soul ever since the day she experienced the massive weight of her ever present burdens lifted by Jesus as he offers her a lavish touch of compassion and speaks mercy into her life for the first time. Mary was there when her brother Lazarus was raised from the dead. Mary was there, at Jesus’ feet, when her sister Martha was told to stop fussing about the kitchen and was invited to sit and learn. Mary was there, in the crowd, shamed by the accusations of her past and present. Mary was there, when demons left her and her infirmities were healed. Mary knows what Jesus can do, has felt what Jesus can do and knows that she cannot ignore this lavish gift. So Mary responds, at the dinner table of all places, by breaking out of convention and breaking into the story of the Gospel, forever to be remembered as the woman who washed Jesus’ feet and poured a loud and odiferous ointment onto the body of Christ.

We don’t know if Mary, the sister of Lazarus was Mary Magdalene or another Mary or if she was the woman caught in adultery or even the woman at the well! What we do know about Mary is that she ignites the debate of what it truly means to be compassionate in a world of so much need. Even there at the table, Mary sparks a debate and exposes the true nature of Judas’ ideology of compassion. Today, Mary teaches us the reciprocal nature of compassion. In sharp contrast to Judas’ mantra of “alms for the poor”, which according the evangelist Judas’ rarely practiced, Mary’s gift of compassion is an aromatic offering of lavish love as she washes, heals and satisfies the Lord Jesus in anticipation of his death. Mary’s actions serve to break Jesus out of the moment and reminds him and all who were unfortunate enough to smell the lavish perfume that Jerusalem was coming, that the long road to the cross starts just outside their door and that the ointment she has been accused of wasting is serving as the preparation of our Lord’s burial.

No longer do we smell the freshly baked bread or hear the clanging of cups being filled with fresh wine. New sights and new smells now fill the air…astonishing sights…loud and offensive smells. In Mary’s lavish touch of compassion, she massages the feet of Christ with a balm of love to prepare them for the long journey to the completion of his work. Mary’s tears become for Christ a living water that washes, heals and satisfies. We smell the burial spices, the nard that will be used to prepare Jesus’ body for the tomb. But in Mary’s perfume we also smell the generous pouring out of the balm of Gilead that will save us all, that will wash, heal and satisfy our wounds, that will prepare us for our own long journey to Jerusalem. In Mary’s tears we hear the weeping of all the crowds that gather around the cross just a few days ahead. Bu again in Mary’s tears are the generations of tears shed in mourning for the imprisoned soul, brought forth in the anguish of sin, wept silently in the shadows of dark places. And in Mary’s tears are the generations of tears that will be shed in the joy of the resurrection, in healing of lives long shadowed by an imprisoning darkness now free to walk in warming light.

We can learn many things from Mary’s lavish touch of compassion. We can learn that compassion is born from compassion. What then are you doing in response to the compassion you’ve been shown by others? How are you living lavishly in the business of compassion? We also learn that compassion, in all its various forms, is only truly compassion when the world views it as a lavish waste of time and resources. When compassion is well defined as being willing to suffer alongside the pain of another while seeking to minimize the damage of that pain, the world tries to deride the action of compassion as a waste of time. Many don’t have the stomach for compassion because it requires of us more than we are willing to part with, more that we are willing to afford. Lastly, we learn that even Jesus needed to feel a compassionate tear and smell the decadent reminder that he was valuable to someone and that his long journey would not have to be traveled alone. People, for as long as suffering has been a part of our existence, have been sustained and repaired by soothing tear of friend, cried not in pain, but in empathy for their friend’s pain. Even Jesus needed this friendly tear shed for him. God mourned the death of Able and heard his pain crying out from the ground. Jesus wept in the garden tombs as Lazarus’ family gazed at him in anguish because he did not come fast enough…We all need to experience the tear of compassion of friend willing to suffer along side of us.

Take with you today this message: At the table we are all welcome, dead men like Lazarus, busy women like Martha, greedy people like Judas and even crazy people like Mary. The table is set, the food is prepared, the candles are lit. Are you willing to smell Mary’s balm? Are you ready to receive Mary’s tears? For they are all part and parcel with dinner when Jesus sits at the table with his friends. Smell the bread and be reminded that the body of Christ is food for our souls. Drink the wine, fill your glass and be reminded that the power of our salvation comes from Christ’s sacrifice. Smell the perfume and know that we will all soon be going to Jerusalem.

Amen!