Rector's Reflection: The Path of Love, April 5, 2025

Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,

This Sunday’s reading from John’s gospel depicts one of the most intimate depictions of love for Jesus in the gospels. Jesus is just six miles outside of Jerusalem before the Passover, at the house of his friends Lazarus Martha and Mary in Bethany.

There are not one, but TWO extravagant gifts we have to contemplate as we look at Mary’s washing of Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume and hair: Mary’s excessive display of devotion and worship, yes—but also Jesus’s example of his obedience to God’s will. His determination to follow the dictates of love to overcome evil become clear in this episode. Those same feet being anointed will carry him from Bethany—which means “the house of the poor”—to Jerusalem and then on to Calvary. Mary takes her place at the feet of love, and reminds us that we are called there too.

For some reason, people have hang-ups about feet. But Jesus feet lay down a path of love and compassion for all of us to follow. Too often, we lose sight that the core of Jesus’s message is love—and that message is especially endangered right now in our society. Too many people—both within and outside of Christianity– think the core of Jesus’s message is about rigid rules of behavior, hellfire and damnation, and sober, self-righteous judgmentalism directed toward others. Sadly that is the public face of Christianity in too much of the society in which we live. Too often we forget the extravagant acts of love that defined Jesus’s interactions with his friends and disciples, and even strangers. So yes, those feet will be anointed and kissed and wiped with Mary’s beautiful veil of hair. Those same feet are going to carry Jesus to the outskirts of Jerusalem and on to his passion. Isaiah 52 reminds us, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation….”  At this moment, Jesus’ feet straddle the line between earth and heaven, between his ministry and his death upon a cross, and Mary is making those feet ready. Before he is betrayed and handed over to the authorities, Jesus himself is going to show his love for his disciples by washing all of their feet, as a sign that great love also demands great humility and a sense of servanthood. Jesus comes to bring us a message of love of God and love of neighbor—and that message puts him at odds with the powers of oppression and empire. Jesus’s feet carry God’s good news even today to all of us. With those feet, Jesus leads us from death to life. Sitting at the feet of love is where we, too are anointed to bear the good news of extravagant grace to the world.

Where have your feet carried you this Lent? I hope they have walked in the path of Jesus’s love.

In Christ,

Mother Leslie+