The Fifth Sunday in Lent-the Rev Melanie Lemburg

 Lent 5C_2022

April 3, 2022

 

        I don’t normally pay any attention to celebrity gossip, but I have to confess that I have been intrigued by the drama that began at the Oscars last Sunday between Will Smith and Chris Rock, and I’ve paid attention (much more than usual) as events surrounding it continue to unfold.  On the surface, the altercation seemed to begin when Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hair.  And I think I’ve been more curious about this drama, because it seems that there is so much more going on below the surface of the encounter.[i] [ii]

        So, when I first approached this week’s gospel reading, it’s no surprise that all I could think about was hair.  In this week’s reading Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha throw a dinner party for Jesus, and while they are all sitting at table, Mary gets up, anoints Jesus’ feet with some expensive perfume and then wipes them off.  With her hair.  It’s a lavish gesture that, I will confess, makes me a little uncomfortable.  And it makes Judas uncomfortable, too, because he starts complaining about it, then and there:  "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"  And the narrator of John’s gospel is quick in that moment to point out: “[Judas] 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.”  And then Jesus utters a line that is so often quoted in unhelpful ways:  "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."

        So, what’s going on here and how might it apply to us? 

        First, let’s look at some context.  In John’s gospel, Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead (in the chapter just before this).  This has created quite a fervor in the area, and the temple authorities have determined that Jesus (and maybe even Lazarus, too) needs to die.  They are worried that it is provoking too much attention from their Roman occupiers who will eventually come in and destroy the temple in the time between Jesus’s death and when the author of John is writing.  Jesus and those around him know that all this is going on, and they are clearly dealing with it in different ways.

        Second, the more I dig into this, the more intrigued I am about the differences between Mary and Judas.  I think the writer of John does us a huge disservice by attributing Judas’s words to the fact that he is a thief.  I suspect there is much more going on under the surface there for Judas than that. 

        I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’m reading sociologist Brene’ Brown’s new book titled Atlas of the Heart:  Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.  In this book, Brown defines and delves into 87 different emotions to help us map the skills for meaningful connections.  This week, I spent some time with Chapter 8:  Places We Go When We Fall Short, which discusses the emotions of shame, self-compassion, perfectionism, guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment.    In this chapter, Brown focuses on how shame and empathy are mutually exclusive.  She writes, “The antidote to shame is empathy.  Shame needs you to believe that you’re alone.  Empathy is a hostile environment for shame.”[iii]  Later in the chapter, she elaborates on this: “Empathy is an other-focused emotion.  It draws our attention outward, toward the other person’s experience.  When we are truly practicing empathy, our attention is fully focused on the other person and trying to understand their experience.  We only have thoughts of self in order to draw on how our experience can help us understand what the other person is going through.” 

        She continues, “Shame is an egocentric, self-involved emotion.  It draws our focus inward.  Our only concern with others when we are feeling shame is to wonder how others are judging us.  Shame and empathy are incompatible.  When feeling shame, our inward focus overrides our ability to think about another person’s experience.  We become unable to offer empathy.  We are incapable of processing information about the other person, unless that information specifically pertains to their view of us.”[iv]

        What if what our gospel passage is giving us for today is the embodiment of empathy in the person of Mary and shame in the person of Judas?  In imagining how Jesus might be feeling as he walks toward his death, Mary gives him all the love she can summon to give him his burial anointing early. Whereas Judas, one of Jesus’s most zealous followers, is caught up in wrestling with disappointed expectations and shame, so he cannot think beyond himself in that moment and he turns to a common tool to try to diffuse his own discomfort—that is humiliation of someone else. 

        Here is what Brown writes about humiliation:  “…humiliation can trigger a series of reactions, including social pain, decreased self-awareness, increased self-defeating behavior, and decreased self-regulation, that ultimately lead to violence…. ‘Humiliation is not only the most underappreciated force in international relations, it may be the missing link in the search for root causes of political instability and violent conflict…perhaps the most toxic social dynamic of our age.”

        She continues, “This connection between humiliation and aggression/violence explains much of what we’re seeing today.  Amplified by the reach of social media, dehumanizing and humiliating others are becoming increasingly normalized, along with violence.  Now, rather than humiliating someone in front of a small group of people, we have the power to eviscerate someone in front of a global audience of strangers.”

        She concludes, “I know we all have deeply passionate political and cultural beliefs, but shame and humiliation will never be effective social justice tools.  They are tools of oppression.  I remember reading this quote from Elie Wiesel years ago and it’s become a practice for me—even when I’m enraged or afraid: ‘Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence.’”[v]

        It’s been intriguing for me to think about these under the surface dynamics in today’s gospel passage and also in the encounter between Smith and Rock at the Oscars last week. 

        Your invitation this week is to pay attention to what’s going on below the surface—in yourself and in others.  Try to note the times when you fell shame this week.  In those moments, ask the Holy Spirit to help you turn away from that inward focus and turn toward the outward focus of empathy. 


[i] This was a helpful blog post that I read about some of these under the surface issues.  It is written by a black man, and it was helpful to me in understanding some of the significance of Rock’s insulting Pinkett-Smith’s hair:  https://scottwoodsmakeslists.wordpress.com/2022/03/28/will-smith-chris-rock-and-the-math-of-black-sadness/?fbclid=IwAR26T4GvwkGIsWi6ftYw-1WqDQsRfGQFG0IHsOrg3DGZcIY7S9R1g_MiUfo

 

[iii] Brown, Brene’.  Atlas of the Heart:  Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.  Random House: 2021,p 137

[iv] Ibid. p 142

[v] Ibid pp148-149

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