Sunday Faces

by Barry Pollard

(Based on John 12:1-8; Ps 126; Phil 3:4b-14)

When Keri and I visit different places we often take in a local church service if we are around on a Sunday. As you walk up to the entrance of a church you can usually get a strong inkling of how the service will go. The people who greet you are the first clue. Smiles and conversation go a long way towards making a genuine welcome. People around, talking animatedly about the Lord and what He is doing in their lives, is another clue. Finding ‘Sunday faces’ instead is also a clue.

You know what I mean by this, eh? A Sunday face is one we put on. It is not our natural one. It signals we are taking on a different demeanour for a period of time. It is not a lasting state of mind or behaviour.

The Lenten period is rooted in Jesus’s forty-day fast in the desert before his public ministry. It is a period of spiritual preparation for the celebration of Easter, which culminates in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. During Lent we are encouraged to reflect on our lives, repent of our sins, and strengthen our faith, spending more time in prayer seeking God’s guidance. We are also encouraged to abstain from certain foods or pleasures as a sign of penance and self-discipline. All of which is worthy and good, if it is carried out with a view to lasting transformation.

But in my experience Lent can cause Sunday faces.

When we put on our Sunday face and give up chocolate for a month, are we really likely to achieve lasting transformation? I’m pretty sure we won’t. Assuming a gloomy weight over Lent doesn’t change much! Are our hearts changed or just our faces? When Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness,” he didn’t want us to be walking around carrying extra burdens!

Delving into our readings for today, then, my first impression of this collection was that they could result in Sunday faces if we are not careful. So, invoking preacher’s privilege, I am going to be very selective in what I refer to today. My wish is not to add to any weights, imagined or otherwise, that you may be feeling this morning. On the contrary, I would like to shine a beam of lightness!

I’m a firm believer in humour and laughter being great medicine! They can be a binding agent, bringing us, friends and strangers, together in a shared experience.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting our worship be replaced with comedy. But I feel a lightness of heart is called for, to help change our perceptions, to see blessings instead of burdens.

Sometimes we laugh, not because something is funny – though it might be – but because of the sheer joy of living. I remember doing that. Do you?
Keri has found YouTube on the smart TV and we get little bursts of things like “100 Adorable Kittens”, “100 Funny Kittens”, “The 20 Happiest Babies in the Universe”, and the like. A recent clip featured those happy babies and brought back a flood of memories when the smallest of ordinary inputs could elicit endless giggling from my pre-language children! You know the sort of thing: a “Boo” as you pop up beside the highchair bringing about almost falling-on-the-floor laughter! That is the “sheer joy of living” I’m talking about today. That unbridled happy reaction to a stimulus. It seems natural in the young. Maybe not so much when you have a few years under the belt, or over the belt in my case.

The joy of living is wrapped up in love and relationship, and we should give thanks for that gift of living, and loving, for being in community, for having a place to worship; in fact, for all that impacts our lives. Laughter and gratitude would to be an ideal combo for us to take away this week!

Now, let’s get Scriptural: I’d like to start with our Philippians reading.
Initially, I was focussed on what I thought was another one of Paul’s boasting sessions. You know the sort of thing – suffered more whippings than anyone, survived multiple shipwrecks, and so on. Closer attention of course made me realise that Paul was actually laying out how his life had been turned around by the intervention of Jesus.
Paul’s letter to the faithful is an encouragement to similar transformation. In it he explains what he was (the Jew, the Pharisee, the Christian hunter), what changed him (Jesus), and what he is now (a fervent follower of Christ). The key to his transformation was faith, faith in Jesus the redeeming Christ.
[I came across a clever acronym for faith yesterday – Forsaking All I Trust Him. Worth remembering.]

Paul’s Damascus experience, the direct interruption of his life by Jesus (instant blindness, a heavenly experience, a Christ encounter), put him on a very different path to the one he was travelling. Suddenly his life and knowledge were being used for Jesus, rather than against him. He understood what now lay ahead for him. He was refocussed!  ^“I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us,” he said. As Christ-followers you and I are included in that race too. Let us be reminded that we need to keep our focus on the prize by keeping our focus on Jesus.

Next up, think about the Gospel reading. The first three verses take us back to Bethany and the friends of Jesus: Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

You know the original Mary-Martha story in Luke Chapter 10, the story used to highlight different styles of service. In the first Mary-Martha story, Jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha and while Martha toils to prepare the meal for Jesus and his disciples, Mary sits at his feet taking in his teaching. As Martha complains to Jesus about the lack of help she is receiving from her sister, Jesus responds, “There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

That theme is echoed in today’s reading – Martha is again preparing and serving the meal and Mary is attending to (serving) Jesus, anointing his feet with an expensive perfume and wiping those feet dry with her hair. As a result, not the fragrance of the meal cooking filled the house but the fragrance of the perfume, the symbol of the value that Mary placed on Jesus, the “one thing worth being concerned about”.

Here is another lesson for us today. If our focus remains on Jesus, the aroma in the atmosphere around us will be a wonderful and attractive fragrance! You may have come across that aroma, noticing the atmosphere when in the company of certain people? I think many of us felt it in the presence of [the late] Bishop Bruce. He never focussed on our shortcomings, only the potential he saw in us, in my experience. Such a sweet smell!

Mary took time to listen to Jesus, but Martha didn’t because she was busy ‘serving’. We too can get so busy ‘serving’ the Lord that we are in danger of losing our sensitivity to his voice and become preoccupied with secondary things.

My recent devotional readings have been about ‘conversion’. If I could explain from my readings, it has been said that there are two kinds of conversion. One is accompanied by a violent sense of sin, and the other by a feeling of incompleteness, a struggle after a larger life and a desire for spiritual illumination. Conversion involves three steps. Repentance is conversion viewed from its starting point, the turning from the former life. Faith indicates the objective point of conversion, the turning to God. The third is the new birth — commonly referred to as being ‘born again’, born into God’s family. The first and the second bring about the third. If we are Heaven-bound, we must be converted.

“Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away, then times of refreshment will come.” (Acts 3:19-20)

And what a great way to segue into thoughts about our Psalm today … The Israelites have returned from exile. And just so you know and can follow my train of thought, whenever I come across Israel in the Scriptures I substitute myself.

The first three verses are joy filled:

“When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy.
And the other nations said, ‘What amazing things the Lord has done for them.’
Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us!
What joy!”

The Israelites had repented of their sins and turned back to God. Their sins were wiped away, and a time of refreshment had come! They were home. They were laughing and singing! These three verses amplify the unbridled joy of liberation. That sheer joy of living I was talking about.

Then the last three verses take into account the reality of coming to terms with a new daily life.

“Restore our fortunes, Lord, as streams renew the desert.
Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.”

The celebration party was over but the way ahead held promise and so the sense of joy was not entirely lost. They may be planting in tears but, through the Lord, reaping in joyous song. The verses acknowledge that there is still the risk of loss, not knowing whether your efforts will bring a return, but they also offer great hope. They were free, could look forward to better futures, reconciled with God. These verses remind us too that, although we are still in the midst of struggle, living in a very uncertain world these days, we still have great hope – in the Lord.

As I conclude I would like to share a song that was recommended as a possible prayer based on Psalm 126. Not being a radio listener these days I have no recollection of ever hearing it but I think it suits my mood this morning: The song is Cover Me in Sunshine by Pink. I have provided the words for it [here] and the Psalm [above] for those who would like to examine the theological merits at a deeper level.
Have a listen and reflect …

I said earlier that laughter and gratitude would to be an ideal combo for us this week. Joy and thanksgiving! So as we leave here today, to go back to the affairs of our daily lives, be mindful of the way Jesus has encouraged us to keep our focus on him, putting away our Sunday faces and enjoying the resurrected life we shall be celebrating in a fortnight.