Monday in Holy Week

You may have seen it. Five contestants, who have never met one another, take it in turns to host a dinner party on five consecutive nights. They are competing for one thousand pounds, the winner determined by a series of anonymous scores given by the other contestants who have been entertained. On the final day, the winner is announced. The dinner party contestants are probably carefully chosen, thrown together by the producers, to create a bizarre and interesting mix of personalities to provide us with entertainment. The commentator is probably the most entertaining part of the show: casting snide remarks and comments about the food and the final outcome. Yes, this is Come Dine With Me: another Reality TV programme.

In the gospel reading, Jesus has been invited to dinner. Mary, Martha and Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, have invited Jesus to ‘come dine’ with them. There is an interesting mix of personalities (Jesus, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Judas Iscariot – amongst many other disciples – and even towards the end of the dinner party a large number of Jews who, on hearing that Jesus is being entertained, gatecrash the party. In time honoured fashion, as you may expect from such a dinner party, there are some strange goings on! This dinner party isn’t all it seems to be on the surface.

During dinner, Mary anoints the feet of Jesus with expensive perfume, and wipes them with her hair. This disjointed, deranged gesture is rather disturbing for those who are left to look on. There is surprise and disgust as the aroma fills the room. ‘What a waste! This money could have been used for the poor.’ Jesus responds to the Fagin-like musings of Judas Iscariot and takes the conversation to another level. He expresses what Mary meant in offering such a mad and carefree gesture: she is, says Jesus, preparing him for his burial. Suddenly, the dinner party atmosphere is disturbed. The smell of death fills the room.

Jesus, it seems, had been the life and soul of the party, a welcome guest, a longed for guest. Alongside him at table is Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead: a living sign of Jesus’ power to overcome death and bring life to the darkest and most deathly of situations. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more joyful. And now, suddenly, there is talk, not of life, but of dying and death and burial. Things are yet more sinister. The Chief Priests have death on their breath. They are determined to kill not only Jesus but also this Lazarus figure in whom so many people are interested and whose raising from the dead was causing too many people to follow Jesus. This just will not do. The smell of death fills the room.

There is controversy and danger, there is misunderstanding and intrigue, there is plotting and planning for death. At this Eucharist, Jesus invites us to come and dine with him. Expect to be comforted and cherished, expect to feel at home, expect to be able to get your feet under the table, and to be fed with finest food. But expect, too, to be disturbed and challenged and moved beyond all telling, as the death of Jesus is proclaimed. And yet there is more than just death here. Jesus takes the conversation to another level. He fills the air with sweetness. In all this talk of death there is confidence and trust in God. As the psalm today declares: ‘I am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. Hope in him, hold firm and take heart. Hope in the Lord!’ So, let the aroma of Jesus fill this place, as we move closer to the cross, preparing to celebrate Christ’s death and glorious resurrection. Here we dine with the Lord, here we proclaim his death and resurrection, here we are comforted and challenged. There are, as the gospel reading reminds us, six days before the Passover. So, eat up! There is much to do and a long way to travel. You’ll need all the strength you can get.

Wednesday in Holy Week

Do you have trouble with sprouts? Are you averse to cabbage or swede or tinned tomatoes or sweetcorn? Do you remember pushing the plate away as a child or refusing to eat your greens? A new survey has revealed that the memories of our childhood eating habits have a huge impact on our tastes in later life. Almost half of the people questioned in the survey admitted not trying the food in adult life that gave them their earliest ‘bad flavour’ memory. A Smell expert from Cardiff University said that flavour was actually a mixture of two senses - taste and smell - and in many people these were inherently conservative. "We spend our formative years being fed with things that are sweet and quite bland,’ he said. ‘Once we have established what foods we need to survive, why change it? We often don't want to take that risk.’ In other words, why be left with a bad taste in our mouth?

The meal in tonight’s gospel reading is, of course, a well known one. The room has been carefully chosen, the table prepared, and the food determined by Jewish ritual. Imagine the tastes and the smells. Imagine the scene. That carefully chosen upstairs room is the place that Jesus shares the Passover with his disciples. And in the midst of this traditional fare, this important celebration, this cultural ritual of the Jewish people, Jesus gives it a new meaning. He takes bread, he takes wine and offers the food to his disciples as his body and blood. The food he gives is the gift of himself and an eloquent image of his self giving love. What better food could we wish for?

Yet this meal will leave a bad taste in the mouth. Already Judas Iscariot has been planning the betrayal of Jesus. And whilst they are eating, Jesus tells them so…but only in a manner of speaking. In saying that one of them will betray him, the disciples reveal their own insecurities, their own self-doubt. They shock themselves into thinking that they could be the one to let Jesus down, to hand Jesus over, the one for whom it would be better that he had never been born. ‘Not I, Lord, surely?’ Are they…is any one of them…capable of betraying Jesus? And so their distress fills the air. There is a bad taste in their mouth. Jesus says that someone who has dipped his hand in the same dish, someone who has sat at the same table, someone who has enjoyed the same meal with him, will slip out into darkness. ‘Better that he had never been born.’ How final, how severe, how awful.

Yet, this is the meal to which they will return again and again. This is the meal that we share so often: for Jesus has ordered it to be so. Their memories of Jesus betrayal, suffering and death will always be associated with this meal, they will never shake that memory, the taste of death, the smell of betrayal. But it will also be the meal that will assure them of his risen presence. And so we, when we break bread and drink the cup, call to mind the Lord’s death. It is bitter sweet. For although it comes through pain and suffering, it comes with the reward of Christ’s risen life.

I hope you enjoy your food.

Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9; Matthew 26:14-25