By now many of you have heard that Tom died Wednesday afternoon. He was one of the great men in this parish and town. His wife and children were with him the last few days as he was crossing over. Grandchildren and other family members spoke to him by phone or video call. 

I got to be with Tom and his family several times last week. I watched and listened as they sat and waited with him. They thanked him and expressed their gratitude. They shared memories and stories. They laughed and they cried. They described things he said and did, and how he made a difference in their lives. They told him they loved him. They offered prayers for him. 

His room was filled with the fragrance of their presence and love. They were loving him into his future.

That’s what Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are doing in today’s gospel (John 12:1-8). They are loving Jesus into his future. 

The passover is just six days away. The religious authorities have already planned to kill Jesus and are looking for him so they can arrest him. The next day Jesus will make his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, what we know as Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week. 

Today, however, Martha is fixing supper. Lazarus is at the table with Jesus. Mary takes a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anoints Jesus’ feet, and wipes them with her hair. The house is filled with the fragrance of the perfume. It’s the fragrance of their presence and love.

I wonder when you’ve smelled that fragrance. When have you been anointed with the perfume of another’s presence and love? Who are the people that have loved you into your future? How did that happen? What did they say or do? Who is fragrancing your life today?

I don’t think I can explain what I mean by all that, so let me offer you some illustrations. 

• Sometimes one good word spoken with love is all we need to take the next step forward in our life. It might be a word of understanding, hope, encouragement, an affirmation, or even a direct and harsh word of truth. 
• Birthday, anniversary, graduation, and retirement parties are more than just marking time or an accomplishment. They are a gathering of the people who have loved us into our future. 
• Every time you hold out your hands to receive the Bread of Life you are asking to be loved into your future. Aren’t all the sacraments ultimately about being loved into our future? 
• One of my favorites lines in the baptismal liturgy is when the congregation says, “We will” and promises to support the individual in his or her life in Christ. What they are really saying is, “We will love you into your future.” We say the same thing at weddings and ordinations.
• Have you ever experienced forgiveness or the healing of a relationship? A time when guilt, regret, or shame no longer bound you to the past? Wasn’t that really an experience of love that opened the door to a new beginning? 
• I’ve come to understand that my marriage, parenting, friendships, and priesthood are about loving others into their future. Some days I do that well, other days not as well as I would like.
• Who has always believed in you and always been there for you? Didn’t the aroma of their presence change who you are and the life you have today? Can you imagine your life today without them?
• When Cyndy and I came to St. Philip’s in 2005, I could never have imagined we’d be here twenty years later. But here we are, loved by you into this very moment. 
• There have been times when I just couldn’t step into my future. It was too scary, painful, uncertain, or risky. I could only be loved into it. Maybe that’s true for all of us. 

Wherever there is love there is a future. Isn’t that what puts the holy in Holy Week and the good in Good Friday? Isn’t that what we experienced last week in the Parable of the Prodigal Son? Isn’t Jesus offering a future every time he feeds, heals, welcomes, or forgives another? Isn’t that the good news of Christ’s gospel? 

Immediately before today’s gospel Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb. His love transforms the stench of death into the fragrance of a new beginning, a future, not only for Lazarus but also for Mary and Martha, for Tom and his family, for you and me. 

It makes me wonder, what if love determines our future more than our successes and failures do? What if love has more to do with our future than illness, chance, uncertainty, politics, or economics? What if how we love today shapes the future we have tomorrow? 

Our future does not begin later today, tomorrow, or in a year. It begins right now in this moment by how we love. That means you and I are always shaping someone’s future – America’s, Uvalde’s, our children’s and grandchildren’s, parent’s, partner’s, and spouse’s, neighbor’s and stranger’s, each other’s.

What’s the future you and I are shaping? Are we loving one another into the future? 

Do you want to know about the future? Tell me how you are loving, and I’ll tell you the future. 

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Image Credit: Detail of Painting in Bom Jesus Church, Braga, Portugal, y Joseolgon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
* This sermon was, in part, inspired by Karoline Lewis.