"Houses of Fragrance" Sermon at First United Methodist Church, Boulder Colorado by Rev. Dr. Philip Amerson
In this episode of "To Be and Do" "Houses of Fragrance" a Sermon at First United Methodist Church, Boulder Colorado by Rev. Dr. Philip Amerson listeners are invited into a conversation filled with themes of courage, love, and community as experienced within the spiritual life of the First Church community. This episode, featuring Reverend Dr. Philip Amerson, is not just a spiritual exploration but also a call to perceive and embrace the overwhelming gifts life offers.
Here are three key takeaways from this captivating episode:
- The Power of Courage and Love: Throughout the Lenten season, the focus of First Church has been on courage, specifically the courage to love—an idea beautifully illustrated by Reverend Dr. Philip Amerson’s reflections. Pastor Michael Mather shares a touching story of a memory care unit where communication barriers were transcended through simple acts of love, such as a hug, reiterating the church's message that everyone is welcome and valued. This concept of courage is further amplified by reimagining the biblical tale of Mary anointing Jesus with perfume, revealing acts of love as both 'holy wastefulness' and essential expressions of faith.
- Experiencing the Overwhelming Gifts of Life: Dr. Amerson challenges the notion of living in an underwhelmed state by reminding us of the overwhelming aspects of God's grace and the world's inherent beauty. He shares personal anecdotes and biblical stories that illustrate the importance of sensing these gifts in everyday life. A sense of enchantment, or a "convergence of overwhelmings," as described by theologian David Ford, encourages us to appreciate the connections around us, whether it’s through shared laughter or community gatherings.
- The Transformative Power of Community: Central to the episode is the recognition of powerful community bonds, embodied by the First Church congregation and their shared spiritual journey. Dr. Amerson recounts an inspiring story about a group of elderly women, affectionately termed the "Crone Brigade," whose prayerful presence in an urban church became a catalytic force for healing and grace within their community. Their efforts, including the symbolic act of anointing a parking lot, emphasize that community and collective actions truly enrich spiritual life, embodying church as a space not just of ritual, but of genuine emotional and spiritual resonance.
This episode is an invitation to reflect on one's own spiritual journey, calling listeners to embrace the courage to love expansively and to be active participants in their communities. It's a reminder that while individual actions and experiences are deeply meaningful, the power of collective faith and engagement can be transformative, echoing Phillip Amerson's closing affirmation that there is indeed enough oil to anoint the whole creation.
As you listen to this episode, consider the sensory elements that shape your spiritual journey. What experiences fill your life with fragrance, marking your own path of faith and courage? In its blend of storytelling, scripture, and personal reflection, ""Houses of Fragrances" Sermon at First United Methodist Church, Boulder Colorado by Rev. Dr. Philip Amerson" illustrates the beauty and depth found in the everyday acts of courage and community.
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Good morning, First Church. Good morning. My name is Michael
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Matherin. I'm one of the pastors here. During this season
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of Lent, we have been talking about courage.
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As we welcome the resonance choir here today,
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we appreciate the courage with which you sing and
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lead. Yes. Thank you. Thank you to their director,
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Sue Coffey, and to each of the women in the choir, including
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some even those from our congregation. Woo hoo.
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Welcome. Recently, I read a
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book by a United Methodist pastor where he talked about visiting
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people in a memory care unit at a local nursing
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home. He was leading worship, and there
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were people in the room from many different parts of the world.
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He invited people to say, I love you,
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in the same way they say it in their language.
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Then he would have the crowd repeat it.
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Someone said, after several languages had moved through,
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how do you say it if you can't speak?
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There was quiet and then a woman there who couldn't speak moved to the
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one who had raised the question.
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Hugs was the answer. Hugs, that
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was the secret. Hugs it was. Hugs it is.
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And that is why we say every Sunday here, and we mean it. You're
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welcome here. Whoever you are, wherever you come from,
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whatever you believe, the wonder and the doubter, the one who is certain,
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the one who is not. We are glad you are here.
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We see the holy, the gifts in each of you, and we hope you see
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it in one another and show it to all you come across.
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My name is Lynette Lee, and I'm one of the pastors here. And
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for the many of you who are joining us
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for worship online, we see God's
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holy in you as well. And for
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those of you around us, we can also
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do the American sign language version of
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hug, which is,
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it feels like you're hugging yourself, but you're also signaling that
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you are hugging other people. Let's practice again.
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And I know for some of the younger people would be saying Wakanda forever.
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But that's right. And so wherever you are joining
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us from, whether it's from far away Toronto
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or here in Boulder, Colorado, you are
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welcome. We are full of
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appreciation that you've decided to join us this morning. You are
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loved beyond your wildest imagination. So this
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morning, let us listen to this beautiful piece
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beyond out beyond as we prepare our hearts
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and spirit for worship this morning. Let us listen.
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That's a good way to begin. The words
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of that poem, the world is too full to talk
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about. So now I'm going to say a few
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words.
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Courage. Courage in this season of Lent,
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this season of purple, this season of songs and prayers and
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scripture and disrupted rhythms of life, this
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season now, we come. So
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let us rise together, embody your spirit, and sing
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hymn of promise.
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You may be seated. So
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sometimes stories take shape in
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the form of adventures, and sometimes, like
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a good adventure story, there's always a
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point of certainty, and the protagonists are
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weary, and their faith wears thin.
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Isaiah takes us on a journey
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through the wilderness. One might be discouraged,
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but not the prophet Isaiah.
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Pour themselves out in love, and
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they are courageous too. Our lives
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and themselves are stories of adventures,
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times when we ventured on paths unknown,
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and questions of doubt arise once in
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a while, I guess, and drowned up hope. Yet in the
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midst of it, somehow, somehow, we find
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ourselves listening and reimagining
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the world anew. This is the work
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of courage, And this morning, we have two
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brilliant, wonderful readers, Claire and
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Victoria. They are people whose work brings
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care filled laughter, joy,
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healing, and comfort. They remind us that our stories
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are part of a changing
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are part of changing and challenging the world around
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us. So friends, let us listen.
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Isaiah chapter 43 verses 16 to
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21. Thus says the Lord who makes a way in the
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sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out
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chariot and horse, army and warrior. They lie down. They
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cannot rise. They are extinguished, quenched like a
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wick. Do not remember the former things or consider the things
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of old. I am about to do a new thing. Now it
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springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a
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way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild
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animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostrac ostrac ostrac
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ostraces. It's a hard one. For I
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give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to
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give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for
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myself so that they might declare my praise.
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John 12 verses one through eight. Six days before the
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Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had
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raised from the dead. They gave her dinner for him. Martha served.
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Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of
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costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus'
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feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with
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fragrance of the perfume, but Judas Iscariot,
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one of his disciples, the one who was about to betray him, said,
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Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the
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money given to the poor? He said this not because he cared
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about the poor, but because he was a thief. He kept the common purse and
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used to steal what was put into it. Jesus said, Leave her
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alone. She brought it She bought it so that she might keep it
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for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor with you, but
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you do not always have me.
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Thank you, Claire and Victoria. Thank you.
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I am very, very happy this morning to welcome the
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reverend doctor Philip Amerson to the pulpit here at First
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Church. I could tell you things about Phil, like he's the
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former president of Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston,
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Illinois, and prior to that, he was the president of Claremont
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Theological School of Theology in California.
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I could tell you that he has been a pastor in all the years that
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I've known him, and those are over forty.
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I worked with Phil for five and a half years at the beginning of my
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ministry in Indianapolis, Broadway United Methodist
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Church, in the eighties and early nineties.
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But when I thought about how to introduce Phil to you,
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I would tell you this, and I had this experience with him
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again this week. He is an explorer.
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He has been that for me, leading me to new explorations
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in the worlds of Isaiah, Mary, and Martha. They
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invite us too. And over these forty plus years, he
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has taken me literally across continents.
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But metaphorically, he has taken me on explorations
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farther away than that to places to understand our
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faith and what it means to be church. One of the things I
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knew from him early on was that he loves the church, and he wants
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and intends that we should as well. He has laughed
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with me too many times to count. He has cried with
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me when I have grieved, when my heart has
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been broken, and he has taught me over and over again to fall in
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love with the church and with people. If
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there have been any good things you have received from me in my
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time here, they have their roots in what I learned from
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laughing alongside him, from traveling alongside
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him, from exploring alongside him.
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He and his spouse, Elaine, are dear dear friends, and we are
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fortunate to have him here today. I'm really glad he's here.
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Welcome, Phil. Thank you,
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Oh my. If there's a
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heaven, you all, thank you.
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Resonance is the right name.
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What a gift to be here with you today.
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I watch you sometimes, almost every Sunday,
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especially when Lynette preaches.
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No. They You are so blessed to have Lynette, who's been a friend
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for many years, and Michael. And
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the the British theologian David Ford once said that theology
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and faith are just a convergence
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of overwhelmings. And I'm
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overwhelmed today to be in this
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place. For many reasons, I've known members of
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your church, George Ogle and I, shared an office back at
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Candler School of Theology. Chuck Shuster and I
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used to send messages to one another saying, oh,
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being a pastor in a university town, aye yi yi.
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And I watch you and see the beauty, Barb Olson. Oh,
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the art. Convergence.
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Overwhelmed. And you,
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if there's a heaven, we come
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close. And then to top it off, Michael says,
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well, you brought a clergy stole, but would you like to
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wear one that my dad used?
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Her mother in North Carolina. Hello.
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Herb Mather, one of my mentors in
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this great line of succession
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as pastors, women and men, pass
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along, the the awesome
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gift, the romance, the enchantment, the resonance
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of being together in ministry.
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Would you just pray with me for a moment as we
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begin?
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Oh god, we give you thanks that even
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in our worlds that are so mechanized
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and machine like, you can overwhelm us in
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new and amazing ways. And so be with
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us as we explore together the
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gifts that you give.
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Amen.
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So the question we begin with is, what if
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in our lives we lived on live in
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underwhelmed ways in an overwhelmingly
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gifted world? What if
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we live in underwhelmed ways?
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Sometimes Michael and I have to remind one another that we're doing
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one hundred year work. The bishop and
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the cabinet wanna know what our attendance was last month,
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But we're doing one hundred year work,
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work that we may not see right now, but
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but work that is still unfolding. The poet Wendell
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Berry put it this way. He said, the seed
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is in the ground. Now let
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us wait in hope while darkness
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does its work.
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The seed is in the ground.
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Now let us wait in hope while darkness does its
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work. The stories from Isaiah,
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pretty difficult times Isaiah is speaking to with people,
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and he has the audacity to say, behold, a
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new thing's coming. And then we have the
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story from John's gospel. Well, actually,
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I like to think of it as a whole series
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of short short stories. Short
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short stories in short pants.
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Tiny, tiny stories. Like, I'll bet you once learned the
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verse that they said was the shortest verse in the Bible. It is?
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Jesus wept. Jesus wept. If you had to learn
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scripture, you always save that to the end if you needed a good
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one to have for the Sunday school teacher. Jesus wept.
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It's in the eleventh chapter, just before this chapter, but it's
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it's also about Jesus visiting Mary and Martha.
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A lot of people don't know that there's another very short
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verse in the eleventh chapter, and it's this one. I'll bet you
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know about it when I give it to you. This short, short story, this
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haiku of a narrative story.
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Martha served.
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They all have a role in these chapter 11
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and chapter 12. Jesus
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wept. Martha served,
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Mary sat and listened.
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Right? Lazarus was revived,
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and then Jesus came to a
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party, and then
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Mary anoints.
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The anointing, father Richard Rohr says, we
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get it all mixed up. We think that someone is
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anointed or that we're to go do the
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anointing. And Rohr says,
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don't we know that the very word Messiah means the
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anointed? The whole creation
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is anointed. It's the overwhelming,
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the overwhelming that's so easy to miss because we're
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overwhelmed by our burdens and
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our fears and our sorrows. But
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the line that stood out this time among all those short
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stories was the one where it says,
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Mary anointed Jesus, and the
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house was filled with fragrance.
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I had a friend who was an engineer and, also
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an examiner for a large pharmaceutical company in the Midwest,
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and his job was to go into the manufacturing facilities
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and do his day long measure of how they
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were doing. And my friend said, you know, I could tell within five
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minutes. I don't know if it was the sounds, he said, of
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the machines, or if it was some other perception that I
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didn't quite know. Maybe it was the smells, but I could tell if
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it was a healthy factory very quickly.
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My friend Carl Dudley, who used to do a lot of consulting with congregations,
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said the same thing. He said, I could walk into a church and
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I could smell whether it was healthy or not within five minutes.
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I want you to know, First Church Boulder,
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you smell pretty good. You
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smell great to me. You know, none of this
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stuff about, you remember Hamlet saying,
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something's rotten in Denmark.
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No. No. The senses are
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important. Now I know I'm in a university town, so I know
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someone's going to help me at the end of the service. You always do.
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I grew up thinking there were only five senses.
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Right? Sight, hearing,
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touch, taste, and
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smell. Well,
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some have said there's a sixth sense. As a matter of
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fact, they argue over which the sixth sense is.
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Sixth sense, that's a little bit like trying to say, what was that word I
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couldn't say either? Yeah. Ostrich.
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Yeah. The sixth sense, some say,
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is a sense of your position
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in space. It's like, you know, at night
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when you're not quite certain where that wall switch is
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and you walk in the dark, and lo and behold, there it is. You knew
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somehow without, or you left
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your cell phone somewhere in the dark and you reach over
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and there it is. That doesn't happen to me very often, but about once out
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of a hundred times, I've got that opportunity.
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But there is also the sense of
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well, I'm back to that word again. You know, enchantment
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of romance, of overwhelmed by the grace, the gift
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of God, of resonance,
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of a connectedness, of
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not one voice alone, but all the voices
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gathered together. I
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I I am a little uncomfortable with well, I maybe shouldn't go
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here on a Sunday morning because, well, you'll hear.
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Are you at all troubled by the commercials now for
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whole body deodorant?
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You know, come on, give me a break.
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And and smells are such
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an important part of all of life.
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A woman by the name of Susan Ashbrook,
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Riley, I believe is the name, a theologian at
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Brown University, did a whole series of studies of the
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importance of smells as we
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worship. I'm not sure where they're
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they're subliminal. The the smell is something that we
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often don't quite understand and it, you know, it
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may be that it sets off those
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pheromones that that cause
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our brain to connect
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To smell. I only found out recently that Edinburgh,
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Scotland was the stinkiest place on Earth.
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May still be. I don't know. I haven't been to Edinburgh a while, but in
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the the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century, it was known
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as Old Ricky.
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It was a place where because of the smoke
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and the density and, the the lock that was
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polluted, stank.
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An interesting thing, another investigating Edinburgh in those
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days said, you know, among the unwashed,
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the people who didn't have a safe place,
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there became a way that you would identify
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your friend and your neighbor by their smell.
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You could smell them coming. And that
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when those smells were combined, there was a rich gift of
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community. And a
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fragrance filled the house,
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Not only smells, but space is
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important in this story. It's the whole house,
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and it's it's the spatial it's the time
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space dimension. We're up against
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it. Next week is Palm Sunday.
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The story is told as if it's the week before Jesus
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goes to Jerusalem. Now you're lucky
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next week because you're going to have the donkey named
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Pickles. Pickles. Pickles will be here, and I understand
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there may be a drum line, and I understand there may be
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some singing and some unison,
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storytelling, reading. Well, this
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is just before that. So let me let me give you a
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little sense of some of the puzzles in these wonderful short
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stories. So if Mary anointed
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the feet of Jesus with
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perfume that was equal to a year's salary,
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and she distributed it wildly, this very precious
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substance that came, by the way, over
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the Spice Road from India.
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If Mary was so generous with that,
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did she do the same for her brother Lazarus just a few weeks earlier?
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I wonder.
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The great theologian of another generation, Paul Tillich,
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talked about Mary's holy
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wastefulness, The importance
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of wasting sometimes out of deep love,
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out of a love that is beyond the need
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the need to control. You know I left a person out
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in this story and that's Judas, who often
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gets a bad reputation. Judas
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was in charge of waste, fraud, and abuse for the
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disciples.
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I shouldn't have said that.
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Judas was the one that says, why are you doing
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this, and we need to have that money to give to Yeah. You're gonna give
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it to the poor. Sure you are. And I
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didn't just mean Judas.
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So there are multiple characters, but I want you to
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know I'm not inclined to say she's good and
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he's bad, and she's good and he's bad, because I my hero in
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this is really Martha. Because in a time when women
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really weren't supposed to speak up, she kept speaking up.
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And I think there's a little bit of each one of those characters
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inside each one of us. A little
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Martha, a little Mary, a little Lazarus, a little Jesus,
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and a little Judas. And the
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question is, how will we handle these convergences
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that come across in our lives.
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Well, I wanna stop with this because we've
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got communion, by the way, which is a a time of overwhelming.
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Two stories. One of them
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is from Emmanuel Cleaver. Some of you may know of him. He's a
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congressman now. He was the mayor of of Kansas City for a
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while, and, Emmanuel Cleaver is also a United
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Methodist clergy person. And he tells the story of moving as
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a young man to Kansas City, and he
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realized when he got there and rented the apartment, he didn't have enough
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money to pay his rent the next month. And so
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he wrote his father saying, can you send me
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some money so I can pay my rent? And the mail
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never came or so Cleaver thought.
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And so it got to the point where the second month, he would
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go in the back door. He would come late at night. He didn't want the
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the landlord to see him there. And finally one
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day, Cleaver said, I came in. I was going up the stairs to the apartment,
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and I heard the voice of my landlord. And the landlord
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said, Cleaver. And Cleaver
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said, I knew I was gonna be thrown out.
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And the landlord said, this mail's been here for you for three
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weeks. And it was a check
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from his father to cover several months
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of rent. And he said, fear is the
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thing that keeps us from seeing these
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astounding dimensions of God's grace for us,
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that keeps us hiding away not to be overwhelmed. Well,
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lastly, let me tell you about my friends. Now, I would
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never say this of them, but they called themselves,
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well, the Crone Brigade.
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I met with a group of about 10 women,
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in in the sanctuary of a church where Mike and I
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served. It was over on this side, and it was a healing
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group. And the Crone Brigade met every
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Friday. And they were mainly women aged
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Well, they were under a hundred, but they
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were 80 or 90 years old. And I need to tell
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you that that group of women prayed together, and we prayed for healing
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for one another. We would anoint one another on the hand and ask what we
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can pray for you about. And that little group in this
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low wealth inner city church became a nuclear
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reactor of God's grace. So
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many good things happened because of their prayer and their care.
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And everything was fine until Pauline Oh, you knew
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You know who a Pauline is. Pauline's one that got upset
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over where the coffee maker was located in the fellowship hall
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and left for ten years.
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And then she came back, and she was in this group. And
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as we were anointing one another, everything was fine. I kinda liked it. I
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got to visit with these wonderful women, But Pauline one
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day said, you know what? We ought to anoint other things and not
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just, you know, not just one another. She said, how about
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we anoint the pulpit? And I thought, that tells you what she
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thinks of my preaching.
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And then she said, let's anoint all the pews, and we would go out and
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anoint all the pews. That was fine. Then she said, anoint all the doors. So
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we took oil and we anointed all the doors. Terrific. I was really
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fine with that. I thought this has got to end now. We finished most of
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the building. And the next week, Pauline
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said, carrying a little bag, you know, we ought to
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anoint the parking lot.
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The parking lot. The parking
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lot. Can you imagine?
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And I got to thinking, well, what if the bishop comes by and sees
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me anointing a parking lot?
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But we finished our little prayer
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service, and then there we were, this
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gaggle, slowly walking through the
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sanctuary toward the door out to the parking lot. A couple of
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the friends on walkers, and it was move a little shuffle,
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move a little shuffle, and I'm thinking, we go to the street
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and then it's across the street and we're into the parking lot, and I think,
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this is a good place, Pauline. Oh, no. Pauline wanted to go to
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the tree at the very end of the parking lot. And
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it was only when we got there I understood why, because that's
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where the young people would gather and drink and play
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craps. And as
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Michael can tell you, it was also a place where there was
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often violence, especially later on.
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Gunplay, knives.
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And Pauline pulled oil out of her bag, a little vial,
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and a piece of chalk, and the children were playing on
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the playground. And you know, there were a dozen, and then two dozen, and then
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their aunts and moms and a few uncles saw what was going on,
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and they gathered around, and it ended up being, like, forty, forty five,
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50 people. And Pauline said to the little girl, now
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pour the oil right here in this spot under this
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tree. And the little boy write these words,
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the earth is the Lord's and the fullness
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thereof.
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And we prayed,
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and I was amazed. I was overwhelmed.
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And I said to Pauline, if only there was enough
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oil to anoint
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the whole creation. And Pauline
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looked at me and said, oh, Phil,
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there is.
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And the house was filled with fragrance.
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Yeah. You see why I wanted him to come here and preach. Right?
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They'll fell. Do you remember back in those years in the neighborhood in
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the nineties, in particular, when people would leave each
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other, they would say, I'll smell you later.
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So I invite you now to stand, and those of you who are coming to
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help serve communion, come forward, and we're going to sing together
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the communion liturgy.
