Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The fragrance... filled the house...


What a time Bev and I had with the "fragrance that filled the house" last Sunday. We took a look at Andre Le Roux's "Ten Minutes on a Tuesday" on the story of the anointing of Jesus' feet at the home of Mary and Martha. His notes really got the juices flowing. And the aroma.

We emailed the congregation inviting them bring some scent or after-shave to Sunday service. When they arrived we'd already been heating aromatherapy oil for half an hour. We were all seated in a hollow square. After a time of sharing images and words and ideas about Mary's extravagant and sacrificial honouring of Jesus, people were invited to move into the centre space and offer a dab or squirt of scent on the hand of any other person.

It was designed to be a fairly solemn moment - we have been feeling some strains in the fellowship lately - but it soon became a lively and warm exchange of greetings of all kinds. People found all sorts of ways of honouring one another. I think one or two probably took the hand of every person present. Later we repeated the exercise with four or five locals and three visitors over the water at Russell. In both places it was a very special few minutes which we couldn't possibly have experienced while seated in pews in a big church.

On a very much lighter note, Ann suggested to me afterwards that the reason Mary had the stuff and could be so liberal with it was that she had obtained it for Lazarus and when Jesus brought him back to life she didn't need it any more! Of course!

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