Pastor’s Corner – April 6, 2025
In the House of Bethany/John 12:1-8
You’ve heard the news of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University PhD student who was abducted by secret police with no criminal charges. Our university campuses across the nation are censored and students from Columbia University, Georgetown University and many other schools have been arrested, gestapo style. These students and scholars such as Khan Suri and Mahoud Khalil are mostly pro-Palestinians who spoke against genocide in Gaza. This is an obvious move to consolidate power by an authoritarian white-supremacist regime, supported by Christian Nationalists and Zionists and run by narcissistic oligarchs who are out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, let alone the world, isolating ourselves with economic war, imperial overreach and bulldozing humanitarian programs and DEI. This is not the way to Make America Great Again!
In our Presbyterian polity, the core value of respect for human dignity and rights of all people and anti-authoritarian tyranny are diametrically opposed to what’s happening in our nation. Indeed, it’s very disturbing when top administrative officials who run the most powerful military force in the world behave irresponsibly with impunity and make light of lives who are at risk and are targeted, as enemies of the state.
And I want to tell you, more than ever, that the gospel of Jesus Christ has something to say about our current political and cultural climate. Come Sunday, Jesus is at Bethany, located east of Jerusalem on the hills of Mount Olive. Not long-ago Lazarus was raised from the dead, thickening the plot to kill Jesus. On this pre-Passover meal before entering Jerusalem, where Jesus’ disciples knew it would mean handing over Jesus like a lamb to be slaughtered, the dinner at Bethany feels somber with the burden of grief. Here Mary lavishly anoints Jesus with perfume made of pure nard and the house was filled with the fragrance.
I invite you to the house of Bethany to smell the perfume and enter this metaphorical reality and truth of God’s promise in the story. Listen to the words of Christ who embody God’s love and message for us today.
I want to share with you a picture taken in 1988 just six months into the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising against the apartheid Israeli government. As a college student, I was facing Jerusalem from the hills of Mount Olive, Bethany.
