Sermon for 5 Lent, Year A

Catholic Worship Series:  Incense and Sense of Smell

March 9, 2008

St. Luke’s Church

The Rev. Eric M. Williams

The story of Lazarus is a strange story in many ways.  It is clearly about resurrection, the last of Jesus’ great signs in John’s gospel, and the miracle which seals his own fate as a man marked for death himself.  It is also strange because Lazarus’ resurrection is not like the resurrection of Jesus himself on Easter.  Lazarus is resuscitated as a normal human being.  He will live out the rest of his days and die again.  But Jesus’ resurrection is a once for all event which gives a different kind of life which is eternal in the kingdom of God.  Finally the story is strange because Jesus, after hearing that Lazarus is ill, does not rush to his side to heal him.  Instead he waits and arrives after Lazarus has been dead four days.

There was a common Jewish belief that for three days the spirit hovered around the body and some kind of recovery might be possible, but by the fourth day he was dead dead.  The natural process of decay had set in and he had already begun to stink.  In fact, the smell of death made it real for the women and the disciples.  The smell of death is unmistakable and triggers a revulsion reaction in us—hits all parts of our brain.  Fear of death and of dying, taboos against touching dead things, brings out the superstitious in all of us.

Inside your nose about the level of your eyes, is a small patch of tissue containing millions of nerve cells. Roughly 1,000 odor receptors (sensors) lie on these nerve cells. Different combinations of the 1,000 receptors result in our ability to identify 10,000 different odors.  The sense of smell is located in one of the oldest parts of the human brain.  Smell evolved as a survival mechanism—identifying spoiled food, poisons, etc.  An important quality of the olfactory system is that information travels both to the limbic system and cortex. The limbic system is the primitive part of the brain that includes areas that control emotions, memory and behavior. In comparison the cortex is the outer part of the brain that has to do with conscious thought. In addition to these two areas, information also travels to the taste sensory cortex to create the sense of flavor.  Because olfactory information goes to both the primitive and complex part of the brain it affects our actions in more ways than we think.

Smell has a strong role in instantaneously recalling memory. Trygg Engen, a psychology professor at Brown University notes that smells serve as "index keys" to quickly retrieve certain memories in our brain. This primitive yet essential role is probably why smells trigger memory more than does seeing or hearing. [1]

Despite its importance, our culture places such low value on olfaction that we have never developed a proper vocabulary for it. In A Natural History of the Senses, poet Diane Ackerman notes that it is almost impossible to explain how something smells to someone who hasn't smelled it. There are names for all the pastels in a hue, she writes—but none for the tones and tints of a smell.[2]

Yet we do place enormous economic importance in smelling good.  From Paris to Britney, there were over 500 fragrance launches in 2005 alone.  Imperial Majesty, which costs $215,000 a bottle, is the most expensive perfume in the world.  Overall the U.S. fragrance industry grossed $2.8 billion in sales in 2004.   That doesn’t even take into account all the various home sprays, candles, oils and so on.  Aromatherapy claims to be able to alter and improve your health and state of mind.[3]

[Show and tell different products]

One of the hardest things for us to imagine is just how smelly and dirty the ancient world was.  In a world without hot showers, refrigeration, with livestock all over, the smell must have been incredible.  We have separated ourselves from the natural world in many ways, but no more so than in this way.  Even the poorest in our society have the opportunity to bathe regularly, to wear deodorant, and we spend billions each year to keep the smelly reality of the natural world as far from us as possible.

It is often thought that incense became a regular part of Christian worship for just this reason.  A church full of unwashed people would certainly be more tolerable under the cloak of sweet smoky incense.  But incense actually had a far different purpose.

In the Jewish temple thousands of years ago, incense was part of the elaborate system of sacrificial worship.  People brought the fruits of the earth to God’s temple as an offering.  There were altars for animal sacrifices, grain sacrifices and a special altar for incense.  The incense was made of various aromatic resins and gums taken from trees and other plants.  In Exodus 30 a recipe is given and a stern warning not to use this fragrance for personal perfume, but only as an offering to the Lord.

In the New Testament we hear of incense in several places.  In Matt 2:11 we read of the Magi bringing Frankincense (a particular type of incense) as a gift to the Christ child. Where the gold symbolized his royalty and the myrrh his humanity, the incense proclaimed his divinity as the Son of God.  So when we use incense in Christian worship we are affirming the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

In the Book of Revelation, the burning of incense appears to be an important part of the worship of heaven.  In Rev.5:8 we read of "golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the Saints." When we burn incense we remind ourselves that our prayers, like incense, ascend to the throne of God and mingle with the prayers of the Saints in heaven.  This is the common thread throughout both Old and New Testaments.  Incense symbolizes our prayers rising to God.  As the psalmist says, “Let my prayer rise before you as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

In our daily lives, Christians have the opportunity to give the best of themselves back to God in service of each other. In our worship we have the opportunity to offer tokens which represent ourselves. Incense is a token of the best we have to offer. In 2 Cor.2:15 we read, "We are indeed the incense offered by Christ to God both for those who are on the way to salvation, and for those who are on the way to perdition. To the latter it is a deadly fume that kills; to the former a vital fragrance that brings life."[4]

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he replaced the deathly odor of putrefaction with the sweet odor of salvation and life.  Incense is one way in our catholic worship to remember that gift of life and to make our own offering of praise and thanksgiving as our prayers ascend with the smoke to heaven.

You know, during these Lenten sermons we have had the opportunity to reflect on the ways that all of our senses are brought into catholic, experiential worship.  Through taste, and sight and sound and touch and even smell, we get to experience right here and now a little bit of the kingdom of God.  It is our way of affirming that God himself came in Jesus to share the fullness of human life.  And that we who are baptized into his death and resurrection are granted the incredible gift of sharing in the fullness of divine life.

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