Neill Morgan
Sermon Dated March 25, 2007
12Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” 9When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, 11since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
Extravagance
If you are my age or older, and if you have grown up in this country, you will likely be able to finish the proverbs before I say the whole sentence:
“A stitch in time . . .” you know how it ends, “saves nine.”
“If wishes were horses . . .” and all the people say, “beggars would ride.”
My grandmother had some proverbs she repeated to us so often that all she needed to do was look at us in a certain way: you know, glasses down on her nose, eyebrows raised, and mouth the words: “Glass houses . . .”
Oh, we knew the rest, she didn’t have to waste her breath with the whole saying, “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” because when she looked up in the rearview mirror, mouthed those words with that look we knew it was time to shut our mouths, quit talking about people, and take a good hard look at ourselves with the same critical eye with which we regarded others.
Something like that is going on in this house in Bethany in the gospel story. When Mary breaks open her jar of very expensive perfume and pours out the whole thing onto Jesus’ feet, Judas is shocked, SHOCKED, at her extravagance. “Why was this perfume not sold and the money given to the poor?” he asked. But everybody there knew it wasn’t really a question. At least, it wasn’t a question that expected an answer. It was a rock. It was a rock thrown at Mary like the rock nobody in chapter 8 could throw at the woman caught in adultery because when Jesus said, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone,” everybody took a good hard look at the their own glass house.
When Jesus said, “You always have the poor with you,” everyone knew the second part of that saying, that saying from Deuteronomy 15:11, “therefore extend your own hand to the poor and needy neighbor in the land.”
Underneath the surface, the gospel writer John tells us, there is trouble, deep trouble in this house in Bethany, among the band of disciples. Judas has his hand in the till, so he doesn’t really mean what he says about the poor, he’s just concerned about a missed opportunity to add three hundred denarii, or about a year’s wages, to his own pocket.
And Jesus knows what this anointing means. “Leave her alone,” he tells Judas, “she bought this that she might save it for the day of my burial.” Jesus knows that when Mary broke out the perfume on this day, she didn’t jump the gun by much. His day of burial was coming, for it was six days before the Passover. The clock is ticking, his time is running out, and the disciples don’t understand. That is, except for Mary.
In this gospel, Mary is the ideal disciple, the stark contrast to Judas. Mary prepares Jesus for burial with an anointing, a symbolic act of worship and adoration that acknowledges Jesus as the “Christ,” which means “the Anointed One.”
Judas will prepare Jesus for his death and burial with his betrayal.
Mary prepares Jesus with a costly, extravagant act of giving, pouring out her most precious material asset for a few moments of comfort for Jesus.
Judas betrays him in a senseless act of avarice, taking thirty pieces of silver in exchange for the life of his friend.
For Mary, it’s all about the love. For Judas, it’s all about the money.
For Judas, the world is a place of scarce resources. There’s only so much to go around, and you have to take what you can get when you can get it.
For Mary, the world is full of the extravagant blessings of God. It is a world of abundance, like the wedding in Cana with more wine at the end than they started with at the beginning; like more loaves and fishes than everybody can eat with baskets and baskets left over; like living water from the well that never runs dry, like the life of her brother Lazarus who walked out of the tomb when Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out.” Mary knows that by making an extravagant gift, she participates in this economy of abundance, she participates in this world in which gifts are multiplied and even the poor will hear the words of Isaiah,
everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that
have no
money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)
And Mary also knows what John has been telling us, that this moment, this moment when Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem is his last week. In the upper room, at the last supper with his disciples, Jesus will take a towel and wash the feet of his disciples and tell his disciples to do likewise for one another, as Mary has already done for him.
This moment, reclining at the table in Bethany, is the last moment Jesus has to relax with this family, to enjoy the fellowship of these friends who love him, before his death, before his most extravagant gift of his life.
And so, we see the humanity of Jesus in all its fullness, just at the moment that Mary is demonstrating his divinity with her symbolic anointing of him, calling him Christ with her actions, Jesus shows his human sensitivity. “Leave her alone,” he tells Judas, “let her prepare my body for burial.” Jesus is, after all, one of us. At his impending death, he feels sadness and fear. In the face of this extraordinary gift from Mary, he feels appreciation, enjoyment of the moment of having his feet cleansed, enjoyment of the aroma of the nard filling the whole house, he feels the sensate pleasure of affection from his dear friend.
This human Jesus can make us uncomfortable. It can make us want to step in, like Judas, and put a stop to it. “John! Enough of this, Jesus is not like us in THAT way!”
This past week I have been thankful for our Protestant tradition. The Church of Rome has silenced one of its priests, Jon Sobrino, censuring him from the Vatican and silencing him by the authority of his bishop in his diocese in El Salvador. In the popular media, much has been made of Sobrino’s politics as the reason for the Vatican censure.
But when we read the actual censure, nothing is said of his politics. Instead, Sobrino is accused of emphasizing the humanity of Jesus at the expense of his divinity.
I may have to admit to a moment of sinful pride in our Protestant tradition that does not allow the church to silence anyone whose theology disagrees with the tradition, that instead we simply engage heretics in vigorous debate with the confidence that the truth will win out in the end.
But, I have to say, the bishop of El Salvador, in silencing Sobrino, gives voice to many Protestants as well who have a difficult time facing the humanity of Jesus. This scene of Jesus in such close, affectionate contact with a woman, telling his detractors to stay out of her way and let her have this moment of intimacy – well, it can make us want to go on to the next passage.
But, Scripture is not so embarrassed. From Isaiah to Jeremiah to Hosea to Song of Solomon and the book of Ruth, the Bible makes parallels between intimacy and worship. In the affectionate giving of oneself, as a man and woman give to one another in mutual affection, so we glimpse the depth of God’s love. It is here in this moment, in this human moment of intimacy when Mary has her hair down, that we catch some fleeting understanding of how deeply God loves us, and how deeply we respond when that love sinks in.
In that context, Jesus’ saying, “The poor you will always have with you,” is no callous dismissal of the poor, but a recognition of Mary’s ability to recognize the opportunity of the moment, to give extravagantly to his need in an act of worship that will not present itself ever again.
A few years ago, I read a letter from a medical mission worker in Camaroon to her supporters as she prepared to take a leave of absence from her medical work. Dr. Wilson worked on the other side of the world, in Camaroon. She has spent her adult life as a doctor in a mission hospital, caring for the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, and in the last two decades working with those dying from AIDS and their orphans who suffer from all the maladies that come with not having healthy parents to care for them.
When Dr. Wilson’s father back in the U.S. went into hospice care with cancer, she came home, she took an indefinite leave of absence to care for him in his last few months of life.
It was not an easy decision. It would not be easy for the hospital to find another doctor with her training. She would leave a vaccuum that would mean her patients in Africa would have to wait longer before getting care, their suffering would be extended, and many children might be orphaned earlier than they would be if she could stay in Camaroon and practice the healing arts.
After much prayer and struggle, Dr. Wilson returned to the U.S. to care for her father. She wrote, “Without his care for me, I would never have had the ability to practice medicine; without the values he taught, I would not be in Africa in the first place. When I get home, he may well say, ‘Go back. Care for your patients who are suffering more than I am;’ but, that is not the point. I have to do this for me. I need to be there for his final days, I need to show him with my own hands the love he has given me. If I do that, I can return and continue my work with a feeling of peace and strength and some sense that the gifts he gave me are making a complete circle.”
Dr. Wilson came to an understanding that caring for her father and caring for the poor is not an either/or choice. The two go hand in hand, extravagant giving to the poor and extravagant giving to those who made us who we are.
So, we do not have to choose between worship and care for the poor. They are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. Without worship, without giving and receiving love, lifting up praise, pouring out our deepest needs in prayer, we would have no strength for a life lived in service for others, a life that reflects the grace of Christ. And when we walk away from worship, with the word of God in our hearts and minds, how can we live to ourselves alone? What can we do but pour out ourselves for others, serving our neighbors even as we have been served by a loving Lord?
It is an extravagant gift God has given us in Jesus Christ. And, the life lived in response to this gift is itself an act of worship, full of meaning, joy and delight.
Thanks be to God. Amen.