A Time for Extravagance

John 12:1-8

Sunday, March 25, 2007

The Rev. Dr. David A. Van Dyke

The Fifth Sunday in Lent  

Prayer: Dear God, as we gather now to open your word and consider your great love for us and for the world, as it was poured out in Jesus Christ, speak to us in ways that touch us, strengthen us, and make us more faithfully devoted followers of him. We ask this in the name of our traveling companion to Jerusalem.  Amen.     

I have always loved this scene where Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume and then wipes his feet with her hair.  It’s an altogether erotic image of love and devotion.  And I like it because Mary seems to be completely oblivious to what other people may be thinking about her devotion. She’s not embarrassed in the least by expressing her love toward Jesus in an outward way.    

And her selfless act of love lets us in on what I think is true, namely that in that moment shortly before his death, she was the only one who seemed to really understand who he was and the significance of his life.

It was an expression of love and devotion that must have made others uncomfortable—embarrassed perhaps because of its inappropriateness.  The most obvious reason she would have done such a thing was out of sheer gratitude for what Jesus had done for her brother Lazarus.  I mean, when one has known death and then experienced resurrection, nothing else in this temporal life seems to matter much.   

And her act of anointing the feet of Jesus and then wiping them with her hair, should prepare us to be more than a bit scandalized when in the next chapter, Jesus gets down on his own knees and washes the feet of the disciples.

What I further love about Mary’s extravagant expression of love, is that it’s carried out with a kind of gentile humility that stands in stark contrast to the kind of triumphal Christian dominance we’ve seen try to exert itself recently, into places like our political process—the kind of Christian expression that seeks to assert its power over and against others.  Her loving expression does nothing of the kind, rather it models something very different.

All four gospels record this story, although the details differ slightly in the various accounts.  But that all four gospel writers would include this story in their telling of Jesus’ life and ministry, means that something very close to this actually happened and further, that it is significant and we need to pay attention to it.      

It takes place at a dinner being given for Jesus following the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead.  You’ll remember that it took Jesus a few days to get there when he heard that his friend was sick. By the time Jesus arrives it is too late, Lazarus has been dead and in the tomb for four days.  It was a reality that caused Jesus to weep.  But then Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and after something like that, word about him began to spread. So did the threats against him.   

So presumably in response to that event, Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, have a dinner for Jesus and his disciples. And it’s at some point during that dinner, when they are gathered around that table, that Mary gets up and does this amazing thing.     

And the significance, I think, is that this story invites us to love Jesus in the same way—namely to give our best to Jesus the way Mary did. We are invited into a relationship of mutual love and adoration regardless of the cost to us personally.

I’ve always loved that carol we sing at Christmas. 

What can I give him, poor as I am.

If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.

If I were a wise man, I would do my part.

What shall I give him?  I will give him my heart.

That’s what’s going on in this story. She is giving her heart to Jesus, lovingly and extravagantly.  She’s pouring out more than just expensive perfume—she’s symbolically emptying herself at his feet. And you get the sense that when we do that—when we love Jesus with that kind of extravagant, selfless devotion, the power of that devotion will be palpable—like a sweet fragrance permeating a room. 

Of course not everyone thinks that Mary’s act was such a good idea.  Judas questions her extravagance, asking instead if the money shouldn’t be used on behalf of the poor.  It sounds sensible—downright responsible financially. It sounds like the kind of thing church committees sometimes discuss when trying to be expedient.  But that comment from Judas elicits these curious words from Jesus,

 Leave her alone. The poor you will always have but me, you do not always have. 

And those words about the poor always being with us have also been used by church committees to justify the construction of huge cathedrals, not to mention stained glass windows and pipe organs. They have sometimes been used to ease our guilt by dismissing the plight of the poor as inevitable.

But if you are hearing Jesus’ words about the poor always being with us, as his dismissal of the poor and their plight, you are hearing him most incorrectly.  We would be pretty cold and callous people—people with shriveled, stony hearts if we heard anything like that in the comments by Jesus.  Only the most insensitive people fail to acknowledge all the wasted money that is spent that could do so much to help the poor of this world.  

Judas, however, isn’t so much concerned about the poor as he is his ability to steal from the purse that has conveniently and ironically been entrusted to him. John lets us in on that fact.  

So in getting at this question about the poor, it seems to me that our concern for the poor must always be rooted in the incarnational theology of Jesus.  That means that our work on their behalf isn’t completed when we’ve dropped off a food basket at Christmas or donated some used clothing to a woman’s shelter.  If we take the incarnation seriously, it means that we live our whole lives with the understanding that we have been called to be servants—to empty ourselves on behalf of a poor and needy world.  Surely that will mean different things to different people but I think it’s clear what it meant to Jesus.    

John’s sidebar commentary stating the Judas only said what he did because he was a thief and that he didn’t care about the poor, may be true, but it shouldn’t allow us to dismiss his comment too quickly, however.  I mean, three hundred denarii was a lot of money.  One denarii was worth a day’s wage for a laborer.  Three hundred denarii would be like a year’s pay.  Calculating a year’s pay at Ohio’s minimum wage of $6.85, that would be the equivalent of pouring out a little over $14,000 worth of perfume.  That is a lot of money and it surely would have fed a lot of people.  

Yet if Mary’s gesture seemed extravagant to Judas—if it seems wasteful to you, it didn’t to Jesus.  Perhaps if the object of her devotion hadn’t been worth it, then her actions could be considered wasteful.  Maybe it’s only considered a waste when a price tag is attached to it?   But can it really be considered a waste if love is attached to it?  I think that’s the difference.   

Mary’s act didn’t mean that she was unaware of or unmoved by the plight of the poor.  And Jesus knew that what she was pouring upon him wasn’t perfume, it was love. It was gratitude taking the form of love. And I’d like to suggest that while her expression of love wasn’t perhaps the most adequate expression for the one who meant everything to her, but it was the only expression that made sense to her in that instant.  

And I’d further like to suggest that Jesus didn’t object to her doing it because she only did it once. Had this been repeated I have no doubt that he would have approached the situation differently.  But in that moment, when her every impulse moved her to disregard social convention and public scrutiny, not to mention gossiping tongues, how could Jesus have stopped such a genuine, extravagant, loving expression, without crushing her spirit?

So Jesus defends her action.  In other words, he sees beyond her deed to the pure motivation of her heart.  And isn’t that just like Jesus, to judge us by looking for the motivation and intentions of our hearts rather than our outward actions?

The contrasts in this text are great.  You’ve got Mary’s devotion set against a backdrop of threats and deceit.  You’ve got Judas talking about helping the poor and Mary acting upon her devotion to Jesus.  And in a curious way, both Judas and Mary are preparing us and who knows, maybe even themselves, for Jesus’ death—Judas through his betrayal and Mary in her anointing.   It’s an interesting combination of things.

Theologically, I think, this seems to be consistent with the author of the fourth gospel. You see, John was convinced that life was double plotted—that ordinary events unfold around us and that hidden among all the mundane props are signs of the eternal. The wine is in the water, the light is in the darkness, the Word in the flesh. For John, belief is the capacity to see not only life’s surfaces but also its holy depths—it’s to be able to look at events unfolding around us, but also to look through them, above them and beneath them to perceive what is truly happening (see Tom Long, “Gospel Soundtrack,” The Christian Century, 3-14-01).    

That’s what’s happening in this text and in where the gospel story is headed during this particularly poignant time in Jesus’ life.  John invites us to an ordinary dinner party that is anything but ordinary.  Betrayal and danger are lurking there, painfully reminding us of the fallen nature of the human heart.  But also present at the dinner party is the rising scent of love and devotion, as well as the hope that resurrection really is possible.  And Mary isn’t just a hostess, she’s a prophet in that she gets it—she really gets who Jesus is and she proclaims her love and devotion in ways that makes others a bit uncomfortable.   And quite simply, I’m convinced that we are called to do just that, as followers of Jesus.

If you have never lost yourself in a moment—if you have never been overcome by your love and devotion for another—if you have never found yourself purchasing a gift for someone you love that you couldn’t afford, then you might have a difficult time understanding what the kingdom of God is all about.     

Jesus welcomes Mary’s extravagance and he invites us to be extravagant as well on his behalf. He is worth our extravagance because in him, we understand the extent of God’s own extravagance in loving us and the world. 

As we continue our march with Jesus through Lent toward Holy Week, may we keep in mind what this story of drama and passion are really all about, namely that love so amazing, so divine, demands our extravagance.  Such love demands your soul, your life, your all.

Amen. 

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