5th Sunday in Lent

 

John 12:1-8

So our 40 day journey through Lent together is beginning to draw to a close.  This is the last regular Sunday in Lent.  Next week will mark the start of Holy Week with Palm Sunday and the Reading of the Passion.  And so today we complete out Lenten journey by reading this beautiful little story about Mary anointing Jesus’s feet.  And it is for us a fitting end to this season of discipleship and learning to listen to the Holy Spirit as we prepare for what Jesus has in store for us. 

But first, lets step back for a moment for a moment and see where we are.  Not so long ago, in the story we last heard on All Saints Day, Jesus raised Mary’s brother Lazarus after he had been dead for 4 days.  We all probably know that story well.  But, there is a lesser known segue between that stories and this one that is very important.  As soon as the word gets out about Jesus raising Lazarus, Jesus gets very famous and popular and so the temple officials have a meeting where they get very nervous and decide to have him arrested and killed.  And so Jesus is forced to go into hiding in the Ephraim hills.  And he disappears for an unknown amount of time, maybe days, or weeks or even months.  Until today, 6 days before the Passover, Jesus decides to come back, to return to the scene of the crime if you will, to Lazarus’s house.

And his decision to come here is a really big deal.  Because by showing up here to Mary’s house Jesus has made the decision to die.  Here in this room, Jesus has made a commitment to see his mission through to the end, no matter how much suffering and sacrifice that will entail.  Holy week really begins tonight.  This story begins the last week of Jesus’s life.  It takes place on the night before Palm Sunday.  After this, Jesus wakes up in the morning, borrows a donkey and rides triumphant into Jerusalem.  In less that a week, he is dead, in 8 days he will be raised.  And for all that time, Jesus smelled like Mary’s perfume.

And that is what makes this moment so powerful.  And so difficult for others to understand.  Mary does something truly ridiculous here.  There were really only two biblical reasons to anoint someone with oil.  You anointed kings right before they were crowned and you anointed dead bodies right before they were buried.  But here Mary takes a pound of pure nard and pours the whole thing on Jesus’s feet.  Now I went to a workshop on Essential Oils of the Bible a couple of years ago, and I got to smell some of this spikenard oil.  It is a beautiful scent, but I can tell you, our teacher had a tiny vial maybe half an ounce and I could smell it clearly from across the table.  A pound of that stuff could have knock you off your feet from across the room and the scent is durable.

So I think in this way Mary shows that she is the first of all of the disciples except Jesus to truly understand what is happening here.  Jesus is on his way to the cross.  And now all week, he will smell like a dying king.  The next morning on the donkey as crowds wave palm branches and proclaim him the Messiah, the royal scent of the oil would have been strong enough that even the crowds could smell it.  It would have been recognizable in the room at the last supper as Jesus takes his turn to wash his disciples’ feet.  And perfumed the bread and wine as he declares this is my body given for you.  When he knelt in the garden and prayed for this cup of suffering to pass from him, he would have smelled that scent and been reminded that his earthly body had already been prepared for death.  She used so much that Pilate could have smelled the royal scent on him as he dressed him in a crown of thorns and sentenced him to death as king of the Jews.  Even as the women rolled the stone away bringing fresh incense and perfume, this scent would have lingered in the tomb in place of the stench of death on that first Easter Sunday.  All because of Mary’s gift.

Everyone in that room that holy night would have known that something hard was about to happen, that a huge change was coming, but Mary and Judas had very different ways of reacting to it.  Mary lives out of her gratitude, her love and her total faith in Jesus.  She gives generously the best she has.

But Judas on the other hand, reacts in the opposite way.  He lives out of his scarcity and fear and criticizes he Mary’s gift.  And at first his argument seems logical and defensible, “Why was this perfume not sold for upwards of 40 thousand dollars and the money given to the poor?”  But the text makes it abundantly clear that helping the poor was not his real motivation, but fear, and trying to hold on to what he had, what he could control in the face of the terrifying change and possible losses that were coming.  Because the text tells us that Judas was a thief, that he would steal from their common purse.  And on this night and probably many others he stole a lot more than money from Jesus and his disciples.  He also stole their joy, the wonder and amazement and enjoyment of Mary’s genuine, generous and loving gift.

I am sure many of us have had this experience at some point or another in our lives in the church and elsewhere, where we have given ourselves to a task or activity, have given extra or used our talents or expression to do some thing (albeit perhaps imperfectly) in service to God and or others and felt a great sense of joy and pride in our gift, only to have that joy snatched away by the criticism or self-righteousness of others.  It can be absolutely crushing.  And Jesus isn’t standing for any of it.  He immediately rebukes Judas and defends Mary’s gracious action.  Reminding all of us that a gift given in love is the most powerful thing in the world.  More than dollars and cents calculations and anxious counting of what we falsely believe to be our scarce and failing provisions.  Because the love of Jesus is never a zero sum game, we can do the mission, we can care for the poor, we can make disciples, we can change the world, because we love first love Jesus.  Because we are willing to give the best of ourselves to him.  And when we do that, we will always live in abundance.

Mary saw a chance, she saw a moment, an opportunity to be a part of the powerful ministry Jesus was working on Earth and she took it, knowing this chance would likely not come again.  And Jesus praises her for it, even when others looked down on her, or accused her of being stupid or wasteful.  Because Jesus knows that it is important to do the ministry we are called to do, when and where we are called to do it.   It is important to take risks and make the commitment at the right time when we have the opportunity to make a difference.  Mary saw something big was coming and she leaned into it.  All the way, full commitment.  She made a big difference at the right moment. 

And that is what our season of Lent here at St George’s has really been all about.  Learning to listen to the Holy Spirit.  Learning to listen for our own Mary moment.  Because the news will tell us all about how scarce things are, how much we are losing, how much danger we are in.  The world will tell us to be Judas right now.  By maybe now is the moment when we are called to find ways to be Mary.  To love generously, to live abundantly, to be kind and merciful even and especially when others won’t.  Because we worship a God of abundance.  A God who loves so abundantly that he gave his own son for our salvation.  And so as we walk alongside Jesus in this Holy season, we are called always to seek ways to follow in that mission.  And to love as extravagantly as Mary.  Amen.