Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
John 12:1-8
1Six 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.”[1]
“Wonderfully, Abundantly Wasteful”
When I first met my wife Alisha, I had already made the decision to go to seminary. I had made the decision to go, but I was sort of dragging my feet because I had a really great job that paid pretty well and allowed me a ton a free time. But, about the time I first met Alisha, the company I was working for decided to restructure and I was told my job would be gone in a month.
As we were first dating, my job ended. I applied to seminary and was trying to figure out exactly how I was going to survive for three or four years of school with no job and no money. I had money saved and I received a nice severance package from my job, but it was pretty clear that in a few months I would be broke. I was facing a very uncertain financial future, but I certainly wasn’t acting like it. I had met a girl that I liked quite a bit and I was responding in that totally illogical way that people do when they are in love.
I took her out to dinner, I bought her gifts, I sent her and took her flowers. And then, I did something totally outrageous. I decided that I really wanted her to be my wife. So I, a person who actually had no job, nor any real plans for having one for the next three or four years, went out a bought a ring that was worth more than the truck I was driving at the time. And then, I went to planning the perfect place to give it to her.
Our first real date had been on the shore to Town Lake in downtown Austin. One of the wonderful things about Austin is that at certain times of the year right a sunset, large clouds of bats swarm from underneath the Congress Street Bridge that crosses the lake. If you have never seen it, it may sound kind of odd, but trust me, it is an amazing site. So that was our first date and I wanted to recreate it, but I wanted to make it better. There are boats that give group rides out on the lake for people to get a better view of the bats, but that wasn’t good enough. So I rented my own boat. And that wasn’t quite enough so I got a hotel on the lake to cater dinner and have it waiting on the boat when we arrived. So we went to the boat, got on, rode out to the middle of the lake, enjoyed a lovely romantic dinner, just the two of us, with the city of Austin surrounding us. I don’t think we ever got to see the bats, I couldn’t wait. I pulled out that ring and asked her to marry me and she said yes.
Now many of you are thinking, “How romantic.” Others of you are adding it all up: the ring, the boat, the dinner. Yes, trust me; we are talking about a lot of money!
1Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
As we, in the church, come to the end of Lent, the events surrounding Jesus are coming to a fever pitch. If we don’t look carefully, we don’t see the tension and chaos in this very sentence. We are coming to the end of the road, to the end of the journey. The time is drawing near. In six days, Jesus will share a Passover meal with his followers, then proceed into the garden where he will be arrested, then questioned, then beaten and eventually executed. The place is growing near. Jesus is in Bethany, very close to Jerusalem where the fateful events will occur. The tension and controversy are so thick you can feel it. He is at the house of Lazarus, the one that Jesus just raised from the dead. This act has continued to enrage the religious leaders and cause them to plot against Jesus. Jesus knew the tension. In chapter 11:
54Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.
But now, here he is, days away from death, just a couple of miles away from Jerusalem and standing in the midst of the controversy.
2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
It occurs to me at this point that Jesus is just trying to cause trouble. Lazarus was recently dead. Jewish law was very clear that the dead were unclean. If you even touched a corpse, you were ritually unclean and had to go through some time and ritual of purification before you could do certain things in community, especially things like eat, and especially things like celebrate the Passover which is six days away. Not that they had written a specific law about whether or not you could eat with a recently dead man, I am sure that it would have been frowned upon. But here is Jesus, sitting at the table, eating with his friend Lazarus.
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.
The Bible throws the name Mary around like we are all supposed to know who we are talking about. There are far too many Marys for us not to include some last names. There is Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and now another Mary. This Mary is the sister to Martha. They are from Bethany and their brother Lazarus has just been raised from the dead.
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.
I want to clarify exactly how costly we are talking about. Nard comes from a very particular plant, the nardostachys jatamansi plant to be specific, which is only found in the Himalayas of India.[2] Remember these are the days before air freight and Wal-Mart, so getting your hands on something like this took some money. How much? Well scripture gives us a clue when Judas says:
5“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
One denarius was about one day’s wages. So we are talking about a year’s wages worth of perfume. The old wisdom about engagement rings was you should spend two months salary. Here is a gift that cost a whole year’s salary. This all makes what I thought was an extravagant gesture to ask my wife to marry me seem quite insignificant.
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.
This is an extravagant moment. Not only did she spend the money, she is showing her love in an extravagant way. She is down on her hands and knees anointing his feet, rubbing this wonderful perfume into his feet and then wiping his feet with her hair, which is even more unusual in context. Women’s hair was to be kept up. It certainly wasn’t ok to be using it to wipe a man’s feet. And the fragrance from the perfume, the fragrance from this act of devotion is just filling the room.
This is an amazingly spontaneous moment of gratitude and worship, by a person who just can’t help but show her love for Jesus. It seems a little different from how we worship most of the time. Amen?
But there are moments as humans when we do something just crazy. We celebrate God in ways that seem crazy to many outside the faith and even more inside the faith. Since Jesus isn’t walking around any more and we can’t anoint his feet, we tend to build stuff. Massive cathedrals with stone and stained glass. Monuments to our overwhelming love and gratitude.
But then Judas speaks up:
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?”
And Judas has a very good point doesn’t he? God doesn’t need our stuff. God doesn’t need material things. Wouldn’t our money be better spent taking care of the poor?
That’s what a friend of mine says whenever he sees a giant church or cathedral. “Why do they need that?” he asks. “Couldn’t they give that money to the poor?” And there is always part of me that agrees. But then there is another part that says, maybe they just can’t help themselves.
The money I spent on my then girlfriend, now wife was crazy and totally out of character for me. I tend to be frugal. I would rather give my money to the poor than spend it on myself. But, I couldn’t help myself and there is something wonderful about that.
But let’s look back to the scripture a moment.
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.)
Often this sort of thing is true in our reaction to people’s over exuberant response to God. Judas’ response had nothing to do with the poor. It is implied that he would have rather had the money for himself.
I often want to have the guts to challenge someone who says, “I think churches spend too much on things like buildings and stained glass and organs. They should give that money to the poor.” I want to challenge them by saying, “how much money have you given to the poor lately?” Perhaps they hadn’t given any. This wasn’t about the poor it was about taking exception to an overly exuberant response to God.
And it is not always even about money and things. We tend to get nervous anytime we experience people who are expressing their love for God and dedication to God in overly exuberant ways. Maybe they say amen too loud. Maybe they raise their hands in worship. Maybe they actually talk to their friends about their faith.
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.
Jesus didn’t need the year’s salary worth of perfume, God doesn’t need us to build giant tributes to the almighty, Alisha may have still married me without all the money and effort. Perhaps we need to be careful about how we use the resources we dedicate to God and in the name of love, however that doesn’t mean we should be any less exuberant in our response to the God who gave us and gives us everything.
Perhaps we, at times, need to better channel our response, but not temper our response. You see, we are about to finish our journey with Jesus to the cross. When Jesus reaches Jerusalem, he will make the ultimate sacrifice, he will die on a cross to show the unbelievable depth of the love of God, a love that says, “I love you more than you can ever imagine and I will let my son, my very self suffer at your hands to show you how far that love goes.” And then, three days later, God will show that his love and power is greater than that, greater than death itself, God will use the moment of tragedy on Good Friday and turn it around into a moment of triumph, a moment that says there is nothing so bad that God cannot bring good from it.
And on Easter Sunday, Pastor John will preach about that, we will together, for an hour, celebrate the resurrection and the power of God, and then we will say amen, throw some money in the plate, and head to brunch, completely missing the power of what happened.
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.
Mary understood what was going on and her response was appropriate. Yeah maybe Judas was
right, maybe it would have been better spent on the poor, but no one in this story is taking a year’s wages and giving it to the poor. You see, this isn’t about giving, it isn’t about money, it is about responding appropriately to the extent of the gift that is given. And it is not about responding out of duty, out of guilt, out of some desire to earn God’s love, it is about a totally spontaneous response to God’s amazing gift to us.
I didn’t have to do any of those things to ask Alisha to marry me. In fact, I didn’t even have to ask her to marry me, I couldn’t help myself.
Jesus isn’t here for us to anoint, but what is the equivalent of responding to Jesus’ gift to us by anointing his feet with a year’s salary worth of perfume?
Is it giving more money? Not just a little more, but enough to make our friends think we are a little nuts?
Is it spending more time in God’s presence? Not just a few extra minutes, but enough that makes people think maybe we are taking this a bit far?
Is it dedicating ourselves to God’s service in outrageously demanding ways?
Is it creating something, whether it be a building or a program that absolutely radiates praise to the creator of the universe?
Our journey is almost over. We are getting closer and closer to the cross with Jesus. We are getting closer and closer to Easter. When the day comes and God’s glory is revealed to all of us, how will we respond? With a polite amen, or something completely over the top?
[1] The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] L. Thomas Strong, III, “Nard” in Allen C Meyers, Atrid B. Beck, eds., Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000) 948
