Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
John 12:1-8
March 21, 2010

Love Has Its Reasons

The gospel lesson for today is the story of Jesus in the home of his friends, Mary and Martha and Lazarus, in Bethany. This is the same Mary and Martha that we’ve heard about before when Jesus visited them and Mary sat at his feet listening to him while her sister Martha was in the kitchen preparing the meal. You remember how Martha complained to Jesus that Mary wasn’t helping her, and Jesus said she had “chosen the better part.” And this is the same Lazarus that Jesus resuscitated after four days in the tomb.

Apparently these are two stories that had been circulating in the early church. We have read them elsewhere in the synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – but John’s gospel, the last written, ties them together and places them in the gospel narrative as Jesus begins his final journey to Jerusalem. It is a significant text for the fifth Sunday in Lent as the passion narrative begins to unfold; next Sunday, Palm Sunday, remember, Jesus enters Jerusalem to cries of “Hosanna!” and the events of his last week begin to unfold.

The passage can be understood in a number of ways. Here are at least five:

1. As a comparison of Mary, a faithful disciple, v. Judas, an unfaithful disciple.
2. As a commentary on the poor and our responsibility.
3. As a conversation-starter on extravagant gifts and church fights over how to spend them.
4. As a text on resistance and collaboration with empires and institutions.
5. As a prelude to Jesus’ death as the ultimate sacrificial act. For starters ....

There are few passages in the gospels that are more beautiful than this one. Jesus coming to the home of his beloved friends, perhaps for comfort, perhaps to say goodbye, perhaps because Bethany is on the way to Jerusalem.

We can only imagine the atmosphere. Surely everyone knows that Jesus is in danger. In the previous chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus had come to Bethany too late and heard about the death of Lazarus. Mary met him with accusation: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Talk about pressure! Jesus is greatly disturbed and asks to be taken to his tomb. “Take away the stone,” he demands amid protests. Jesus prays to God, and cries to Lazarus, “Lazarus, come out!” “Unbind him, and let him go.”

So it is that Jesus’ love for this family, these friends, have aroused and intimidated those in power. The raising of Lazarus is the last straw. The Jewish leaders and Pharisees call a meeting of the Council. High priest, Caiaphas, leads the plot to kill Jesus with these words, “You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”

Now, in this visit to Bethany, Judas is there and perhaps other disciples, too. The family gives a dinner for Jesus, probably inviting friends and neighbors; Lazarus is sitting at the table; Martha is serving. During the meal, Mary takes “a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard” and begins to anoint Jesus’ feet and wipe them with her hair. The scent fills the house.

It was common in those days to anoint the head of a guest as a sign of respect, but in those cases only a few drops of oil normally would be used. To lavish the oil the way Mary did, was the kind of sacred anointing usually reserved for designating someone as a king or priest – marking that person for divine service.

Judas is outraged. “Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?” Three hundred denarii was a lot of money, perhaps an entire year’s wages; it might have done a lot of good.

Where would Mary could have gotten it? And why? What had she been planning? Perhaps it had been purchased for her brother’s anointing after his death – or for Jesus’ anointing after the crucifixion, if they suspected that’s what was coming. But Judas thought Mary’s act wildly extravagant – and wasteful.

Now, if you’re like me, you don’t like waste. That’s why I clean my plate. And, if you’re like Wendy, you don’t make extra copies. And if you’re like too many people, you don’t take your spouse away for a romantic weekend because you don’t want to “waste” the money. Or you know of someone who spends Saturday with his family – something the boss might think a “waste” of time.

Many years ago, I had an older friend, long since died, who admired a board member in the agency where we both worked. He was a gay man who had been in a committed relationship for years. My friend, who was a flirt, said to me one day, “What a waste!” I responded, “I don’t think his partner feels that way!”

And is it wasteful to have this beautiful sanctuary that inspired so many people at the wedding yesterday – even though it sits empty much of the week?

What is wasteful? What is extravagant? Where do we draw the line?

There’s a story in Homiletics magazine about Dorothy Day who took her Christian faith into the slums of New York City where she established the first Catholic Worker House, a place of radical Christian discipleship for the down and out -- men she described as “grey men, the color of lifeless trees and bushes and winter soil, who had in them as yet none of the green of hope, the rising sap of faith.”

Later they began taking women and children, and one day, a wealthy socialite pulled up to the house, in a big car, for a tour. When she was about to leave, she impulsively pulled a diamond ring off her finger and handed it to Day. The staff was ecstatic with this act of generosity which would help the budget.

A day or two later, someone noticed the ring on the hand of one of the homeless women and wondered, “Why in heaven’s name, would she just give away a valuable piece of jewelry like that?” Day responded, “That woman was admiring the ring. She thought it was so beautiful. So I gave it to her. Do you think God made diamonds just for the rich?”1

What is wasteful? What is extravagant? Where do you draw the line?

Jesus defends Mary, speaking sharply. “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

What must Mary’s anointing have meant to Jesus? Surely by then, if he continues to Jerusalem, he knows he’s a dead man walking. A bit of tenderness? A chance to receive a loving touch? A confirmation of his ministry and mission? The fragrance of perfume to remember when the only stink he will have soon enough is the smell of blood?

He loved Mary; and she, in turn, is loving him in the only way she can – with an outrageously extravagance act. Would that we be so comfortable reaching out, touching, going out of our way, making time, saying “I love you,” with those who matter.

We don’t know what Mary is thinking, and why she is doing what she does. We only witness, through the gospel, her non-verbal act of love. She is a disciple, not by what she says, but by what she does.

Now, we know this Mary, this Mary of Bethany. In the other anointing stories in the first three gospels, the women who anoint Jesus are not named. It is presumed that one of them is Mary Magdalene (whom the church later named a prostitute), although scholars today think she was one of the leading disciples. There even is a Gospel of Mary, one of the lost books of the Bible.

In the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, that Mary, Mary Magdalene sings “I Don’t Know How to Love Him. ... I’ve been changed, yes really changed. I seem like someone else. ... He scares me so. I love him so.” You know the melody. You even can have it sent to your cell phone as a ring tone.

No matter which Mary, ... we can hear the ache of love in the act of her anointing. And we know it as our own – from the nights we’ve sat by a crib in the children’s hospital, from worrying ourselves sick over our children, even grown ones, when we’ve hugged a brother or son or daughter off to war, while we watch a once vibrant spouse die in pain, as we’ve anguished over loving someone we’re not supposed to love because it’s not socially acceptable or legal.

We know about loving and anguish and grief – and helplessness.

Who is this Judas? He is us, you and me, when we criticize, when we are too practical, when we are lost, when we spend too much on ourselves and not enough on the needy, when we operate out of a mentality of scarcity rather than abundance, when we betray our Christian calling.

Who is this Mary? She is us, you and me, when we cannot be too generous, when we cannot find an adequate way to express our gratitude, when we long for a different outcome, when we cannot say a word in our own defense, when our world is collapsing in front of our eyes, when our sorrow is almost more than we can bear.

It is for both of them – and for all of us – that Jesus is going up to Jerusalem, a place of treachery and betrayal, to confront the powers that be, to make a gift of himself, as an extravagant act of compassion, to turn the world upside down.

Love has its reasons....

Amen.

1. Homiletics, March 2010, page 33.