The Fifth Sunday in Lent

“The Scandal of God’s Love”

John 12:1-8

Listen to this Sermon!

The twelfth chapter of John begins with the ominous words, “Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany…”

Bethany is a little village located just over the hill from Jerusalem. The hill is called the Mount of Olives and when you climb the main road of Bethany, finally arriving at the crest of the Mount of Olives, your eyes are greeted with a panoramic view of the city of Jerusalem. It is a very impressive and beautiful sight!

Then the path winds down the other side, past an ancient olive garden called the Garden of Gethsemane, and through the Kidron Valley which runs along the eastern wall of the Holy City, and up to a gate in the eastern wall. This is the Golden Gate through which legend held the Messiah would come to Jerusalem. This is the gate through which Jesus will enter the city at the start of what we call Holy Week when, to shouts of “Hosanna!”, he mounts a donkey and rides up that hill from Bethany, and down the other side of the Mount of Olives, and past the Garden of Gethsemane, and through the Kidron Valley that runs along the eastern wall of Jerusalem to the Golden Gate.

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany…”

The end of his life is in sight. The authorities are plotting to kill him. At supper that night in the home of his friends Lazarus and Martha and Mary, Jesus prepares the disciples and his friends for what will soon happen.

The Gospelwriters are almost unanimous in their depiction of the disciples during those moments when Jesus discusses his impending death. They do not understand. They don’t WANT to understand. They are in denial. They think they are going to go to Jerusalem to start the uprising that will take back the city from the Romans. After all, that’s what the Messiah is expected to do! The Messiah is the conquering hero who breaks the back of Israel’s oppressors and sets the people free!

But here is Jesus, and he is talking about dying. And all the while Jesus is talking about dying, they are thinking about the upcoming revolution, and what roles they will play in the new administration.

And that’s when it happens.

While all the men are debating the meaning of the moment that has come upon them – while they plan – and organize – and gear up for the battle…

…Mary quietly steals away to her room. When she returns, she is carefully holding an alabaster jar containing pure nard – a very expensive perfume. She goes to where Jesus is reclining at table. She kneels. She opens the jar. She pours out the perfume over Jesus’ feet – all 300-denarii-worth – the equivalent of a year’s wages. The fragrance fills the house. Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair.

And then Judas speaks.

“What a waste! This perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor!”

Now John tells us that Judas had no real concern for the poor, but that he controlled the group’s moneybag and used to dip his hand into it when it suited him. Judas, John tells us, was a crook and that’s why he was upset. But I’m going to go out on a limb today and argue with John about that. Yes, Judas may have been a thief, but I don’t think that’s the only reason he got so mad when Mary poured the perfume on Jesus’ feet.

This story reminds me of the great toilet–paper-caper that happened at a church I once served. We were a poor church, barely paying the bills from week to week. And one night, at the church’s annual meeting, Jack dropped a bombshell. As chairman of the Board of Trustees, Jack was furious over the fact that someone had gone out – without the Board’s approval – and purchased a whole CASE of toilet paper!

“What a waste!” Jack shouted. “This perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor…”

Oh, sorry! Wrong story!

But you DO see the connection, don’t you?

Jack was mad, and for good reason. Apart from someone actually not checking first to see if it was okay to make a purchase, in the world of poor churches, a case of toilet paper represents a lot of money. I mean, do you want to have extra toilet paper, or do you want to pay your preacher?

Don’t answer that!

So Jack was mad, and lots of others along with him! Jack demanded to know who it was had gone and done such an irresponsible, wasteful thing!

Then, from the back of the room, a voice piped up.

“I did it,” said….Jack’s WIFE!

“It was on sale, honey – it was a great deal – double coupons - I was just trying to save the church some money…”

Now Jack was not a bad guy, and he certainly wasn’t a crook like Judas. But what both Jack and Judas had in common was a flaw that is found in most human beings. I know I share that flaw with them and perhaps you do, too.

Sometimes we just have a hard time appreciating the value of love!

I mean, how do you assign a price to love? How do you measure it? How do you rank it alongside the price of a loaf of bread, or a gallon of gas, or a rent payment, or a case of toilet paper, or a jar of pure nard?

“Leave her alone,” Jesus says. “She has done a beautiful thing for me. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.”

To Judas it was a scandalous waste of a commodity. To Jesus, it was a priceless gift of love. And did you notice how Jesus said that Mary’s loving gesture had somehow become a part of God’s larger purposes? “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.”

It seems to me that this little story that takes place in Bethany just six days before the Passover calls us to think about the values that lie at the center of our Christian discipleship. And even more, it calls us to consider how God takes seemingly wasteful gestures of love, and transforms them into the work of the kingdom of heaven.

A woman I once knew went to the funeral of a friend, and there was no one there but the husband of the woman who’d died. He was so grateful she had come. Otherwise, he would be completely alone. He told her that her presence was a great gift to him and a wonderful tribute to his wife. Afterwards, she found herself so moved by this experience that she began reading the obituaries in the newspaper every day, and when she saw that someone had died with only a few, or maybe no survivors, she would go to the funeral – just to sit and be there for the one who’d died or their survivor.

What a waste! Or was it?

Several members of our church have had the experience of caring for frail elderly parents, sometimes suffering with dementia and memory loss. And yet there they are every day, visiting mom or dad, carrying on conversations that are not responded to, reading books that seem not to be understood, being good sons or daughters even though they are not remembered.

What a waste! Or is it?

The Gospel of Jesus Christ challenges the adequacy of our human views of economy. Productivity, measurable bottom lines, even practical results are not the standards by which God measures life.

God measures life in terms of perfume poured out, toilet paper bought, and all sorts of scandalous and wasteful loving deeds that are ultimately summarized and illustrated in Jesus Christ pouring out his very LIFE for the world.

What a waste!

Or was it?

What do you think?

Today, as we are drawn to the very brink of Holy Week, we are called to look at Mary as the ultimate model of Christian discipleship. None of us has the power to change the world. But all of us have the power to pour out the perfume of our love. And with it, God can change the world.

Let me leave you with the words of the Quaker missionary Stephen Grellet:

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.”

Amen.