Intimate Extravagance

The Text was John 12:1-8 -- 

I’m never really sure how to picture the setting of this passage.  Jesus is with his nearest and dearest friends at dinner being served for him.  The family of Lazarus and the friends of Jesus are preparing to celebrate the Passover in just a few days; Lazarus is sitting with his family once again after recently being called out of the tomb by Jesus.  Martha is cooking the meal.  I’m not sure whether it is a moment of jubilation—a ‘my dear friend was dead but now he is alive’ party—or if a quiet moment of calm has been carved out in a hectic time and everyone involved is enjoying the peace that is permeating the moment.

I lean towards the latter image, but maybe that’s because I am an introvert and I can imagine how pleasant a quiet respite with my closest friends would feel in the midst of such a busy time.  It would be a jubilant moment, but not a raucous celebration.  Maybe think of it as a dinner party with at most six of your closest friends compared to a command party with one hundred fifty acquaintances.  

I think the house in Bethany is the small dinner with dear friends, that it is a quiet moment of calm carved out from a hectic schedule, because it’s only in a setting that comfortable and intimate that the sister of Lazarus would give such an extravagant gift.  

Mary probably came through under everyone’s radar.  She probably walked into the room and came near the table, and no one paid her much attention, assuming she was just helping with the table service.  I don’t think anyone noticed something out of the ordinary was happening until the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.  That’s when people stop and take notice; the house is full of the smell of extravagance, Mary’s hair is down; the neck of the bottle is broken and the oil cannot be put back or saved for any other purpose, and she anoints the feet of the One who raised her brother from death, and—knowing it or not—she anoints the feet of the One who would enter into death and destroy its power forever.  

Everybody likes a good homecoming.  When loved ones come off the brow and the first kiss happens after a deployment, that’s something we see and it makes us gush, “Awww!”  But there are other moments, when loved ones are reunited after a tragedy perhaps, that we find ourselves witness to something a little more intimate, a little more meaningful than the “first kiss” and we look away, not in shame, but to not intrude upon a moment that is for two specific people.

Mary’s anointing of Jesus is one of those moments, but no one knows how to look away.  All they can do is meet one another’s eyes in an uncomfortable way because a woman would never let her hair down in public, she would never approach a man’s feet; on top of the discomfort caused by such extravagance, the group is seeing social norms violated too.  The whole moment is beautiful and uncomfortable; it is so very right and so very wrong all at the same time.  Wrong if only because no one knows how to deal with such raw intimacy and worship (and I have been in congregations where this is certainly the case…), wrong if only because the onlookers are thinking that they would never show that kind of affection for their rabbi in public, and they’re just a little bit jealous.  It is a beautiful, intimate moment that no one knows how to handle, but one that they don’t want to disrupt either.

And then Judas speaks up.  And just like the screech of cats fighting in the middle of the night destroys a peaceful slumber, Judas Iscariot opens his mouth to shatter the spell of the nard: “Why wasn’t this sold for three hundred denarii and money given to the poor?”

Suddenly everyone is jolted back to reality.  Jesus loves the poor, and Rome’s taxes are only creating more poor people.  Is it possible that Judas is making sense?  Will Jesus rebuke her now for wasting resources that could have been used to rescue Israel from the tight fisted grip of the Roman Empire?  Will Jesus see that it’s unjust, maybe a bit hypocritical to receive such an extravagant gift when there are thousands who hunger?

I get this question, really I do.  When one congregation I served was looking at a multi-million dollar expansion of our building, I wrestled with adding space that needed to be heated and cooled and maintained, and debt that would need to be repaid, and all the money that would go into having a larger footprint on our land in our community.  When I served as a caretaker for church in the downtown area of a city in northern California and they spent a couple of tens of thousands of dollars on redwood folding doors to divide their renovated fellowship hall from their renovated church parlor, while sending the hungry and naked to local community services, I got kind of hacked off.

I get the question.  I get the point that is being raised.  But it’s not the question that’s bad it’s the motivation behind it.  The question is self serving.  It’s an attempt to cover hardness of heart with external holiness. The love and access that Mary has, is just as available to Judas, but he can’t see it because Jesus doesn’t fit his expectations of Messiah and Savior.  Grace is a stumbling block for Judas. And if Judas would just let himself be loved by the incarnate God who sits in his midst, he might just pour out his most extravagant gift too.

Whatever our own excuses are for not entering into the intimate moments of worship, whatever reasons we have for keeping God and the gifts of God at arms distance, Jesus looks at us and says, “You’ll always have an excuse…but here I am anyway. Pour out your time at my feet and see how I use it.  Pour out your treasure at my feet and see who I feed with it.  Pour out your life, and watch me raise it up into something you can’t even begin to imagine!  Just trust me.”

There is a little sign that hangs by my desk.  It says, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” If you serve the poor, do it for the glory of God.  If you sing, sing for the glory of God.  If you give expensive gifts for the church to use, do it for the glory of God.  Mary wasn’t drawing attention to herself—she was pointing to Jesus.  The smell of her offering would follow Jesus from Bethany to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Golgotha, and from Golgotha to the tomb and from the tomb to the garden.  Her offering wasn’t about her, it was about Jesus.  May the same be said for us, in whatever we pour out at the feet of Christ this day.  Amen.