Sermon delivered by the Rev. Cristina Rathbone
John 12:1-11
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary 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. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (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.) Jesus said, “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.”
Pouring It All Out With Love
“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” So says Isaiah in the reading we heard today – and so also says Jesus, only not with words.
It can get confusing because we don’t hear the story in consecutive order at this point in the year, but our reading from the Gospel of John today relates a story about a dinner at Martha, Mary and Lazarus’ house, which comes just after a previous visit to that same house, during which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That first time there were a lot of people around — mourners from town mostly, grieving the passing of Lazarus. And while the extraordinary, miraculous, awe inspiring and likely somewhat terrifying raising of Lazarus caused many ‘to believe’, we are told, in John’s gospel at least it also served as the sort of final straw event which pushed the religious authorities into a firm, clear plan to destroy him. Indeed, it was upon hearing of the raising of Lazarus that the chief priests and Pharisees called an emergency meeting of their council and “from that day on…’ the gospel tells us bluntly, “they planned to put him to death.”
The time had come it seems. The powers and principalities were amassing against him, and understanding the danger, “Jesus” we are told “no longer walked about openly among the people, but went…” with the twelve to a town named Ephraim “in the region near the wilderness” and remained there with them, in seclusion and prayer we assume – and also, most likely, in hiding too – at least for a time.
Orders had been given by then “that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know so that (the authorities) might arrest him.” And it’s useful at this point, I think, to take a moment to really try to imagine how this might all have felt to Jesus, of course, and also to those who were with him. Jesus is a hunted man, on the run presumably – or at least biding his time up next to the desert of the wilderness. He’s got his people with him, his closest followers and friends, and we can imagine what the conversations must have been like tucked up in that house – the arguments back and forth about what to do next, the stress, the fear, the drive to strike out, or to flee, or to take some time to regroup at least… Until, after a time, six days before the Passover, we’re told, Jesus emerges again. And instead of retreating back up into the hills of the Galilee as most wanted men would have done, he walks quietly instead towards Jerusalem – and towards the death he knows awaits him there.
Bethany, where Martha, Mary and Lazarus live, is just two miles outside of Jerusalem, so it makes sense that Jesus and the twelve would stop there for the night on the way. It would be a safe place they knew. Or as safe as any place could be at least. And this is where the part of the story that Ted just read for us begins.
It’s such an incredible scene, don’t you think? The night of Jesus’ first quiet, intentional steps toward his own death, taken freely and with no fanfare at all, leads Jesus to the home of friends he can trust. He knocks on the door – and, with immense courage — Martha and Mary and Lazarus welcome he and followers in, and then set about feeding them all.
Again, we need to remember the fear that must have been coursing through that room. The knowledge – however contested– about the danger that awaited them all for just being associated with this now marked man, Jesus. The gospel says nothing about it, at least not directly, but when Mary begins to anoint Jesus, evoking his death in ways that were both clear and unavoidable, Judas explodes.
Clearly rattled, obviously not thinking straight, perhaps even shamed to the point of rage at the suggestion that Jesus would die – and the knowledge in him that implied he would therefore do his worst — he lashes out at Mary, babbling about the budget and about how the money could have been better spent…
It’s so typical of the disciples – and of all of us I think — this skipping over the essential truth of what is unfolding by focusing on unessential and peripheral details. I mean is this any time to be thinking about money?! Jesus was being actively looked for, hunted, tracked down, and spied upon, and instead of running or hiding he was insisting on walking unarmed and unprotected right into the heart of the place where the danger lay. It was – indisputably at this point – the beginning of the end, the start of the final chapter of his too short life — and of them all only Mary could acknowledge it. Only Mary could accept it.
Unlike Peter before her, she didn’t argue with Jesus, trying to get him to change his mind – begging him please to stay with them, and unlike almost all the male disciples she didn’t slip into denial either, or into the kind of willed confusion that seemed to take over in times of real stress or fear. Instead, somehow, Mary trusted him, leaning in always, listening harder and more deeply always, struggling to follow right up close behind him always – even when she didn’t understand. And now this evening, while the others were still fussing and disputing about this and that, she alone keeps focused on what was actually going on and bathes her dear friend and teacher and lord with funeral oils…pouring them out with as much generosity and abandon as Jesus himself would soon pour himself out on the cross.
Perhaps alone in that room, Mary seems able to perceive the “new thing” that Jesus is about to do and is in fact already doing. And more than this, she echoes this “new thing” herself through her own willing outpouring of love, doing all she can to honor, thank, and perhaps even strengthen Jesus for the dreadful, beautiful work of love that was his and his only to do.
Who else could offer a better model of discipleship to us as we too seek to accompany Jesus on the way towards the last days of his life? From a practical point of view there wasn’t much she could do beyond remaining with him, beyond abiding with him, beyond sitting with him, at his feet, listening to his words and absorbing his presence. She’d been with him in grief and anger and celebration and joy. She’d been with him as the crowds grew and as everyone in the world it seemed wanted to be with him, and she was still with him now that the crowds had turned and even having him in her house exposed she and her family to real danger. She may have been only a woman. She may have had little status, or power, or say over even the minutest of things, but alone among those who were with Jesus that night, Mary got it. She got it all – the beauty, the love, the faithfulness, the terror, and the death to come. And still she stayed.
She didn’t speak because – well, what words could possibly have contained all she wanted to say – all she feared to say – all she longed to say. So instead, she took a pound of a rare essential oil traditionally used in the preparation for burial, and poured not a drop or two onto Jesus’ feet, but the whole large container of it down to the very last drop, saving nothing for herself, holding nothing back, and then she washed and wiped those same sacred feet with her hair…
“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” This new thing is what began that night as Jesus made a way in the wilderness by willingly walking right into its heart. And this new thing is what Mary alone was able to honor that night, what she saw, what she feared as much as everyone else I’m sure, but what she was able to surrender to nonetheless, thereby joining herself with Jesus so closely that her very actions became an extension of his own. He poured out with love and abandon, not counting the cost. She poured out with love and abandon, not counting the cost. Can we do the same?