Loading...This Gospel story from John about Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with nard is such a wonderful story – full of rich detail and interesting characters. There are many things that we could talk about in this story: possibilities to investigate and open up and learn from.
I am struck by Judas Iscariot, one of those interesting characters. He’s interesting in the whole gospel story, not just in this scene.
We often make him out to be the scapegoat (after all he DID betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and he led folks straight to Jesus as he prayed in the garden!).
but Judas was chosen by Jesus to be a disciple.
He was hand picked to be a follower.
He traveled with Jesus.
He heard the stories that Jesus told.
He saw the miracles that Jesus did.
He was sent out with the others as part of a pair
to proclaim the mercy and grace of God in towns and villages!
He was also entrusted wit the common “purse” –
the funds used by the group of disciples for their needs.
So, yes, he betrayed Jesus.
And, he was a thief, as the Gospel writer John tells us.
But before we just skip right to the (massive) mistakes that he makes,
I think we need to acknowledge the full and complex Judas.
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In this story that John tells us,
Jesus comes to the house of friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.
As the story unfolds, we learn that it’s not just Jesus who has come for dinner.
There are others -- probably all the disciples.
Sometime during dinner, Mary takes the ointment and pours it on Jesus’ feet.
This is a dramatic and memorable moment!
The smell permeates the house!
There’s a lot of ointment, and it’s expensive and perfumed.
Judas, in a particularly crabby way, says,
“Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii [a year’s wage]
and the money give to the poor?”
You can just imagine the indignation in his voice.
And, John makes sure that we know that Judas raised this concern because he was a thief – not so trustworthy after all! –
not because he cared about the poor.
I’m guessing we have a variety of reactions to Judas and his indignant complaint:
• “What a jerk! He’s just covering up his tracks!”
• “Well, he is right. Just look around: the poor are here and they do need our help. Maybe we shouldn’t spend so much on things around the church; we should give it all away instead.”
It’s not so easy to pigeon-hole Judas as the “bad guy”
and to distance ourselves from him as though we’re not anything
like what he is.
Judas is really a mix of good and bad.
He’s much more complex that we’d like to make him be.
Judas cannot be painted with the brush of “evil”,
because there’s much more going on in him.
Oh sure, though. People try to do that.
They try to pigeon-hole one another: “us” verses “them”.
Several years ago, I spent three months in Palestine volunteering with a program that’s part of the World Council of Churches working with Palestinians and Israelis both. Over and over again, we would hear voices from both sides of the divide trying to demonize and dehumanize the other. Palestinians did it to Israelis, and Israelis did it to Palestinians.
The truth is, it’s much easier to hate someone else
when you don’t think of them as human.
It’s much easier to hurt the “other”
when you think of them as “evil” or a “demon”.
The rhetoric in the US lately about refugees or immigrants, or people of a different religion is doing the same thing:
making them the “other”, and then we don’t have to really care about them.
“us” verses “them”
insiders v. outsiders
The truth is, when we’re honest with ourselves,
we are not so far from Judas.
Even if we do remember the poor,
and have compassion for the migrant or refugee or the “other”,
we might end up demonizing someone who’s of another political or denominational perspective.
We all have this within us. Saint and sinner.
The truth is, when we’re honest with ourselves,
most of us are trying to cover up something.
Maybe not thievery, as Judas is.
But something.
Most of us aren’t really sure how to live in the tension & ambiguity of daily life.
Because,
Because, yes, Jesus is right.
We will always have the poor with us.
But, that’s not a reason to ignore the poor and do nothing.
And, yes, at the same time
we always have God here with us.
The incarnate God. Here.
The extravagance of God is REAL.
And our gratitude is also real, honorable, and valuable.
So, even if we’re not sure quite how to do it,
the fact is, we’re in the midst of the tension
of the very real needs of the world, and
the very real impulse to honor and give thanks to God.
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There are many things in the story which are thought-provoking and challenging
I’m struck by the difficulties, oddities, and tensions of the story:
• Mary is washing Jesus’ feet (usually a job of a male slave), yet Mary is a friend of Jesus’. A dear friend.
• This story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet is the middle story of three: Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and Jesus going to Jerusalem on a donkey.
• Jesus is alive in this story, yet Mary is preparing him for death/burial.
• the expensive perfume, yet there are many in the community to help.
• extravagance and a perfumed smell permeating the house in tension with the anticipatory loss that is Jesus’ death and the stench of his death.
There is so much to chew on from this story.
But it’s not just a story in the Bible;
we’re not engaged in just an academic exercise to understand what’s going on in the text.
Our other question is:
What does this story have to do with you and I? With our daily lives?
With life in the 21st century in America?
Indeed.
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You and I live in the midst of great tension and anxiety:
TV, radio, internet, newspaper, magazine
You can hardly turn around and it smacks you in the face.
It may seem quite amped up right now.
Maybe because of the political season,
lingering economic insecurity,
dramatic climate changes,
racism and other cultural realities that taint and distort the society
we live in, and
the extravagance of a few versus the poverty of many.
Where is God – the incarnate God, our living God, the God of grace and mercy – in the midst of this tension and confusion?
Where is God in the face of the rhetoric, dehumanization, and hatred?
Consider this question.
Wrestle with it.
I do.
Sometimes I even wonder where hope might be hiding out.
Because it can be hard to discern where God is in this midst of all that.
And then...
And then there is some unexpected word or action that I hear or see.
Something akin to Mary taking the jar of expensive ointment and anointing Jesus’ feet with an action that is extravagant in its love, grace, and hope.
Something like the young man who made a promise to a childhood friend when they were both in junior high school that he would take her to the senior prom. Years later when they were both seniors and he’s quarterback of the football team and she’s continuing to struggle to be accepted at school because she has Downs’ Syndrome, he fulfills that promise and escorts her to the dance.
Or, something like the small church with a struggling children’s Sunday School program that keeps on loving their kids and consistently offers classes even for the two or three or four kids who come. That means there are two or three or four young disciples who learn of God’s abundant love and grace, and then who share that goodness and welcome and love that they know with kids who have only known fear, or anger, or sadness.
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Where is God – the incarnate God, our living God, the God of grace and mercy –
in the midst of tension, hatred, or loss?
In the kindness and tenderness that you show
even if you don’t feel like it or it takes a whole bunch of work.
In the forgiveness you show to someone who has hurt you terribly.
In the extravagance,
in the “enough” that you receive at the Table,
in the “strength for the journey”
that is the gift of water on your forehead
that is the gift of the bread of heaven
that is the cup of salvation.
Where is God?
Here. Loving you with extravagance for life abundant.
Amen.
