"An Extravagant Love"
John 12:1-8
In the previous chapter of John’s gospel, Lazarus was very ill, and his sisters
Mary and Martha had sent a message to Jesus. Though Jesus loved Martha
and Mary and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was,
before he headed to Bethany. When he got there, Lazarus had already been
in the tomb for four days, and the mourners were there to console Mary and
Martha.
Jesus went to the tomb and said, “Take away the stone.” Martha—always a
practical woman—said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” But they took
away the stone that closed the tomb, and Jesus prayed and then called,
“Lazarus, come out!”
Imagine the scene, as Lazarus came out of the tomb, his hands and feet bound
with strips of grave cloths, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus told
the people, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
So, that’s the context. Now, six days before the Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany,
to the home of Lazarus. Once again, the house is filled with family and
friends, and the table is covered with food. Martha is hard at work serving.
Lazarus is reclining with Jesus-- Lazarus
who was in the tomb until Jesus called him out.
Mary slips away and comes back, holding a clay jar in her hands. Without
a word she kneels at Jesus' feet and breaks it open, and the sharp smell of
nard fills the room. She does a series of remarkable things:
In a room full of men, Mary loosens her hair-- which is something a respectable
woman never did in that culture. She pours balm on Jesus' feet, which
also is not done. Then she touches him-- a single woman caressing
the feet of a rabbi. Also, not done, not even among friends.
Then she wipes the salve off again-- with her hair. It is totally inexplicable--
the bizarre end to an all-around bizarre act.
Judas is quick to point out how extravagant Mary’s action is. "Why
wasn't this ointment sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
That's what Judas wants to know. A day laborer and his family could live
on that much money for a year, and here she has poured it all out on your
feet!"
But Jesus doesn’t see it that way. "Leave her alone,” Jesus
says, brushing all objections aside. "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."
Now, that is about as odd a thing to say as anything Mary did. Jesus, who
was always concerned about the needs of the poor and marginalized and putting
their needs ahead of his own, suddenly pulling rank. Leave her
alone. You will have the poor to look after until the end of time.
Just this once, let her look after me, because my time is running out.
The
poor you always have with you. These words of Jesus have often been
interpreted to mean that Jesus believed poverty is inevitable. As the Rev. Dr.
Liz Theoharis suggested in the book we read for our Lenten study last year, some
people see poverty as an individual issue.
Some believe that poverty is a matter of individual sin or moral failure—that people
are poor because they don’t work hard enough…or have made bad choices.[1]
In her book, Liz seeks to show that--far from giving Christian reason to ignore
calls for economic justice, the passage we heard today actually makes “one of
the strongest statements of the biblical mandate to end poverty.”[1] She says the passage has been twisted out
of context to justify the belief that poverty as inevitable.
“The poor you always have with you,
but you will not always have me.” Some
people would argue from this that we should attend to spiritual needs over, or
instead of, tangible human needs. “Just a closer walk thee,” instead of a march
on Washington. Thoughts and prayers, rather than votes and legislation.
Individual acts of kindness, but keep the church out of the realm of
policy-making and community activism. But there are problems with this interpretation.
As biblical scholar Lindsey Trozzo
writes, we can’t separate Jesus from the poor.
Jesus brought good news in tangible ways to those who were oppressed and
vulnerable, and in his actions and teaching he challenged the oppressive
political system of his day.[2]
“The
poor you will always have with you.” Dr. Trozzo suggests that we may be
reading this wrong. In the Greek, the present indicative form of a word, which
states something, such as “you always have the poor with you,” is similar to
the present imperative form of the word, which commands you to do something.
So, another way to translate this passage would be as a command: “Keep the poor among you always.”
Going back to the story: Jesus and the disciples and some close friends
are eating dinner, when Mary brings in a pound of expensive perfume and pours
the perfume on Jesus’ feet. This is an anointing scene. In ancient Palestine,
there were two events that would call for an anointing: a coronation and a
burial. Jesus is about to die. He is going away, but the poor are always with
you. Keep the poor among you always.
So, could it be, as Trozzo suggests,
that this passage that has been used to justify disregard for the poor is
actually a direct command to always have Jesus’ mission for and among the poor at the center of our mission?
Jesus’ words about the poor echo
Deuteronomy 15:11: “There will never cease to be some in need on the earth.
Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth…. I therefore
command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” The
15th chapter of Deuteronomy outlines the practice of a Sabbatical
year in Israel’s tradition. Every seventh year, the people were instructed to
forgive all debts. They were also instructed to give generously to the poor in
other years.
Also, every 50th year, they were to have a year
of Jubilee, which called for even
greater generosity and debt forgiveness, and release for those who were
enslaved. The context reminds us that Jesus’ teachings about the poor is a
charge to live according to a different value system, and to work toward
systematic change that would include all persons in a community of justice and
abundance. We live in the tension between the reality that poverty is part of
the way our world works today—and the hope of God’s beloved community, where no
one suffers from poverty.
While
Mary’s behavior may have seemed strange to those who were gathered in the house
that night, it was no stranger than that of the prophets who went before
her. Ezekiel, who ate the scroll of the Lord as a sign that he carried
the word of God around inside of him. Jeremiah, who smashed the clay jar
to show God's judgment on Judah and Jerusalem. Isaiah, who walked around
Jerusalem naked and barefoot as an oracle against the nations.
Prophets do these things. They
act out the truth that no one else can see. Those who stand around watching
either write them off as crazy...
or fall silent before the disturbing news they bring from God.
When Mary stood before Jesus with that pound of pure nard, it probably could
have gone either way. She could have anointed his head and everyone there
could have proclaimed him a king. But she didn't do that. When she
moved toward him, she dropped to her knees and poured the salve on his feet,
anointing him for his death.
This was the action of a faithful disciple. Jesus received from Mary what
he would soon offer to his disciples, wiping his feet with her hair, as Jesus
will wipe his disciples’ feet with a towel.
Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with ointment so precious that its sale might have
fed a poor family for a year. Mary’s act was an extravagant act of love,
a model of faithful discipleship—in contrast to Judas’s unfaithful
response. In the story, Judas represents the voice of reason and
practicality.
I think this story invites us to identify not just with Mary or Judas. In the
figure of Mary, Christian discipleship is an act of adoration and gratitude to
the One who is holy. In her silent, prophetic act, she draws our
attention not to herself--but to Jesus.
The good news is the grace of Jesus Christ includes
them both, both the faithful and the unfaithful. Both are included within
the bright, transforming light the cross casts in a dark world.
How do we respond to Jesus’ self-emptying, extravagant love? With a
calculating, practical, careful way of life, like Judas? Or does Christ
call us to live lives of extravagant love?
The heroes in the scriptures are at their best when they live out their faith
abundantly, extravagantly. Noah building an ark when there isn’t a cloud
in the sky. Abraham and Sarah packing up everything they owned
and heading for God only knows where. Joseph marrying a woman who is pregnant
with a child who is not his. Peter and John announcing to those who
imprisoned them, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and
heard.” As Paul said, “We are fools for Christ’s sake.”
Over history there have been other fools for Christ: Saint Francis,
giving up his material wealth, living among the poor. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
returning to Germany and witnessing to his faith, eventually dying
for it, rather than staying safely in New York. Desmond Tutu, challenging
the powers that be, when he knew it could cost him. Fools for
Christ do not live a careful, calculating life-- but an abundant, extravagantly loving
life.
Mary’s love was uncalculating. She was too caught up in her love and
gratitude for Jesus to be concerned with her own scandalous behavior and
extravagance.
Jesus said, I came that they might have life—life abundant. We are called to a life of extravagant
faithfulness. If we follow Christ, we will not calculate what is easiest or
what will look best. If we follow Christ, we will not be stingy or
calculating.
Mary showed us that she was beginning to understand that we don't need to
hold back, out of fear. Whatever we need, there will be enough to go
around, for there is nothing frugal about the love of God, or about the
lives of those who are devoted to him.
Where God is concerned, there is always more--
more than we can either ask or imagine-- gifts from our gracious, extravagant
Lord."
Thanks be to God!
Rev. Fran
Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield
Presbyterian Church
Dearborn,
Michigan
April 7,
2019
[1] Liz Theoharis, Always with Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor. William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2017.
[2] Lindsey Trozzo, “Commentary on
John 12:1-8 at Working Preacher. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3993
