Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
March 28, 2004
Isaiah 43:16-21; John 12:1-8

John 12:1-8 ¶ 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.”

I. INTRODUCTION

Bill Clinton and I used to go to the same church. Many of you know that church, Foundry United Methodist, downtown. It’s a large and influential church that has a terrific record of involvement in the community in areas of charitable outreach and service and in social justice witness. Many people are drawn to that church because of it’s well-known Christian witness and reputation in the community and even around the country. I got there through sheer luck: when I was looking for a church after moving to my neighborhood ten years ago, I looked up Methodist churches in the phone book and Foundry was the closest one.

But during the years 1993 to 2000, every Sunday the church experienced a certain ‘tourist’ phenomenon as visitors to Washington would come to Foundry to get a glimpse of the President of the United States. Now, sometimes they’d be disappointed: the metal detectors would be up, the secret service would be there, but the president would never arrive. We later learned that the secret service would set up on every Sunday the presiden t was in town, just in case. It wasn’t always an indicator of whether the president was in fact coming. But there were a fair number of visitors who would come on those Sundays just to be near the president.

Now, I’ll tell you, whatever you might think of the man or his politics, President Clinton had a very powerful presence. When he would walk down the aisle to his pew, you couldn’t help but take notice and if you happened to get to sit close enough to him that you could shake his hand during the passing of the peace, the experience was electric. So much so that one woman I know, related to me maternally, a life-long Republican, was very nearly converted by the experience of meeting him.

There are those individuals in our lives who attract us, and fill us with a desire simply to be in their presence.

II. THE TEXT

When Jesus comes to the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, it is his presence that becomes the centerpiece of the story. Lazarus had been raised from the dead by Jesus not long before. As Jesus and his disciples and Lazarus are eating the meal, Mary takes a pound of perfume and anoints Jesus’ feet with it so that “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
Judas objects, saying that the perfume ought to have been sold so that it’s value could be given to the poor. The value of the perfume was three hundred denarii, that is, three hundred days’ wages. That’s a lot of money. A year’s salary. Judas would not be alone in wondering why something more productive had not been done with something so valuable. Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet is extravagant. Unbelievably so. It’s also unusual, since she anoints his feet not his head, and further unbinds her hair to wipe his feet—a somewhat immodest behavior. So, we come to understand that the whole encounter is out of the ordinary, the cost that is given tells us how out of the ordinary it is.

Judas objects to this ostentatious display, but Jesus responds:

“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.”

III. IN THE PRESENCE OF JESUS

In effect, Jesus is saying, Mary is responding to my presence in your midst—an event of such significance that there is nothing that can be considered too extravagant in response.

There are a couple of things worth pointing out about Mary’s actions. She anoints Jesus with perfume that overwhelms the house. It is important to remember that when Jesus was about to raise Lazarus her brother from the dead, her sister Martha protests saying that Lazarus has been dead for four days and surely the body will smell. Mary, in her anointing of Jesus says that the stench of death has been replaced by the fragrance of love and devotion. [NIB vol. IX, p. 701].

But the anointing that Mary gives Jesus is not simply pointing backwards to Lazarus’ raising. It points forward to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus himself says that the perfume is intended to be kept for the day of his burial. In addition, we read that Mary “wipes” Jesus’ feet with her hair: and here in Greek the same verb is used to describe Jesus’ washing of the disciples feet at their farewell dinner. Thus, the transformation of the smell of death into the fragrance of love is a sign that points toward Jesus’ own resurrection.

Mary responds in perfect discipleship to the presence of her master. She gives boldly of herself in anticipation for how Jesus is about to give boldly of himself. [NIB vol. IX, p. 703] How much more so should it be for us for who Jesus has already so boldly given of himself? Should we not all the more respond to Jesus’ presence even more extravagantly?

IV. YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE POOR WITH YOU

I will say that we in the modern church have just as often as not gotten the idea of responding to Jesus’ presence wrong. Perhaps on account of this very passage, too. When Judas objects that the money should have been spent on the poor—Jesus responds ‘You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’

A strange thing happened in modern Christianity, in that this became a kind of either/or idea—not explicitly stated, but nevertheless visible in our churches.

In the 19th Century, the issue of slavery split many of the Protestant churches in the United States, the Methodist church being one of them, the Baptist church another. When that split happened, each began to move along separate trajectories.

In the northern church—The Methodist Episcopal church—the social gospel took central significance. Acts of justice and social reform, progressive policy changes, charitable outreach, and so on became the way of Christian discipleship. The southern church—The Methodist Episcopal Church (South)—took on what we would today describe as a more ‘evangelical’ character, where one’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ became the way of Christian discipleship. It’s a distinction that in many ways has survived the merger of the two churches back into one back in 1939—and survives today to a certain degree in the distinction between the American Baptists and the Southern Baptists. A neutral and uninitiated observer might be forgiven for thinking that one was serving ‘the poor’ and the other Jesus.

And Jesus’ statement that “You will always have the poor with you” has been understood by some as an endorsement of the fact that there will always be poor people, and there’s not much we can do about that fact. Sure, we can try various things, but Jesus himself said that we’d always have the poor. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an excuse to me.

One Latin American commentator has noted that he understands the phrase to mean “you will always have the poor among you”—and to be sure, the Greek preposition that means ‘with’ (meta) can also mean ‘among’. It’s an interesting translation—because we might rather understand Jesus as saying that the poor are always in our midst, among us—a part of us. We also need to remember that Jesus does not put down the value of giving to the poor. Rather, John tells us that Judas’ objections are not really based in caring about the poor but in wasting the perfume on Jesus. John’s point is not that Mary would have been a faithless disciple to give to the poor, but that Mary is a faithful disciple because she responds out of love to the presence of Jesus in her life.

We need not separate out the two. We need not choose between serving Jesus and serving the poor. In Matthew’s gospel we understand that to serve the ‘least of these my brothers and sisters’ is to serve Jesus. We need not choose between to options—they are really the same thing. Serving the poor is serving Christ. John is not telling us that the former is not important, he is reminding us of the importance of responding to Jesus’ presence in our lives with acts of love.

V. IN THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST

Where else is Christ present in our lives? When else do we encounter Jesus?

Christ is present in the Church—we are the body of Christ, who gather together to learn, to share at the table, and to serve the world. We encounter in each other the presence of Christ. We ought to respond with love, extravagantly. The kind of love that turns the mustiness of our everyday lives and of our everyday pressures into the fragrance of life and love.

We so often clamor to get into the presence of the rich and the powerful. We go to great lengths to catch a glimpse of important people. Should we not all the more with Jesus?

Now, you’ll hear people from time to time say things like “Wouldn’t it be great to have been back there with the disciples, to have met Jesus?” There’s a whole host of things wrong with that statement, but for now let’s focus on the underlying assumption that we cannot be with Christ now where we are.

Christ is present when we break bread and drink the fruit of the vine together. Christ is present when we study together or pray together—indeed where two or three are gathered. Christ is present when we gather together in a congregation to worship. Christ is present in those whom we meet. Christ is present in the poor and in the least of these.

How many opportunities are we afforded on a daily basis to respond lavishly, extravagantly in love? And how often do we fail to do so? How often do we waste our time wondering about the rich or the powerful or the famous—daydreaming about being in their presence—when we are already in the presence of the Son of God every day of our lives?

We can afford to be extravagant—even reckless—with our love, because we were first loved by one who showed his love extravagantly to us.