John 12:1-9
Mary was so embarrassing.
And Judas speaks for us, for sensible, grown-up church.
He doesn’t refer to her outrageous behaviour: wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair. That speaks for itself. But he does question her complete irresponsibility in pouring a precious perfume that cost approximately £22000 over Jesus feet.
But Jesus challenges Judas, and perhaps he challenges sensible grown-up church.
‘Leave her alone’.
Four reasons why he should have left her alone
1. Mary was an adult. She could do with her money what she wanted to do.
There is no reason to assume that Mary, Martha and Lazarus are poor. On the contrary, they were probably reasonably well off.
And Mary had chosen to buy some special perfume which, she had told Jesus, was put aside for him at his funeral. Probably she had said, when you die, I want you to have an amazing funeral. I want there to be fragrance around your body in death, because you brought fragrance, beauty to all that you touched in life.
But for some reason she doesn’t wait for Jesus’ death.
It may have been that she was overwhelmed with gratitude to Jesus for raising her brother Lazarus from the dead. That happened in John 11.
It may have come from a thought that Jesus had told her that he was the resurrection and the life, that whoever believes in him would not die, and that he had raised her brother from the dead – so maybe he would not die, and the perfume would not be needed at his death.
Or it may have been simply an inner feeling that now was the right time to do this.
Whatever. It was Mary’s money. It was not Judas’ place, or anybody’s place, to criticise how she spent it.
2. Mary loved Jesus, and that love was more important than her money or her reputation. She gave him her total attention.
When we criticise another person’s devotion, we are treading on thin ice.
When we say of someone, they only like the traditional services because of nostalgia, they are stuck in an old habit, or they worship the language or music more than the heart of what it is all about;
Or when we say of someone, they are just too emotional, driven by feelings, caught up in the moment; there is no depth or substance to their faith;
Who are we to look into another person’s heart, to find them wanting and to condemn them?
The point is that Mary loves Jesus. She loves spending time with him. You may remember another story about Martha and Mary. Jesus had come to their house, and Martha was doing all the preparatory work while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him. Martha tells Jesus to tell her sister to pull her finger out and do some work. But Jesus challenges her and says that at that moment Mary had chosen the better part.
Mary, and I think this is key, gives Jesus her attention.
Simone Weil – a genius but tortured soul - wrote in a letter in April 1942 to Joe Bousquet, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is given to very few minds to discover that things and beings exist”.
And Mary now gives her entire attention to Jesus. For her at this moment he becomes the only thing that exists.
There is a line we sing in the hymn, ‘Be thou my vision’, which took me ages to work out what it was we were saying: ‘Be all else naught to me save that thou art’. But it is saying exactly what Mary is saying to Jesus – nothing exists to me at this moment, apart from you.
She kneels at his feet (by the way, the word worship, prostrate yourself, ‘proskuneo’ literally means to ‘to come towards and to kiss’). And she shows her love by giving everything: pouring £22000 worth of perfume over Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair.
That was how much Jesus meant to her.
It is not always true that how we give our money reflects what we love.
If we are wealthy, giving money is often not an expression of love, a desire to give attention to the other, but the easy way out – a way of avoiding giving attention. But at the same time, what we give our money to, what we spend our money on, does reflect our priorities.
Judas, sensible church, had no place in criticising Mary. She was giving her total attention, everything she had – and yes, it was very physical as well, potentially erotic but there is nothing here to imply that it was – to Jesus.
Bishop Bill Burnett, a former archbishop of South Africa, wrote of how he would go into his chapel to pray – or at least intend to give Jesus his attention – and to help him do that consciously offer every part of his body to Jesus, beginning with his feet and ending with his head and hair.
3. Mary is enacting a parable to say that we can be people who give out the fragrance of life.
I don’t think that it is reading too much into this passage to say that just as the house was filled by the fragrance of the perfume, so Jesus’ death will release the fragrance of life into the world – and that as the people of God, we are called to be people who bring the fragrance of life.
Hosea speaks of the renewed Israel, the renewed people of God when they turn back to God: “His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon. They shall again live beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom like the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon”. (Hosea 14:6-7)
And Paul writes, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life”. (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)
How do we smell?
Mary was so embarrassing.
And Judas speaks for us, for sensible, grown-up church.
He doesn’t refer to her outrageous behaviour: wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair. That speaks for itself. But he does question her complete irresponsibility in pouring a precious perfume that cost approximately £22000 over Jesus feet.
But Jesus challenges Judas, and perhaps he challenges sensible grown-up church.
‘Leave her alone’.
Four reasons why he should have left her alone
1. Mary was an adult. She could do with her money what she wanted to do.
There is no reason to assume that Mary, Martha and Lazarus are poor. On the contrary, they were probably reasonably well off.
And Mary had chosen to buy some special perfume which, she had told Jesus, was put aside for him at his funeral. Probably she had said, when you die, I want you to have an amazing funeral. I want there to be fragrance around your body in death, because you brought fragrance, beauty to all that you touched in life.
But for some reason she doesn’t wait for Jesus’ death.
It may have been that she was overwhelmed with gratitude to Jesus for raising her brother Lazarus from the dead. That happened in John 11.
It may have come from a thought that Jesus had told her that he was the resurrection and the life, that whoever believes in him would not die, and that he had raised her brother from the dead – so maybe he would not die, and the perfume would not be needed at his death.
Or it may have been simply an inner feeling that now was the right time to do this.
Whatever. It was Mary’s money. It was not Judas’ place, or anybody’s place, to criticise how she spent it.
2. Mary loved Jesus, and that love was more important than her money or her reputation. She gave him her total attention.
When we criticise another person’s devotion, we are treading on thin ice.
When we say of someone, they only like the traditional services because of nostalgia, they are stuck in an old habit, or they worship the language or music more than the heart of what it is all about;
Or when we say of someone, they are just too emotional, driven by feelings, caught up in the moment; there is no depth or substance to their faith;
Who are we to look into another person’s heart, to find them wanting and to condemn them?
The point is that Mary loves Jesus. She loves spending time with him. You may remember another story about Martha and Mary. Jesus had come to their house, and Martha was doing all the preparatory work while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him. Martha tells Jesus to tell her sister to pull her finger out and do some work. But Jesus challenges her and says that at that moment Mary had chosen the better part.
Mary, and I think this is key, gives Jesus her attention.
Simone Weil – a genius but tortured soul - wrote in a letter in April 1942 to Joe Bousquet, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. It is given to very few minds to discover that things and beings exist”.
And Mary now gives her entire attention to Jesus. For her at this moment he becomes the only thing that exists.
There is a line we sing in the hymn, ‘Be thou my vision’, which took me ages to work out what it was we were saying: ‘Be all else naught to me save that thou art’. But it is saying exactly what Mary is saying to Jesus – nothing exists to me at this moment, apart from you.
She kneels at his feet (by the way, the word worship, prostrate yourself, ‘proskuneo’ literally means to ‘to come towards and to kiss’). And she shows her love by giving everything: pouring £22000 worth of perfume over Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair.
That was how much Jesus meant to her.
It is not always true that how we give our money reflects what we love.
If we are wealthy, giving money is often not an expression of love, a desire to give attention to the other, but the easy way out – a way of avoiding giving attention. But at the same time, what we give our money to, what we spend our money on, does reflect our priorities.
Judas, sensible church, had no place in criticising Mary. She was giving her total attention, everything she had – and yes, it was very physical as well, potentially erotic but there is nothing here to imply that it was – to Jesus.
Bishop Bill Burnett, a former archbishop of South Africa, wrote of how he would go into his chapel to pray – or at least intend to give Jesus his attention – and to help him do that consciously offer every part of his body to Jesus, beginning with his feet and ending with his head and hair.
3. Mary is enacting a parable to say that we can be people who give out the fragrance of life.
I don’t think that it is reading too much into this passage to say that just as the house was filled by the fragrance of the perfume, so Jesus’ death will release the fragrance of life into the world – and that as the people of God, we are called to be people who bring the fragrance of life.
Hosea speaks of the renewed Israel, the renewed people of God when they turn back to God: “His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon. They shall again live beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom like the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon”. (Hosea 14:6-7)
And Paul writes, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life”. (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)
How do we smell?
I remember one person coming into a church where I worked in Durham, and said a bit critically, ‘This place doesn’t have the smell of a church’. To which the curate replied, ‘You mean the damp musty disused smell?’
It isn’t really about the smell of the building, but how do we smell as a community? Do we smell of death or of life?
4. Mary is showing us that Jesus is the answer to the poor
Jesus’ remark, ‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me’, jars with our social conscience. We say, ‘But the Church should be prioritising, working for the poor, establishing social justice’.
No. The Church, the people of God, should be focussing first on Jesus Christ.
If we make social justice our priority, we end up being in danger of being driven by guilt, dividing people – because we all have different ideas of what we should be doing, burning ourselves out, and possibly – like Judas – starting off with all the best intentions but ending up being consumed by money.
What Mary got right, both when Martha was getting all worked up because she was listening to Jesus and not helping, and here, was the realisation that giving attention to Jesus has to come first.
If we do that, then the rest will follow. We will be shown who it is we can support, what we can do, and he will give us the resources to do what he calls us to do.
We are not the answer to the poor. He is the answer.
So perhaps, and I speak as a sensible man to sensible people, to sensible church, we need to remember to be very cautious in our condemnation of embarrassing church, of the Marys. And perhaps there are a few things that we can learn from her. Perhaps, for a while, we should be giving Jesus our total attention.
4. Mary is showing us that Jesus is the answer to the poor
Jesus’ remark, ‘You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me’, jars with our social conscience. We say, ‘But the Church should be prioritising, working for the poor, establishing social justice’.
No. The Church, the people of God, should be focussing first on Jesus Christ.
If we make social justice our priority, we end up being in danger of being driven by guilt, dividing people – because we all have different ideas of what we should be doing, burning ourselves out, and possibly – like Judas – starting off with all the best intentions but ending up being consumed by money.
What Mary got right, both when Martha was getting all worked up because she was listening to Jesus and not helping, and here, was the realisation that giving attention to Jesus has to come first.
If we do that, then the rest will follow. We will be shown who it is we can support, what we can do, and he will give us the resources to do what he calls us to do.
We are not the answer to the poor. He is the answer.
So perhaps, and I speak as a sensible man to sensible people, to sensible church, we need to remember to be very cautious in our condemnation of embarrassing church, of the Marys. And perhaps there are a few things that we can learn from her. Perhaps, for a while, we should be giving Jesus our total attention.
Thank you! From Nadia
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