The days of Lent are winding down. If you have been purposefully engaging in some spiritual discipline since Ash Wednesday a month and a few days ago, then you are aware of the ticking of the clock. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and then we’re thrown into the observance of the last week of Jesus’ life, including special services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. It’s only after all of that that we fill the empty cross with the flowers of new life to proclaim the joy of Resurrection. So there’s a lot to go yet, but not much time as measured by the calendar.
Jesus’ friend Mary knew she didn’t have a lot of time left either. That’s why she felt like throwing caution to the wind and pouring a whole bottle of costly perfume over Jesus’ feet that night at dinner. We’re led to believe by people familiar with the economics of the ancient time that the perfume would have cost as much as some laborers would have made in a year. Three hundred denarii would have been a great deal of money in Mary’s household. And such extravagance as she demonstrated likely would have raised eyebrows.
But Mary didn’t care about that. Just a few days before the lovely dinner party we can picture in the household of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. We all know the story, but can we only begin to imagine the immeasurable gratitude the two sisters must have felt toward Jesus in restoring their beloved brother to life?
But gratitude was not the only emotion provoked by the resuscitation of Lazarus. John sees the act of bringing Lazarus back to life as a critically defining moment in Jesus’ life. John tells us that after Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead many more people than before were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah and came to believe in him. Conversely, however, many others feared that Jesus’ actions would incite social unrest that would, in turn, bring the Romans down on them. It was then that Caiaphas, the high priest, began secretly planning to sacrifice Jesus for the nation. Better to have one person die than many, he thought, and so, according to John’s Gospel at least, the wheels began turning toward Jesus’ crucifixion.
It’s as if Mary knew this, for at the dinner party she poured all the expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet as if to anoint him for burial, and, John says, “the fragrance filled the room.” She knew in her heart that she didn’t have much time with her dear friend whom she had confessed also as Messiah and, in an act of what we might call “holy extravagance,” she said nothing but simply poured the perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, reminiscent both of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and of the ancient custom of anointing the body of someone about to be buried.
Such extravagance flies in the face of those who want to keep the lid on. John tells us that Judas in particular voiced opposition to Mary’s extravagance. “We shouldn’t spend that kind of money on ourselves,” Judas says in so many words, “when there are so many poor people who need it more.” John whispers in our ear, however, that Judas’s words are empty. He had been embezzling money from the disciples’ treasury and had no concern about the poor.
But it’s Jesus’ response that has always puzzled readers of this Gospel. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought [the perfume] 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.”
A woman I met in Scotland some years ago loved this line about the poor. She wanted to be a good Christian, she told me, but all that talk about helping the poor made her feel guilty about not sharing more of what she had with people who have less. She didn’t realize that Jesus doesn’t let her off the hook with his remark. Turning one’s back on the poor is not at all what Jesus means in his seemingly callous response. He’s actually quoting a line from Deuteronomy which teaches that there will always be poor people who need the help of those who have more. The reference to that line in John simply means that there will always be poor people who need help, but that Jesus is about to leave the world and the friends he knows. And that is cause for Mary’s extravagance in the moment.
And that’s really the only thought I’d like to plant this morning. That there are times when the preciousness of life calls us to acts of extravagance.
In my personal life I live with a sense of urgency when it comes to my grandchildren. I feel that whatever time I have with them may not be enough. I have always admired people who are able to take time to open the world’s wonder to their grandchildren through travel or other kinds of experience, sharing special time with each one of them. Extravagance of that sort may not be so much material as it is emotional and experiential. Part of it for me is giving back, for I treasure the legacy I hold from the parents of my parents, which in no way diminishes the lingering gifts of my own parents. But having received, how can we not give back?
And isn’t that what we see in the act of Mary’s extravagance toward Jesus? From him she had experienced extravagant gifts – immeasurable and priceless. She had sat at his feet and learned from him. He had opened her to the love of God for her. Though materially a relatively poor man, Jesus was all about extravagance with everything he had. He used his special gifts to heal the sick and raise up those who were poor in spirit. Jesus was all about extravagance. At the wedding in Cana he produced 180 gallons of new wine. On the shore of the Sea of Galilee he used meager provisions to feed five thousand hungry people and yet had twelve baskets of leftovers remaining. Even after his resurrection he instructed Simon Peter, after hours of unsuccessful fishing, to cast his net to the other side of the boat and immediately the nets became so filled with fish they began to tear. Jesus was all about extravagance.
About abundance. Too often we think of ourselves as living in a world of scarcity. I’m not speaking about our limited natural resources. I’m speaking of living lives of generosity. I wonder if we don’t sometimes use the current economic downturn as an excuse to hold tighter than we should, or even need to, to what we have. When we define our world as a world of scarcity – whatever the scarcity might be, material or non-material – we can easily slide into living small little spendthrift lives.
These few days of Lent remind us that Jesus is God’s extravagant gift to us. According to John’s Gospel Jesus was sent into a world that did not ask for him and to a people who would not receive him. Yet he lived entirely for our benefit, giving us glimpses of a kingdom not of this world only but of an eternal realm beyond all thought and imagination. In his likeness we, too, are moved to give of ourselves in extravagance set apart from earthly things. To gifts of holy extravagance.
Now consider this thought as transition from word to music. We are about to hear an organ work and several chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the great composers of our Reformed Christian tradition. It is said that the fragrance of Mary’s perfume filled the room. So, too, have the sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music filled many rooms over many years. Today is the 325th anniversary of Bach’s birth. His prolific life of sacred music to the glory of God is unparalleled. Long after his life on earth we continue to luxuriate in his gift to us given in response to God’s gifts to him. His was a talent monumental and extraordinary. But even we who are ordinary often have more to give than we realize or are willing to let go of. Yet it is the same Spirit that infuses the large and the small. And it is the same God whose gracious love fills us all. Amen.