What A Waste

Scriptures:     Isaiah 43:16-21,  Psalm 126

Philippians 3:4-14    John 12:1-8

Some of us may remember reading author O Henry’s story from many years ago, “The Gift of the Magi”.  It was about a young couple, Jim and Della, in dire economic circumstances but very much in love, who sacrificed greatly to buy presents for one another.  And if you’ve read stories by O Henry, there’s always an unexpected twist at the end.  Della had her long, flowing hair, of which she was very proud, cut off and sold to a wigmaker, to raise money to buy a chain for Jim’s watch, which he’d inherited from his grandfather.  Meanwhile, Jim had sold his one possession of value, the prized watch from his grandfather, in order to buy a lovely set of combs made of jeweled tortoise shell for Della.  On Christmas Day, each was disappointed to discover that the gift chosen had been rendered useless – Della had chosen a beautiful chain for a prized watch Jim no longer owned, and Jim chose beautiful combs for hair Della no longer had.  And yet the narrator tells us that each was pleased with the gift received - the extravagant, costly sacrifices each made reaffirmed the profound love that Jim and Della shared for one another.  How different from, to use a more current and very different example, the storyline in an old Seinfeld episode about “regifting,” taking an unwanted, unused, unopened present one has received – perhaps an ugly sweater or a hideous tie – and wrapping it up and passing it along as a present to someone else.  Ironically, from a material standpoint, in the Seinfeld example, everyone wins – the giver gets rid of unwanted clutter and at least there’s the hope that the receiver can make use of it – and yet “regifting” does nothing to strengthen the bonds of affection in the way that the costly giving of O Henry story portrayed, in which, from a material standpoint, Jim and Della both lost out.

Which brings us to the costly gift received by Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson.  While we have spent much of the year thus far reading from Luke’s Gospel, today we take a detour into the Gospel of John.  Jesus and the disciples were at the home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, and the sisters Mary and Martha.  They gave a dinner for Jesus, with Martha, of course, serving – very much in character for practical Martha; it’s what she did best.  And we may remember from Luke’s gospel, 10^th chapter, the story of Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha served, and once again Mary likewise acts in character. Mary took a pound of perfume made of pure nard – which was imported from the Himalayan mountains; you can imagine it was quite costly – and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.  John tells us that the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.  Judas Iscariot, who would betray Jesus, lays into Mary, asking “why was this not sold for 300 denarii” – one denarius was  roughly a day’s  wage, so three hundred of them was almost a year’s wages – “and given to the poor.”  From a practical standpoint, what Judas says makes perfect sense. Who could argue with he’s saying? And yet John’s gospel gives us a strong hint not to side with Judas: “Judas said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse for the disciples and used to steal from it.”  Jesus rebukes Judas: “Leave her alone” – parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke quote Jesus as saying, “she has done a lovely thing” – “she bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.  The poor you will have with you always, but you will not have me with you always.”

What’s going on here? – quite a lot, actually.   First, we want to unpack the old church tradition that tells us that Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus feet and washed it with her hair.  This tradition is an attempt to pull together the varying accounts of the anointing in the four Gospels. Mark 14, the earliest of the gospels, and Matthew 26, which followed Mark in this tradition, describe Jesus being anointed on his head in Bethany near the end of his ministry, 2 days before Passover, at the house of Simon the Leper by an unnamed woman; Luke chapter 7 describes Jesus being anointed on his feet in Galilee, much earlier in his ministry, in the home of Simon the Pharisee by an unnamed sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair.  And of course we have John’s account of the anointing of Jesus feet and washing with her hair by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazazus, 6 days before Passover at the end of Jesus’ ministry – so early church tradition equated Mary in John with the sinful woman in Luke.  But that’s not what John is telling us – Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were a family, two sisters and a brother, living in Bethany – the name means “house of affliction” or “house of poverty” – whom Jesus knew and loved. Scholars think that Bethany may have been a place where there was a poor house, similar to the homeless shelters of our day….and since one of the Gospel accounts mentions ”Simon the Leper,” it’s possible that there was a leper colony there as well. Certainly it would have been a place of great destitution and pain, and yet in Mary and Martha and Lazarus’ welcome, for Jesus it was also a place of great love.   Scholars disagree whether these varying traditions among the four gospels represent one anointing or more than one, but we should let each account stand as the various Gospel writers tell them.

More important is the transition that is taking place in this section of John’s Gospel.  Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, bringing Lazarus from death to life.  At the same time, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, with full knowledge that he’s going there to die.  Indeed, the religious authorities are searching for him, and even Lazarus, whom Jesus had brought to life, is under threat from the religious authorities, because people are coming to see Lazarus, and the raising of Lazarus is drawing disciples to Jesus. Jesus’ time with the disciples, his time in earthly ministry is growing short; indeed, is rapidly drawing to a close. The next day – which we’ll celebrate next Sunday – will mark Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  All too soon will come the betrayal in the garden, and the events of Good Friday.  So the writer of John’s gospel is preparing us for what is to come.  In today’s Gospel, Lazarus, brought to life, and his sisters are hosting Jesus, who is preparing for death.  Mary anoints Jesus’ feet – and when a body was prepared for burial, it would have been packed in spices for preservation, beginning with the feet.  The Greek word for perfume, myrou, is related to the myrrh that was used as a preservative.  She wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair – and in her culture a woman would have let down her hair only in moments alone with a spouse, or during time of mourning as a sign of distraction.  So Mary, perhaps not even fully realizing the implication of what she was doing, made a costly offering of pure perfume of nard out of the purity of her great love for Jesus, in preparation for Jesus’ upcoming death and burial. Because, as Jesus told Judas, they would not, at least in bodily form, have Jesus with them always.

Those words of Jesus about having the poor always with them sound callous to our ears, and they’ve been misused to promote policies that leave the poor in their misery – after all, some would say, Jesus said there would always be poor people, so who are we to contradict him?  As always, context is important; this conversation was likely taking place in a high poverty area, so they and everyone around them was likely impoverished.  Poverty was no abstraction; indeed, it was pervasive, and so to the extent they helped anyone there, including Jesus, they’d be helping the poor.  Jesus was not saying that the poor should not be helped – indeed, in Matthew 25, Jesus taught that helping the poor was helping him, and those not helping the poor might find themselves eternally separated from Jesus in the world to come.  But he did not want to dishonor the beautiful sacrificial offering of love Mary made. 

At the same time, the words of Judas have a familiar ring:  “Why was the money not given to help the poor.”  We hear echoes of the words of Judas every time someone begrudges aid to some group by saying that there’s some other group more worthy of help:  “Why should we help refugees, when we have our own to take care of?  Why should we help the homeless, when our veterans deserve help?” – of course, many of our homeless are veterans.  Of course, when we advocate public policies, taking public dollars, to helping homeless veterans, someone will say, “The churches should take care of them” – ignoring the reality that we at Emanuel know only too well, that churches don’t print money, and can only work with what we’re given.  The truth of those who argue in the spirit of Judas is that most of the folks who begrudge help to refugees often do little or nothing to help the homeless or even veterans, while those more openhanded, who are willing to help, are often willing to dig deep to help refugees and homeless and veterans, without distinction.  When it comes to helping people, the way of Jesus is not “either/or”, but “both/and”.  In the eyes of Jesus, the categories of “deserving” and “undeserving” don’t exist – after all, what did St Paul write to the church at Rome? – “While we were yet sinners” – and that’s all of us, every single one of us,  you, me, everyone in this room, everyone outside this building, everyone – “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for” – for who? Say it with me….  “Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:6-10)  Nobody deserves God’s grace – that’s the point!  Arguments that pit help for one group against help for another group come from the same place that the words of Judas come from, that is to say, from the bottom of the pit of hell. 

More broadly, in today’s gospel reading we have a contrast between the wisdom of our culture and the way of Jesus. Our culture tells us to be prudent, calculating, cautious.  Waste not, want not, as our parents taught us, especially if our parents grew up or were alive during the Depression of the 1930’s.  Wise words for difficult times, such as we face today. 

And yet our faith tells us that, while there are certainly times for prudence, there are also times when we are called to put caution aside, when our response to God’s great love cannot be calculating and measured and even stingy, but extravagant and costly, as is God’s love for us.  God’s love for every single one of us cost the death of God’s own Son.  In the words of the book of Lamentations (1:12), “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”  Indeed, how can we hold back, when God calls for our undivided love and devotion in response.   So this Gospel reading is a challenge to our natural tendency – that is to say, our sinful tendency - to hold back on our love for God and neighbor, to dribble it out in small, carefully calibrated doses.

At the same time, we can draw comfort from this story.  When we are faithful in our discipleship to Jesus, we rarely see the results of our actions.  A branch of science called chaos theory says that small changes in local conditions can snowball into large effects far away, sort of like a small change in the setting of a ship’s rudder leading it to a different destination.  Or in a popular illustration, chaos theorist Edward Lorenz postulates that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings outside our window may trigger a thunderstorm halfway around the globe.  In the same way, our prayers and acts of devotion to God and love of neighbor, made as an offering to Christ, may play out in powerful ways that we’ll never know on this side of eternity.  Our neighbors will chide us – why spend so much time and give so much of your means to the church?  What difference does it make?  What a waste!   And in our moments of discouragement, we may be inclined to agree.  And those moments of discouragement come to all of us.  God knows moments of discouragement come to me as well…many are the midnight hours I’ve asked myself, “Is anything I do making the slightest difference to anyone?  I could just sleep in on Sunday.  Why bother? What’s the use?”  And yet those who were faithful at my home church fifty years ago when I was growing up had no idea that someday I’d be pastoring a church – all they saw was a scrawny, shy kid with asthma and coke-bottle glasses…and yet their faithful offerings of love bore fruit in my life, and hopefully through our time here together, in your lives as well.  The same is true for what we do here.  We here are planting seeds of God’s grace, and will likely never live to see the full fruit of what we plant. We can draw comfort that in the eyes of God, who sees all, our prayers and acts of love are lovely offerings when offered in faith to Jesus.  Mary poured out an extravagant offering of perfume in love to Jesus, and yet in God’s eyes not a drop of her offering was wasted.  Nor are our greatest – or smallest – prayers or acts of kindness wasted when offered to Christ.

Matthew’s account of the anointing says that “truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told in remembrance of her” – and indeed, the story is preserved in all four gospels to this day.  Our prayers, our caring for those less fortunate, our acts of love, are a fragrant offering to God – and not a drop is wasted.  May future generations tell of the love offered in Christ’s name by the members of Emanuel Church.  Amen.