About once a year, Doctors Without Borders sends me some kind of tchotchke in the mail – a pen that’s a multi-tool, a tote bag, a mini flashlight.
And I open the package and complain out loud.
“Why are you sending me this stuff?! I sent you money to help sick and wounded people! I’m definitely not giving you more money if you’re just going to spend on sending me junk!” (as I throw the appeal letter in the recycling, unread.)
(Sigh.)
I mean, if people would just listen to me, charities, churches, and governments would all spend their money much more wisely, and for better purposes.
Right?
Anyone else here have that experience?
So – in spite of the narrator’s comment in today’s gospel story calling Judas a thief – I know that more than once I’ve said basically the same thing he does:
Why was this wasted this way, when it could have been doing so much more work to feed or heal so many people!?
That’s actually a very natural point of view for people who follow Jesus; who have heard Jesus constantly refocusing our attention toward the multitudes, those who are hungry, or poor, or sick, or oppressed.
It’s a very natural point of view for those of us who think people who have plenty should help provide for people who have little – or for people who have had even their little taken away from them.
And Jesus doesn’t exactly disagree!
When he says “the poor you have always with you”, he’s reminding everyone listening that the Torah, the law, requires us to always be openhanded and generous with those who have less than we do, because there will always be someone who has less.
He’s reminding us that 99% of the time, or more, there is indeed some conceptually “better” use for what we are doing, giving, or spending. Something more completely compassionate, more perfectly effective, more rigorously holy and right than what we have thought of, or planned.
I often hear that voice inside my head, always pushing me to do the most right thing, the best thing, the most loving or most holy thing…
Maybe I’m the only one who gets stuck in a cycle of not deciding to do something, because I can’t tell what would be best.
Or maybe I’m not the only one, and some of you know about that, too.
One of our vestry members, commenting on this story a couple of weeks ago, mentioned that we’d never even be able to pray together if we had to measure everything we do against the greatest possible good in the use of our time, and resources.
But, as another Vestry member pointed out, Jesus is telling us that even if the expensive, extravagant ointment in the story could have fed three hundred families for a day, what Mary has done with it instead is, in fact, a worthy action.
It is, first of all, an act of love, intimacy and trust. This dinner, and Mary’s anointing, are direct, physical acts of discipleship, of heeding Jesus and becoming like Jesus.
This action demonstrates that Mary is living out her belief in Jesus just as Jesus has been teaching us to do: loving others as Jesus loves, abiding in him as branches and vines are knit together, and listening to his voice.
She acts in imitation of Jesus, pouring out extravagant abundance as an act of love – divine and human love.
And when Jesus tells us that “She’s kept this for the day of my burial.”
We know that Jesus knows that Mary has heard and understood what else Jesus has been teaching.
And while by John’s timeline of Jesus death and burial, Mary has poured out her burial anointing almost a week early, I think Jesus is telling Judas, and us, and anyone else listening, that Mary gets it.
In a room full of followers who have consistently misunderstood, or denied the possibility, any time Jesus suggests that he’s going to be crucified instead of seizing the crown of Israel, Mary already stands with Jesus under the shadow of the cross; in the reality of that tragic and courageous gift of death and life to the whole world.
Just before and after John tells the story of this dinner party, he explains that the raising of Mary’s brother Lazarus is what tipped the political and religious leaders of Jerusalem into deciding to kill Jesus. And that Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem for the last time, where they will kill him.
On some other day, a different time, pouring out a year’s salary in perfume might indeed have been a waste.
Here and now, it’s an act of affirmation, trust, and love that recognizes, beautifies, and sanctifies the extravagant gift that Jesus himself is in the process of giving.
In the noisy, distraction-filled world that you and I live in, and when many of us have heard some story of Jesus’ death and resurrection more times than we can conveniently count, it may be hard to be certain in our hearts when the moment is right for our own gifts of love to be poured out in faith.
It may be hard to be sure in our guts that you or I have found the right moment for the extravagant gift of money, time, or skill – to God via the church, or a charity doing justice, or healing, or feeding, or lending listening ears and helping hands.
It may feel like there’s never a right time for a lavish gesture with our time or voices – a question of whether it’s ever worth it, or possible, to stand and speak your truth for twenty-five hours like Senator Cory Booker this week.
Or to write a list of every possible argument against scams and financial abuse and injustices and nail them to the door of the church (or the courthouse, Congress, or corporate offices these days) like the 16th century saint Martin Luther.
Or to keep gathering crowds to speak about reconciliation and transformation and the eternal future of our human souls, until someone lynches you for upsetting the powers that be, like the twentieth century Martin Luther King, Jr or the first century Jesus of Nazareth.
Or the right time for opening your dinner table or home to someone who needs comfort, friendship, refuge;
standing up to the school or office or neighborhood bully – and offering to help them heal what’s hurt them;
or writing the difficult letter no one else can write;
or whatever other extravagant gesture lies within your reach.
But it’s possible Mary wasn’t sure either. Didn’t know that the time was right for her extravagant gift of love, so long ago in Bethany.
It’s possible she just knew that this was one thing she could do, one act of love that she needed to give, now.
And that she trusted Jesus to receive it.
Because there’s one other thing Mary could have done with that ointment, besides pour it over Jesus or sell it to feed the poor always with us.
She could have left it in a cupboard.
She could have done nothing.
You and I always have that choice, too.
To find the “most perfect” thing to do with the resources to hand.
Or to do the thing that’s right before us to do. The thing that is worth it, in the hands of God, because we did what love led us to.
Or to do nothing.
Which has the advantage, usually, that no Judas will mansplain to you that you did it wrong.
But which robs Jesus of the chance to make our actions matter.
To receive our gift of love, or hope, or trust – extravagant and inadequate, both at once – and with his love, and power, and grace to transform action into miracle, ordinary into gospel, and one moment into eternal life.
You and I, all of us, have some potential extravagant gesture in our hands, no matter how empty or full those hands are right now.
Jesus is with us.
I wonder, now, what will we do.
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