April 6 2025 Lent 5
Isaiah 43.16-21 Psalm 126 Philippians 3.3-14 John 12.1-8
Today’s story is the last before Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the beginning of the passion narrative.
John ‘book-ends’ his story of Jesus’ ministry with extravagance. Before he had even begun his ministry, Jesus turns 6 jars of water into 750 bottles of the best wine there is. Today, that extravagance is turned on him, when Mary cracks a jar of perfume worth a year’s wages and rubs it into Jesus’ feet with her hair.
The God that is revealed to us is not stern or stingy. It is a God of generosity and extravagance. This God is like the manager who pays a full day’s wage for one hour of work; like a father waiting desperately for a lost son and, when he sees him, welcomes him with ring, and robe and sandals, and throws an extravagant party. From beginning to end in the life of Jesus, God’s kingdom is characterised by excess and extravagance, both received from God and, as we see today, turned back to him by us.
All the gospels tell this story, but they do it differently. Mark and Matthew do not name the woman, Luke describes her as a ‘sinful woman’, only John gives her a name. And although there is a long history of identifying the woman as Mary of Magdala, John names her as Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus.
I wonder what Mary’s motivation was. What motivated her to open this jar of perfume which, as the disciples point out is outrageously expensive, and use it for this one moment of devotion. While John does give us Judas’ motivation in objecting to its use, he does not give us Mary’s. Is she just grateful that Jesus has revived her brother; is she perhaps, unaware of its cost? And this prompts us to ponder – what would encourage us to offer such an extravagant and intimate gift. Have you ever been so ‘caught up in the moment’ that you have done or given something without any thought of the cost – monetary or emotional. Is this what the abundant grace and generosity of discipleship looks and smells like.
In a few short days/weeks, Jesus will strip down, tie a towel round his waist and wash the feet of the disciples. And this time it is Peter, not Judas who objects. Is this act by Mary here, and Jesus later, the definition of discipleship? We often speak about wanting a ‘living relationship with Jesus’, but are we looking for a ‘private sense of relationship’ to God instead of the more communal act of service modelled here by Mary and Jesus. Which also prompts us to ask – who is it that needs their feet washed, their bodies prepared, their loads lightened, their rank lives graced with the sweet fragrance of sacrificial love?
Jesus’ comment about the poor often leaves us confused and ‘just a bit’ uncomfortable. We know Jesus is not dismissing the poor, so is he perhaps inviting us to witness the gift of his life that he is about to give so that we might enter this kind of discipleship. In other words, through his death, Jesus shows God’s abundant love for the world, so can we take this example of love that he offers us and be empowered and encouraged to care for the poor around us.
But what is this passage of wild excess telling us during this season of Lenten self-denial. Nearly every detail of this story crosses social boundaries. A dinner to honour Jesus ends with arguments. A woman lies down beside Jesus. She lets her hair down and strokes his feet with outrageously expensive oil. The disciples are unhappy about the waste of money; finally, after three years with Jesus, they seem to understand that care for the poor characterises the people of God. But Jesus seems to see something more important than care for the poor.
He rebukes Judas – ‘leave her alone, she has done a beautiful thing’. They don’t see that Mary has done more than even she may have been aware. Anointing Jesus was more than an act of personal devotion, it was also a prophetic act. She has prepared his body for burial. Jesus isn’t just a wandering sage or renegade rabbi, he is the Anointed One, Anointed by Mary certainly, but especially by God. In Hebrew, he is ‘the Messiah’. ‘She did what she could’, said Jesus.
And that is what we do in our Lenten disciplines. We do what we can. Mary did not save Jesus from his tragic fate by anointing him. Nor will our Lenten practices solve every problem. But, like Mary, we do what we can.
We give of ourselves to God wholly, we give all that we are and all that we have. And in return, we trust God for a new self that is shaped by God’s unlimited love. In the words of the psalmist – we sow in tears, with the hope to reap in joy. And, as we heard from Isaiah, God invites us to ‘forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. I am making a way in the desert, streams in the wasteland’.
Mary shows us the way. She did what she could, and in response to the extravagance of God’s goodness, we can offer our unbounded gratitude. Mother Teresa once prayed ‘I will take what you give, and I will give what you take’.