John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, & Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, & wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii & the money given to the poor?" 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse & used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
I don’t know
That has to be said in reaction to this text.
What’s going on here? I don’t know.
But I do know that I can get a strong whiff of something. . .
Is that hypocrisy there, Mr. Let’s Care for the Poor?
Is that a fair assessment, Mr. Accuse Judas Now That He Can’t Defend Himself?
Is that foreshadowing when Jesus is anointed “for the day of my burial”?
Is that a seed of hope when Lazarus “whom he had raised” is there at the table?
Can there be echoes of a future event?
If so
The washing of the Disciples feet? Is that echoed by Mary?
The resurrection, is that echoed by Lazarus?
The betrayal, is that echoed by Judas?
The Rev. Dr. Pay No Toll has influenced me more than is wise, this is true. Yet, among his rich insights is the insight on the story of the Syrophonecian Woman - that we tend to pay too much attention to her. For her, the story is about Jesus.
When commentators who go on and on about Mary, or about Judas, or about the poor, is that who it is about?
I suspect it is more about Jesus. . .
That being said, I still don’t know what’s going on here.
Anointing for burial.
Discipleship as service; “Christians are people who do feet...”
The Gospel made real and present through “opposites” - God working life and salvation through suffering and death.
What’s that smell?
Smells like death is at the door, but that perfume, hints at more than death, there is resurrection and life as well. . .
2 comments:
A few quotes to share
From Loader:
"In the end it will be a few women who are left standing near Golgotha and who will venture to the tomb. The unlikely ones in Mark and John’s world, the women, become the models. This is deliberately subversive and reflects so much of the experience of Jesus’ ministry. Others were so good, so devout, and so busy being so, that they missed the point. This is grindingly obvious, when a woman like this inarticulately breaks the perfume container open and spreads the contents over Jesus’ feet. Mark even suggests that Jesus predicted how memorable her act would be. Let the memory live!"
From a sermon by Thomas Long
he speaks about how there are some themes running through here, little hints at the development of the story, like in a movie -
"The wine is in the water, the light in the darkness, the Word in the flesh. For John, belief is the capacity to see not only life’s surfaces but also its holy depths, to be able to look at events unfolding around us but also to look through them, above them and beneath them to perceive what is truly happening.
We need, then, two sound tracks -- one to tell the story and the other to tell God’s deepest truth about the story. John wants us to go to this ordinary dinner party in Bethany, but not to miss the hint of resurrection we can see in Lazarus. He wants us to hear Judas’s pious speech about caring for the poor but also to discern in those words the treachery that lies in the human heart. He wants us to see Mary not just as hostess but as prophet. He wants us to see her anointing of Jesus not as a mere impulse of indulgence, but as a costly act of worship. Jesus is not merely eating and drinking with friends -- he is the lamb at the Passover feast, and John wants us to smell the fragrance of the perfume that fills the house as the aroma of holy death. John whispers between the lines of the story because he wants us to see what is truly happening, and to believe."
I like that last quote.
This text is tough. Tempting just to preach on Mary's piety.
Jesus' raising Lazarus from the tomb did him in. Mary is anointing Jesus feet because he raised her bro from the tomb. Mary is doing herself in. There is some cross stuff there.
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