Mary anoints Jesus’s feet. Judas argues for the prudent use of resources. Why do we always side with Judas?
Putting love above prudence
Lent 5C | John 12:1-8
“Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.”
This raising a man from the dead wasn’t a long time ago. Just the last chapter. John 11. Mary and Martha pleaded with Jesus to save their brother, Lazarus. But when he doesn’t get there in time, they blame Jesus for his death. Then Jesus raises him from the dead.
And some of the people who witnessed this were kind of freaked out and went to the religious leaders to tell them about it.
And those leaders get freaked out enough to plan a murder.
So Jesus stays away, keeping to the wilderness until he returns to Bethany at the beginning of chapter 12. There he joins his friends in their home.
This bigger story represents the literal center of John’s gospel. It sets the tone and the expectations. This is the beating heart of the story.
Love brings life and fear brings death.
I can’t fully appreciate just how much love is in that room with them. Mary and Martha: their gratitude must be overwhelming. Lazarus: he owes his life to Jesus. These friends can’t possibly hope to repay Jesus for what he has done for them.
But they try.
Martha makes him dinner. Lazarus sits with him. And Mary anoints him.
It is a humbling scene of love and devotion. A family, so full of gratitude, that they spare no expense. If there were a fatted calf, they would have killed it. We don’t just celebrate that the dead has been raised. We celebrate the one who raised the dead!
Of course, like the older brother in last week’s Parable of the Lost Sons, not everyone wants a celebration.
The Tyranny of Prudence
We don’t fully appreciate this story. I can say this with confidence because of who in this story we are least likely and most likely to emulate.
Mary takes some incredibly expensive oil and pours it over Jesus’s feet and wipes them with her hair.
Show of hands. Who has done this for someone?
Nobody? This Biblical act of love? This obvious display of devotion and generosity? Some of us can’t, of course, but how about something similarly sacrificial and intimate?
So the most important act of anyone in this passage is this anointing and none of us has done it. OK.
Then what happens? Judas interrupts and calls this display wasteful. That they should’ve helped the poor instead.
How many of us have urged against generosity because it went to the wrong person? How many of us have made this same argument? We should sell it and give the money to those in need. This is what Jesus tells the pious young man to do, after all.
How can we account for the fact that none of us has ever emulated Mary in this passage and many of us have emulated Judas in the last week?
We know the phrase “being on the wrong side of history.” This is being on the wrong side of faith. And we’re all doing it.
“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
Everything is kissed with the scent. They are bound by the beauty; its humility is inescapable. Mary’s love for Jesus cannot be undone. The bell can’t be unrung. It’s fragrance covers everything.
And it draws us into it so that even we can witness it.
The beauty of the moment. Love over fear.
Revealing.
The evangelist explains that Judas had less scrupulous reasons for selling the ointment, of course. He’s a thief. So he was counting his “cut” of the sale. Probably convincing himself that they are taking this from him. That he is owed that.
We aren’t thieves, certainly. We’re just reasoning like one.
Wanting what’s owed us. What’s ours. Stretching our dollar. Maximizing our contribution. Trying to have our way through our money.
The question isn’t whether or not Judas makes a fair argument (though he certainly does). Nor is it whether or not there is a time and place to consider it (there certainly are).
The question is why is it so much easier for us to see Judas’s side than Jesus’s?
I don’t need to consider Judas’s side because the world already does that!
It’s like being in a room full of devil’s advocates: the devil only needs one! The rest of us are arguing for the wrong team!
Jesus responds
Jesus responds to Judas generously. He seems to answer this reasonable question with a reasonable response: he says that the anointment was set aside for him. She was saving it for him. It’s almost like Jesus is telling the treasurer: it was in the budget.
Of course, the implication is that she is anointing Jesus now for his burial. Because that’s what Mary was saving it for: when Jesus was dead.
Which makes the anointing an even more vivid and alarming image for the faithful. We don’t need to be so literal as to concern ourselves with what Mary knew or didn’t know. But that she was moved to honor Jesus now. While he is still alive. Not saving it for later. Not waiting for the different circumstances to arise. She wanted to do it right now.
The urgency in the act, particularly as it occurs right before Jesus enters Jerusalem to face the Passion, offers us a window into this kind of charity, generosity, and grace.
How often we save for a rainy day but struggle to spend when its raining. Perhaps we aren’t following our heart to love like Jesus. Our hearts can be so unreasonable and unreliable; ridiculous. But the very thing Jesus tells us to follow anyway.
Despising Context
Given all of this, it shouldn’t surprise us that the passage ends with one of the most misquoted lines in all of scripture:
“You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
A line often quoted by people who would side with Judas earlier in the story [encouraging them to sell the nard to give the money to the poor] but will now argue against giving to the poor.
People will quote Jesus to deny generosity. To preserve unjust systems which preserve poverty.
We have economists who argue that we must have poverty to have a successful economy. So, for the sake of our stock portfolios, we must keep people in poverty.
Of course, to make this tolerable, we keep the idea in the most abstract sphere. “The Poor” is just a percentage of the population. Their income: just a percentage of the whole. Not real dollars. When it comes to looking a human being in the eye and saying “we’re going to keep you poor for the sake of maximizing our savings” this distortion becomes a lot harder to defend.
This has nothing to do with what Jesus says.
Jesus isn’t saying poverty is a fact of life. He’s saying it’s a fact of corruption. Attending to the poor is our mission. That is our priority.
You always have the poor with you
Most of the disciples came from poor families. They have been traveling with few things, holding them all in common. They are the poor.
When Jesus says you always have the poor with you, he’s talking about “our people”. The people who need to be served. The people who come looking for saving.
We will have the need tomorrow. Not because it is inevitable. But because the need is universal. And serving the poor is our normal.
And the second half of the line: “but you do not always have me”: reveals the urgency of the celebrating.
He is telling his followers what they are still unwilling to face: that Jesus will die. And that they will have much yet to live for.
It is about to be their time. Celebrate tonight. For their work is just beginning.
The disciples as leaders
Jesus is trying to set up leadership at the grassroots level. Historically, Jesus is an early adopter of the newly-developing rabbinic tradition of the mid-first century. He brings his students (called disciples) along with him for active-learning. They learn as disciples to develop their own rabbinic skills.
Jesus treats all of his students like teachers themselves. So that when he’s gone, they will carry on and do the same.
This, of course, is the core structure of Christianity. Even in our most hierarchical institutions, the point of leadership is to develop the leadership of others.
Baptism isn’t just membership into a group, it is adoption into an order of teachers-in-training. All of us, at every age.
Jesus keeps telling his disciples you’re going to need to do this on your own. We end up mimicking this pattern in the church as the priest reminds the congregation: we are to do this. It isn’t just up to me.
The last forty years of leadership advice and best practices have left us confused and unprepared. We’ve essentially normalized thinking like Judas!
So…how do we think like Mary?
We start with generosity, conviction, and clarity. Because Jesus is our baseline. The Mission of God (Missio Dei) is our goal. And love is our practice.
We simply offer more of ourselves.
When we get tied up in the idea of whether to use the nard, we can always find good reasons not to. It is easy to convince a person who is looking to be convinced. But she doesn’t just pour the oil, she wipes his feet with her hair. She invests herself in it.This should never be just about the money. Or about the reasons. It’s about us. Our whole selves. Giving everything for love. Radical love. Full of grace and hope.