This season of Lent, we continue to walk The Way of Love – or in the words of John Lennon: “All You Need is Love, Love, Love is all you need.”
But sometimes, people don’t see it that way.
All Judas could see was the expense. Costly perfume… wasted on the feet of Jesus.
How could Mary do such a thing? What about the poor?
As I sat with the Gospel, I thought about his reaction. I think we often react that way. A meditation that Ellen & I read this week as we begin an online course together, said this…
“The notion that there isn’t enough, enough for me and you, is an illusion perpetuated by this force of separation. It draws lines. It carves up the world. Me versus World. Me versus You. Mine versus Yours.
If we’re identified with a conversation that revolves around ownership—
what’s mine and what’s not,
what I have and what I don’t,
what you have that I should but don’t,
what I need but don’t have,
what’s enough but is not mine,
—do we need to wonder why our world view is colored by want, lack, deprivation, scarcity, something wrong, not enough? An orientation of scarcity breeds fear, greed, attachment, and parsimony. Then self-hate chimes in and makes it personal with its messages of how undeserving we are, how unworthy of our good fortune and privilege, how deficient our gratitude, and pretty soon enjoyment of anything we’ve been given vanishes under a morass of shame and guilt.” (from here)
Judas must have thought that Mary wasted the perfume, money that could have been given to the poor. I think he reacted out of that voice that looks through the lens of scarcity and fear that blames and shames. He did not see the love.
BUT, it was not wasted. It was a gift. It was done out of faith and love. A beautiful gift for Jesus. Mary & Martha and their brother Lazarus knew Jesus. He raised Lazarus from the dead. In this joyous moment, Martha’s gift to Jesus, her expensive perfume, her hair, her anointing of Jesus.
Each of the Gospels tells of this episode. Of a woman anointing Jesus with expensive perfume.
But in John, he places this story within the framework of people who Jesus knows and right before his passion. His symbolism of this anointing is connecting the gift from Mary with Jesus and his death.
Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial…”
In John, Jesus lifts up Mary’s gift. Connects it with his life & death… and then he says… “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Jesus is referring to Deuteronomy 15:11: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land”.
That tender moment is happening with sisters, a man raised from the dead, the doers, the prayers, and the rebels, all nature of followers of Jesus are gathered together for a meal with Jesus. They are witnessing a powerful and incredibly intimate moment. This is as Raymond Brown writes, “the culminating expression of loving faith.” Give such a gift and help the poor., he seems to say.
A loving gesture. An intimate moment. Its about faith. It is a gift. A gift that Mary does to Jesus and we can follow her faithful example in our own lives…
It may be the cup of coffee or the sandwich you bring to the coworker working late on a demanding project.
Or it may be the blanket you wrap around your visiting grandchild as you tuck them in for the night.
It could be driving someone to the hospital for their treatment or therapy.
Or it might take the form of a casserole, a shoveled walkway, a few extra dollars in a card to your son or daughter at college, an afternoon walk with your elderly mother.
It’s Mary’s oil: the “perfume” of simple kindness and generosity that fills your house — or the breakroom or the guest bedroom or the park.
Mary’s humble act of welcome and gratitude may seem ostentatious to some of the guests at the party, but her breaking open the jar of ointment to anoint Jesus’ feet fills the house with much more than its beautiful aroma. Mary’s simple gesture fills the house with a spirit of compassion and thankfulness. It is gift. (and it doesn’t stop us from helping the poor and those in need.)
Judas’ attempt to diminish her is deflected by Jesus, underscoring the effect her gift had on the gathering. An anointing as an act of welcome to her beloved friend, later as an act of courageous compassion to anoint the body of the crucified Jesus. Mary’s small jar of spices that she shares is an example to all of us of the fragrance of joy and peace, of comfort and care with which we can fill our lives when we dare to waste our own time and energy with the humility, selflessness, and love in the spirit of God’s Risen One on those we encounter.
“All we need is love, love, love is all we need.” May all of our actions, like Mary’s, be done with love. Amen.
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