There is a lot of drama going on in this morning’s Gospel. Let’s take a close look and see how the story reveals a lot more than what it may seem like on the surface.
The whole story unfolds quickly but it begins slowly. We hear that Jesus is in Bethany, a familiar place to him, waiting for one of the major feasts of the Year, Passover. It’s just six days away and there was a lot to do in preparation, if not for the meal, at least to prepare one’s heart for this important festival. The feast of the Passover commemorated the Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery, which marked the birth of the nation of Israel and is considered by the Jewish people to be the single most important event in their history. The delivery itself was both miraculous and divinely orchestrated entirely by God. The Jewish people believed that God had sent Moses to Pharaoh to deliver this message; “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness”
At first blush, the entire story seems to be about money: Judas has a rather shaky motivation for speaking up against the extravagant use of costly perfume, but I am not sure any of us would argue with him about finding another way to use the money that could be earned by simply selling it for what it was worth. You probably know this from hearing the story before, but a denarius is a Roman silver coin that weighed about 3.85 g and hence would have a modern value of 74 cents. So, a 100 denarius represents a100 days of an agricultural worker who would have worked for 12 hours each day.
I am not sure that the original story had all the parentheticals inserted which questioned Judas’ motivation. Maybe it was but I like the story without questioning Judas. We are told, parenthetically that Judas was about to betray Jesus and that he was a thief. My problem with this extended criticism of Judas is that it makes it a story that I can quickly ignore and simply place at the feet of Judas. Judas wasn’t concerned about the waste, he was just trying to steal money. But what if Judas was truly concerned, not only with the optics of this, but the wastefulness of it all. I find myself in agreement with Judas if this were the case and suddenly find myself thrust in the middle of this controversy. Perhaps it would be better just to criticize Judas and move on?
Note that Jesus is at a friend’s house. Not just any friend but he was among close friends that had scene some pretty amazing things. At this point, the whole Lazarus is dead and now Jesus calls him out of the grave thing had already taken place. The buzz, though probably a bit muted by this time, still filled the air. Jesus was different, everyone around him knew it. It was not just his teaching, which consistently blew people away, but there was this miracle that could be explained away. And these people were eyewitnesses who would probably quickly rally to Jesus side it Judas were to keep up his criticism. Frankly, I admire Judas’s hutzpah. Of all places, times and around these people, Judas dares to suggest that such wastefulness speaks poorly about their cause. We know Lazarus was sitting at the table, Martha was serving, and Mary isn’t. At this point I would not be surprised if we read that Martha cut Mary out of any family inheritance because, in only one short verse, we hear that it is Mary who is about to commit the faux pas and pour thousands of dollars of perfume on Jesus.
Have you ever been in a position where you witness an act or a statement and feel complete embarrassment for the person at the center of the controversy? If you’re like me, you look for an exit from the scene, hoping to get away before everything comes crashing down on the person who, for whatever reason chose to either say something or do something totally inappropriate? For me, that’s how I feel when I try to read the scene with fresh eyes. It’s not Judas, or Jesus that I feel embarrassment about, but Mary. What was she thinking?
At this point it’s helpful to remember that the Gospels aren’t simply historical events that someone took the time to write down for posterity. I am not saying that they aren’t history, but I am saying there is a reason why the particular stories, out of all the things Jesus did, were written down for subsequent generations. The whole purpose of sharing the Gospel was to make a point. There are four Gospels, and some rearrange the events that took place differently from one another and other gospels have stories that are unique to them. This isn’t because the stories are made up but that the audience to which the Gospels were written are different from one another. The whole point of the Gospels is to show the uniqueness of Jesus; getting weighted down by asking questions of the Gospel that make assumptions that come from a 21st century mindset is to miss the point.
There is a reason that Lazarus was in this scene. Remember that he just been raised from the dead and Jesus was headed to Jerusalem where he would face death himself. Death was in the air. You could smell it. The perfume was hiding that smell, but it was there. Death is the last enemy and God was about to do something about it. Death is bigger than anyone or anything. I suspect people in the first century would agree that God could do anything, but death was the final voice in all human relationships. That is, until Jesus.
The whole purpose of Lent is to be reminded that death is part of what it means to be human. We’ve been reminded of this during the pandemic. We are frail and weak. Even a microbe is strong enough to end all of what we see around us. Yet we have this story and what seems to be happening here is a profoundly important reminder of who God is and what God is doing. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, God will have the last word, not death.
There are many small deaths we experience all the time and there is the final blow that will end with all of us leaving this life. We call that death too. We spend a lot of our time, energy and money to deny this to ourselves, and the saddest people among us are those who deny their own frailty. But, as always, there is good news in this story.
We know how this all ends and we so desperately want to get there. Enough of Lent. Enough of death. Enough of these stories. Yet if we get into a big hurry to get to the delicious parts, you know, the empty tomb, the road to Emmaus, Mary, supposing him to be the gardener, then miss the call.
Jesus allowed his body to be anointed because death was around the corner. But it was right there with them too. Lazarus was there as a reminder that no one gets out of this life alive. It’s like being poor, they are always with us unless we make a decision to live in the shadow of our own death. Does it matter, since we know that we will all die, how we live our lives? It’s all about rewards and punishments in the life to come or is there something more profound than even that?
Just because Jesus said that there will always be poor among us does not mean we aren’t supposed to do something about it. There are poor among us but we are called to place their struggles at the center of our attention. One day there will not remain a day to reach out and make a difference. We live under the shadow of death but the light that keeps peaking out behind those clouds are reminders that we are to live our lives in ways that make a difference to those who have lost hope or meaning or love or a sense that God even cares.
Jesus body was anointed with expensive perfume because he was about to take on the last enemy, death itself, in a way that will forever remove the sting. But don’t lose sight. We’re not just called to hold on until we face our own death and wake up in paradise. Too many Christians do this and become so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. We are called to live right here, right now, and in our very presence bring hope to a hopeless world.
You see following Jesus has everything to do with loving others in ways that truly make a difference. Jesus said that the reasons to love will always be with us, in the hungry children who go to bed at night, not knowing when there next meal will be; in the abused spouse who keeps hoping that her abuser will change; in the person who just learned their mortgage will be foreclosed; in the waiting room in the hospital where parents wait to hear if their child has cancer; those opportunities will always be with us. And so will Jesus, calling us into those scary places where we might not have any answers but we do have a shoulder to cry on, and hands to hold somebody tightly.
Our Lenten journey is nearly over. But before we move on take a moment and smell the death in the air. That death is hopelessness. But smell again and breathe deeply the expensive perfume that does more than shield us from the stench of death. Indeed, it smells like hope. Because even in the midst of death, hope cannot be destroyed. As long as we refuse to buy into the lie that says it doesn’t matter how we live, our hereafter will be all about streets of gold and harp playing. How we live does matter and loving others is the only way we can help all those who struggle to find a God who has overcome and now calls us to share that hope with others by the way we love.
Wonderings of a Deconstructed Priest
Found Jesus along the road of grief