John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honour. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
I warned you a few weeks ago that the lectionary goes a bit wonky around the big festivals, and with two weeks to go until Easter we’ve jumped gospels, from Luke to John. A bit of context may be helpful here, as it was in the chapter before this one that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. We are reminded of that event in the first verse of our reading, and interestingly enough the first verse of chapter eleven tells us that Lazarus’s sister is the one who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, this reference coming before the event suggesting that the story was well known. The raising of Lazarus and the anointing by Mary point to one another, and I think that is because they interact with one another in a number of ways.
First, they both point forwards towards Jesus’ death. The raising of Lazarus is the final straw for those who are troubled by Jesus, and it is after this that they begin to plot to have him killed, and he goes into hiding with his disciples. That perhaps explains why we find him not in public but in the home of one of his closest friends, waiting until the right time to travel to Jerusalem and meet his death. Then when Mary anoints his feet, he declares that “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.” Whether he is chastising her for not waiting, or suggesting that his fate is so certain that he is as good as buried, he is clearly anticipating his imminent death. The gospel writer is making clear that there is no going back now.
Second, while Lazarus lies in the tomb and then reclines at the table, his sisters play a significant and far more active role in both passages. In chapter eleven, Martha declares Jesus to be the Messiah and Mary falls at his feet in her grief. In chapter twelve, Martha serves Jesus and Mary anoints his feet. On both occasions, Martha demonstrates discipleship as action while Mary demonstrates discipleship as intimacy. We often set the two sisters in opposition because of their appearance in Luke, where Martha complains that Mary is not helping and Jesus declares her sister has chosen the better part by sitting and listening to him (notice that again we see Martha in action and Mary at Jesus’ feet) but there is no such antagonism in their appearances in John, and I think we would do better to read them as complementing rather than contrasting one another.
Sticking with the sisters, I want to focus a little more on Martha, because I had something of a revelation about her a couple of years ago. The NIV translation of Luke’s account of Jesus’ time with the two sisters says that she was “distracted by all the preparations to be made”, and every time I heard this story taught when I was growing up, it was assumed rather dismissively that she was busy with the cooking or the cleaning. But then I discovered that the Greek actually says she was distracted by much diakonian. That word could reasonably be rendered service, which may include cooking and cleaning in this context, but in almost every place that it appears in the New Testament in relation to a man, it is rendered as ministry. So perhaps Martha was not doing the housework after all, but instead was taking part in Jesus’ work of teaching and healing. Perhaps she was one of the seventy two Jesus sent out in his name at the start of the chapter, and she was busy preparing to set out again. Or perhaps she was doing the housework, but we are meant to see that the task of caring for guests is itself a form of ministry. Jesus may encourage her to take a break and worry less, but it seems clear to me that she was engaged in something significant, and that has been hidden by poor translations and our own misconceptions about service.
That may seem a slight digression, but in fact the Greek text for today’s reading says that Martha was diekonoi, a verb that shares the same root as diakonian, so all I have said is relevant here too. The context of our passage is a meal, whereas that is not explicitly the case in Luke, so it does seem likely that we are to understand that Martha is serving at the table, but if she is diekonoi then I think we are also to understand that this is an act not just of hospitality but of ministry. Considering all of this and her declaration of Jesus as Messiah, I think there is good reason to believe that Martha was one of a number of early female leaders who later generations were keen to translate into obscurity, and I would love for her to reclaim her proper place in the history of the church. Because this isn’t just a point of purely academic interest, not while my sisters continue to be dismissed and demeaned by those who cannot accept that Jesus calls women into every type of ministry. Seen in that light, understanding Martha truthfully is a matter of justice.
But now onto her sister. Mary enters the scene, pours a pint of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet, and then wipes them with her hair, seemingly without uttering a word. Perhaps she does this precisely because she cannot speak. After all, what could you say to the person who has just raised your brother from the dead? What words could possibly convey all that miracle means? What else could you do but make an extravagant gesture? So perhaps Mary does the only thing she can think of, and I am reminded of the father’s lavish and loving response to his son’s return in the story we heard last week, and of Paul’s words about appearing crazy for God’s sake. Because uncovering her hair and washing Jesus’ feet with perfume is a scandalously excessive and intimate act, and I think it is telling that only a single voice speaks out. I can imagine everyone else being too shocked to speak, the silence hanging in the air as potent as the fragrance. Perhaps we might sit with that image for a moment. How would it feel to draw as near to the living God as Mary does, to express our worship without restraint?
I do think we should see Mary’s act primarily as one of devotion, but there is perhaps more significance to it. Traditionally it was kings and prophets who were anointed, so here we may see Mary declaring something of what she believes about Jesus. If that is the case then it is worth noting too that it was priests and prophets that did the anointing, so this act also declares something about Mary herself. I have already pointed out that Jesus speaks of the perfume being for his burial, and so this is a foreshadowing of and preparation for his death. I’ve never poured out a pint of perfume but I imagine it would have taken a while for the smell to fade, especially in a culture without running water, so perhaps this anointing did last until his burial, leaving us to wonder if Jesus smelt Mary’s perfume as he hung on the cross, and if the memory of her act brought a moment of relief. I was also fascinated by the realisation that it is only a chapter later that Jesus washes his disciples' feet. He may use water rather than perfume, but the same verb is used so there does seem to be an intentional connection being made, suggesting that Mary’s anointing may be prophetic in more ways than one.
So Mary anoints Jesus and perhaps there is that moment where the silence hangs as heavy as the fragrance, and then Judas speaks up to criticise Mary for not giving the money to the poor, to which Jesus responds by saying that "the poor will always be with you". It’s a curious saying which has inspired much comment, and of all the bad theological takes I have heard, the one that says Jesus meant there should always be poor people has to be one of the worst. I see nothing in scripture that leads me to believe that God would want people to remain in poverty, but quite a lot that tells he wants to lift people out of it, so I believe that to be a bad faith argument to justify maintaining the status quo by those who benefit from it.
So if Jesus isn’t saying that there should also be poor people, what is he saying? There is an interesting authorial comment that says that Judas was not really concerned about the poor but just wanted to steal the money, and I wonder if Jesus knew that. I wonder if Jesus looked Judas right in the eyes as he spoke, saying that there will always be poor people because of the greed of people like you. As the saying goes, poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor but because we cannot satisfy the rich. But is it really so much better if we assume that Jesus is acknowledging a reality rather than setting an intention? Isn’t it rather disheartening to think that we will never rid the world of poverty? Yes it is, but I want to suggest that we can prove Jesus wrong. Perhaps that sounds shocking, but we have the example of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Jesus initially rebuffs her plea that he heal her child because “it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs”, but she retorts that “even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs”, and so he replies that because of what she has said her child has been healed. There are numerous interpretations of this passage, but a plain reading is that the woman corrects Jesus. How wonderful it would be if we could follow her lead and show Jesus that we no longer have the poor with us because everyone has enough.
We’ve worked our way through the passage, and now we have a chance to respond in worship as Mary did. I’m not going to suggest that we each pour out a pint of perfume, but smell can be extraordinarily powerful, so here you will find a number of scented objects. Please feel free to take one and breathe in its fragrance as we sing our next song. (Those reading or listening at home may like to take a moment to find a scented soap or candle, or something else that offers a pleasing smell.)
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