What do you do when someone you love is dying?

Maybe they have a year… or maybe a couple months ..or a few weeks…

Sometimes people take a trip to a place they have always wanted to go. Or they throw a big party.

Do you think that expense is a waste of money?

I mean for your average trip to Los Angeles or the French Riviera you can feed an awful lot of poor people don’t you think?  The party where you have your favorite steaks and champagne, well, why wouldn’t you save the environment instead, or support the ACLU? Why would you waste your money on something so frivolous/transient, I mean your loved one is just going to die anyway…

Sound a little harsh?

Harsh like Judas’ voice, rough with disdain saying, “why was that oil wasted it could have been sold for 300 denarii (roughly a year’s wages) and given to the poor?”

“What were you thinking, woman?...

“And put your hair back up, you are a total disgrace, only whores let men see their hair. Disgusting. Why don’t you get back in the kitchen with your sister Martha where you belong…..”

And then Jesus’ voice in return:

“Leave her alone.”

“The poor will always be with you but you won’t always have me.”

Which leaves us as listeners or interpreters or preachers of this text with two bad options:

We can either say that Mary has done a beautiful thing, a wonderful thing, and be ok with a gift of $60,000 being poured on Jesus’ feet because the poor will always be with us

Or we can say that the money was wasted, putting us on the side of Judas the betrayer, but maintaining that our money should go to the poor.

Not a very comfortable choice. It seems like we either look a gift horse in the mouth on a grand scale or abdicate our social justice responsibilities

Of course our text tells us which side to be on: not Judas’ because he was jut in it for the money (keep in mind that any text in your bible reading that is in parenthesis was added later. The text was editorialized to make sure we got who the villain was.)

We also note that Mary anoints Jesus’ feet, not his head. This is significant.

One anointed the head of someone you wanted to honor, like kings who were always anointed on the head with oil. Mary anoints Jesus’ feet like one did with those who had died. Mary is anointing Christ before his burial since there will be no time for that. She’s saying goodbye.

An absurd coincidence happened when I was researching this sermon on the Internet. I was busy reading one scholarly article talking about interpretations of Mary over time and was distracted by an animated ad in the right margin. I looked at it and saw that it was advertising AirWick. Airwick is a room freshening product. Your room stinks, you spray it, and voila, everything is better. How odd to see an air freshening product when this whole passage in some ways is about what is in the air.

But sometimes we really don’t want to smell what is in the air. Do we, like Mary, smell the scent of death, and bring out the funeral perfume? Do we wish we didn’t smell what is coming? We focus on anything else but that and instead mention the smell of money, the stench of the poor.

Perhaps Judas, who, like everyone else there would have understood what the anointing meant, was resistant to seeing what was really going on, seeing that Mary was saying goodbye, seeing that Jesus was going to die, very soon.

“Stop it,” he says. “I don’t want to think about that either,” because he was culpable or unwilling to face the ugly reality that Jesus’ death is coming. It is inevitable. Jesus has angered too many people, shaken too many trees, nearly been stoned to death in too many villages. He barely made it out of Jerusalem last time. What could possibly save him in his determination to go this time?

“Mary, how could you?  Why didn’t you give the money to the poor if you wanted to make a gift. This stinks.”

Timothy Haut writes in his poem Mary’s Hair:

Her sister,
Laying plates in their places
And straightening the napkins once more
Did not notice at first--
Nor did her brother,
Still wide-eyed, fresh from the tomb,
Sipping wine
That had never tasted so sweet.
They did not notice
As Mary
Stepped through the door
Letting down her long, black hair,
Shaking it free
For her a tender, holy oblation.
She had seen the road-weary feet,
Noticed the scars, the scratches,
And knelt, lifting the heel in her palm,
Spilling precious oil,
Spilling her heart,
Spilling love itself
Until its fragrance filled the room.
Her eyes filled with tears.
As somewhere outside,
A dog barked,
And a hammer rang against wood.

The cross is coming, perhaps hammered together even now. Jesus’ death is coming. Mary knows it and shows it in the only way she knew how. And Jesus receives this blessing and tells Judas to knock it off.

Mary knew what she was doing—preparing for a burial she knew it would happen

“Let the woman be,” Jesus says. Let her gift stand

If Mary had used the oil to anoint a dead body would we have questioned her motives? Is it only because Jesus is alive that it seems wasteful? She chooses to give her gift to living Jesus instead of to the dead Jesus (not that it usually was even possible to anoint a crucified body since the person was considered a criminal not worthy of burial rites)

Jesus says, “let her be. You will always have the poor with you.”

Ach! If only he hadn’t added that part. Then the text would have stood, this intimate misunderstood, act of love and devotion that bespoke the crucifixion. Instead we have an inflammatory verse that divides despite it being said to heal a division.

“You will always have the poor with you.”

But I think this verse sets up a false dichotomy a false choice between service to the poor and offering of extravagant love. It’s a dichotomy we know. We in the church debate the need for a capital campaign against money for advocacy and work for poor. We argue about money the supports our denomination against money for Christmas music. We pit the needs of our building against the needs of our social justice programs. The fundraiser for a mission trip versus a fundraiser for energy efficient windows.

We forget that there are times when abundance even extravagance makes sense

Seven years ago we celebrated Edgewood’s 50th anniversary.  I was still a pretty new pastor at that point. In the year running up to the anniversary year, Deb Plastik, a member then, said I needed to pay attention to the anniversary, that it was important and I needed to make the celebration a priority. I said yes, I agreed, and then got lost in the flood of daily, urgent and not so urgent priorities.

The anniversary quickly approached and the congregation started to make plans. However, at the same time we began talking about our celebrations, we also passed a deficit budget. We passed a budget where we knew we did not have the pledges to cover our projected expense and that we would end the year behind and we did not have any plans to cover the expense. I worried about this. A lot. In the middle of the night. Every month our numbers were behind and every month I worried more. We also we running our roof and boiler fundraiser.

Every time I walked into a planning meeting about the 50th celebration I had the budget worries on my mind.  And so as we began planning and debate started about whether we could spend any money on the celebration, I was swayed by those who wanted any anniversary expenses to balance itself. We could have a special lunch, but only if it paid for itself. We could invite special guests, but only if they stayed for free in members’ homes.  Everything we planned had in my mind this overarching worry about money.

And so we had a modest but nice celebration. We had a modest but nice lunch. And the anniversary passed, but not without some hurt feelings. Why hadn’t we had a nice bash for our 50th? We had a lot to be proud of, particularly our social justice work.

In hindsight, I wish things had happened differently. I wish I had led differently. I wish we had thrown a big party and spent some money—money that yes, could have been spent on the poor or a hundred other things. Sometimes extravagance is called for. Sometimes celebrating Jesus in our midst is the most important call of the day.

Mary knew this.

She did not use Brylcreme, the everyday men’s hair pomade common a few decades ago. It was the stuff you used on your hair to make it stylishly greasy and then put back in the medicine cabinet. It was the everyday stuff.

No, Mary reached for the nard, the most expensive precious thing she had, and anointed Jesus’ feet on this one emotional occasion.

The poor will always be with you. This is not a callous saying of disregard. It is true, our work with the poor is ever present. But that that is our work of every day. That is a our ministry of every day. That is where our focus should be. But sometimes, on rare occasion, that is not what we are called to be looking toward. Occasionally we are called to offer a gift of love, of extravagance.

May God be with us in the work of our every day and the moments of special celebration.

Amen.