The Extravagance of God's Actions

Read: John 12:1-8

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent - March 17, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

What does a prophet do?

That is not our usual question.

Most often we are asking about what a prophet said, but sometimes we need to just as much ask about what the prophet is doing; for truly, actions speak as loudly as the words themselves.

 

Let's think back to several of those big names from the Old Testament.

Ezekiel was directed to eat the scroll

       [3:1-3], to make the words a part of his very being so that when he spoke his speech would be both bold and genuine.

Hosea was to take a wife who was a harlot and have children with her, even though she was a flagrant sinner [1:2], as a living parable of the way Israel was treated by the Lord God, with tenderness despite their sin!

Jeremiah took an earthenware flask and smashed it [19:1-10] in front of the elders and priests as a vivid demonstration of what the Lord would do with his wayward and unrepentant people.

Actions as well as words!

 

In today's Gospel, we have actions only, with no words spoken by the actress herself.

The actions themselves carry the entire message.

Mary comes into the dining room where Jesus is reclining at table so that his feet would be stretched out beside or behind him.

It is already a very strange situation anyway, with the presence of Lazarus at the table.

 Lazarus is the one whom Jesus raised from the dead, as recorded in chapter 11, just prior to the passage we read today.

How joyously awkward that must have been to have Lazarus there!

 

But now the awkwardness is compounded by Mary's actions.

She pours this costly perfume over Jesus' feet. How does she afford this perfume, and why does she perform this action?

She lets down her hair.  Respectable women don't do that  outside their home.

She caresses Jesus' feet.  This is much too sensual.

She dries his feet with her hair. This is also a very provocative action.

All of these things horrify the respectable onlookers.

 

The irony of the next speech is that the voice of respectability is Judas.

“This perfume could have been sold  and money given to the poor,” he says.

But not out of respectability, but out of greed, so that he could pilfer the funds later for himself.

Words with the wrong kind of actions!

 

Now back to this action of anointing of Jesus' feet.

It is done there in front of a man named Lazarus, a man who had been himself in the tomb and had been returned to his usual life by Jesus not long before.

It is done as a visible word; Mary speaks the truth of the entire situation without saying a word.

With her action, she is indicating what will happen, a truth that none dare speak.

It is done in anticipation of the anointing of Jesus' whole body for burial.

The week ends in a way that is horrible and deadly.

Jeremiah the prophet smashed a clay jar as a sign of the coming destruction of Jerusalem;

Mary breaks a jar of perfume as a sign of our destruction of the Son of God.

Now if Mary had taken the perfume and anointed Jesus' head, many might have taken the message that Jesus was the new anointed powerful King who is coming to liberate all of Jerusalem.

That would fit the standard expectation of what Messiah was to do.

But Mary did not anoint Jesus' head.

She anointed his feet.

And in so doing, Mary begins the process of anointing a dead body, tenderly washing and caressing the body, even as Orthodox Jewish women still do today when they prepare a body for burial.

Those tasks are not done by strangers, but rather by those who loved the one who has died.

 

“Let her alone,” Jesus says sharply to the others.

Let her finish acting-out  her message as a prophet, so that perhaps you will understand.

She is pointing to a different definition of Messiah, isn't she?

Jesus is a different kind of King, but not one who quickly takes away all pain and sorrow and eradicates the world's evils.

He is the King who walks with the poor and the nobodies and the sufferers, who reigns from a cross.

So the extravagance of Mary's action points to a far greater extravagance of God's action in Christ Jesus,

who could have avoided it all,

who could have remained aloof from this messy world,

who could have disposed of us and our disobedience with a word,

who chose instead to face every awful challenge that evil could throw at him including betrayal, torture, ridicule, and death.

There will be blood flowing, not sweet-smelling perfume; blood flowing until everything about our world of accomplishment and demand is completely changed.

As part of this process, Jesus will be at another dinner table, and that time, it will not be Mary kneeling at his feet, but rather Jesus who kneels making his own betraying disciples his guests.

He kneels at the feet of his disciples, and at our feet also.

He will wash us all and prepare us for entrance into the kingdom of God's foolishly extravagant actions.

Some of those extravagant actions are mediated to us though the work of our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

-The one who takes the Body and Blood of Christ from this assembly to a  home-bound person.

-The one who fashions a quilt or a school kit or some other such project for persons around the world.

-The one who takes the time to clean so that a hospitalized friend can return to a place in which it is fit to live.

-The ones who without fanfare send greeting cards to the sick, the grieving, the rejoicing, the lonely, the ones celebrating life milestones, and just because....

-The ones who offer care for children – who didn't ask for life's problems but are in the midst of crisis anyway – by direct or indirect aid in Family Promise.

-And on and on it goes, the extravagance gifts of life granted by God which we are privileged to share.

 

As we kneel before others in the name of Jesus, bearing his command and promise, someone might remember this scene at the home of Mary and Martha.

Someone might make the connection.

Jesus is getting ready to do something reckless, expensive, and extravagant.

Our actions are acted-out words, like prophets' words, that are to be surrounding and pointing to the greatest acted-out Word of all: “Father, forgive them....”

 

And Mary, acting like a prophet, was the first to tell the truth about it all.

 

Amen.