A Tale of Two Disciples (April 6, 2025) John 12.1-8

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was a time of optimism; it was a time of pessimism. It was a time of hope; it was a time of hopelessness. It was a time of freedom; it was a time of oppression. It was a time of rebellion; it was a time of collaboration. It was a time of expectancy; it was a time of foreboding.

In Rome there sat a ruler known as the first citizen. In Caesarea-Philippi there sat a governor who ruled with an iron fist. In Galilee there sat a puppet ruler fearful for his throne. And in the village of Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem, there sat two disciples. Disciples of Jesus, who was in the home of friends so intimate to him that it was a home for the man who had no place to call home.

It is six days before the Passover and Jesus has been making his way to Jerusalem. Along the way he has been teaching and healing, raising Lazarus from the grave and enraging those who want to continue with the status quo. And at this time Jesus comes to Bethany where he often stayed with Lazarus, Mary and Martha, his very good friends. This was some days after his raising Lazarus from the dead. They were, basically, family to Jesus. And they were believers in who Jesus was, is, and would be. Martha earlier declared that he was the Messiah for whom they all were waiting.

In this home there is a dinner. A dinner held for the one whom they love. And the three siblings all play a part in it. In the kitchen cooking and serving is Martha, the one who is constantly making sure things are running smoothly and all is in order. In other words, the perfect host. Sitting with Jesus and his disciples at the table is Lazarus. He probably a bit fuzzy around the edges and maybe a bit contemplative as he considers his life after being raised from the dead. Where does he go from here? What could he possibly fear any longer now that he has faced death and come back from it? One wonders what is going on in his mind at the time.

Then there is Mary. In other times when Jesus visited the family, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching and exhibiting that not all the disciples were men. But where is Mary? Where is the one who would sit and listen while Martha bustled around, getting exasperated that she was doing so? She is missing from the scene.

As the dinner continues and the conversation is flowing, Mary comes into the room. The guests are reclined with their heads at the table and their feet away from it. In this position one can see the feet of those around the table. Mary draws near to the feet of Jesus and those at the table can see that she is carrying a small jar with a narrow neck, what is in it no one knows. Suddenly Mary drops to her knees and breaks the neck of the jar. Then she pours a perfume over Jesus’ feet, a pound (about 12 ounces in our measures) of a costly perfume, one that was pure nard, a perfume that was difficult to extract from the plant and because of this the cost was great. As she pours this over Jesus’ feet, she takes down her hair and begins to wipe his feet. The conversation abruptly stops. N.T. Wright states this is because of what Mary has done: “She would need to let it down (her hair) for the purpose (of wiping Jesus’ feet); that’s roughly the equivalent, at a modern polite dinner party, of a woman hitching up a long skirt to the top of her thighs.”[1] Shocking behavior at a dinner. Lazarus and Martha must have been mortified. Here was their sister breaking all the taboos that could be broken: letting down her hair, touching a man who was not her husband or relative, being in the same room as the men without serving them, just to name a few. What was she thinking?

The others in the room must have been thinking the same as Mary’s siblings. The awkward silence that filled the room could be cut with a knife.

But with the silence that filled the room, there was the aroma of the perfume. Sweet and beautiful. A fragrance that covered all the other odors in the room (and in the days before daily bathing and deodorant you know there were other odors in the room). Imagine this: you go into a bakery just as they are baking bread or a Krispy Kreme store just as they are turning on the Hot Now sign. The scent of bread or doughnuts is heavy in the air. You breathe in the fragrance, and it takes you back to a time of something good in your life. That kind of fragrance is what filled the room.

But breaking the silence is Judas, a disciple in the inner twelve. He is incensed at the breaking of this jar and the waste of the perfume. He speaks out. He calls this what it is, a waste of something valuable that could have been sold to help the poor. “Typical woman.”, you can hear him say, “Goodness, did she not know that this nard was worth almost a year’s wages for a working man (it is estimated that it would be worth about $30,000 in today’s money)? And she goes and wastes it!” But Judas for all his knowledge of Jesus’ teaching and his works is not really thinking of the poor. Though he was chosen by Jesus, we are told that he is a bad egg and that as treasurer, well, if there had been an audit of the books, those doing the audit would have found some... irregularities. Judas, we are told, is the one who will betray Jesus as the time comes closer for the death of Jesus. All in all, this one speaking up should not be the one we would think of, unless, of course, it is in the negative light in which John portrays Judas.

Then Jesus speaks up and rebukes Judas (and by implication those gathered around who might have been thinking the same thing that Judas was thinking). He says: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”[2]“She bought it (or kept it) for the day of my burial”. The disciples are probably thinking that here are those words again, “my burial.” Words they don’t want to hear. Surely nothing like this is going to happen to Jesus. But even though they may believe this, they must have felt uneasy about that statement.

And “the poor will always be with you.” This phrase has a lot of baggage. H. Stephan Shoemaker writes: “The church has used these words both to justify and to condemn complacence toward the needs of the poor. Jesus clearly was not counseling neglect of the poor. His words were a quotation from Deuteronomy 15:11, whose message is unmistakable: “For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand… to the needy and to the poor, in the land”. There is no reason to condemn the poor and say that “Well, Jesus said that they would always be with us, therefore we should not help them.” No, we are called to help them. Jesus expects no less from us.

But In saying what he says first, Jesus was commending Mary and her faithful discipleship. She showed her love and adoration for the teacher, the one they call Rabbi. She showed her declaration with her silence and anointing what John the Baptist proclaimed with his preaching. He is also rebuking Judas for his “concern” for the poor when he should have been focused on Jesus.

Judas showed that he was an unfaithful disciple. He was, according to John, thinking only of himself and of what he could gain by what could have been sold. He was also thinking ahead of how to betray the one whom he also calls Rabbi

We are all a disciple of Jesus. But we are not a Mary (whom we all want to be)  or a Judas (whom we all shun), but rather a combination of the two. We are both faithful and unfaithful. We offer adoration and betrayal. We give up the costly and bemoan the cost.

Wright asks two questions of us: “Are you with the shameless Mary, worshipping Jesus with everything she’s got, risking the wrath of her sister who’s doing all the hard work, the anger of the men who perhaps don’t quite trust their own feelings when a woman lets her hair down in public, and the sneer of the person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing?

Or are you with the cautious, prudent, reliable Judas (as he must have seemed to most of them), looking after the meagre resources of a group without steady or settled income, anxious to provide for their needs and still have something left to give to the poor?[3]” Which of these two disciples is your tale?

But the good news is that the cross of Jesus casts shadow over both. The faithful and the unfaithful find a place in Jesus and in his redemption. Both are, or can be, redeemed. The tale is ours to tell. Amen.

[1]Wright, Tom. John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004. Print.

[2]The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.

[3]Wright, Tom. John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004. Print.