Warm Up Act

Common English Bible Chapter 12

12 Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Lazarus and his sisters hosted a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who joined him at the table. 3 Then Mary took an extraordinary amount, almost three-quarters of a pound, of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She anointed Jesus’ feet with it, then wiped his feet dry with her hair. The house was filled with the aroma of the perfume. 4 Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), complained, 5 “This perfume was worth a year’s wages! Why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor?” (6 He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He carried the money bag and would take what was in it.)

7 Then Jesus said, “Leave her alone. This perfume was to be used in preparation for my burial, and this is how she has used it. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you won’t always have me.”

Introduction: If you had a week to live...

Tom Laughlin was an actor from the Billy Jack Movies, which I have never ever seen.

But he went on later in life to do research on a particularly interesting area of life.

He studied cancer, but not in the biological or medical sense.

He studied what happens to people who come down with a cancer diagnosis and are told they have only a few months left to live.

What would they do with that time?

What hidden passions would the pick up?

What would feel more important to them?

What would feel less important to them?

How would their personalities shift?

How do the attitudes and priorities of the people closest to the cancer patient change?

Today we are on the fifth Sunday in Lent, which means that we are marching closer and closer to the cross of Good Friday.

And, Jesus knows what’s to come too.

So today we’re starting to take that turn, and wondering what the last week of Jesus life might look like?

Bible Breakdown

Lazarus, Martha, and Mary

This story is set in the home of three people who are actually really important characters in the life of Jesus.

Martha Martha Martha! (Luke 10)

The story that everyone knows of Mary and Martha doesn’t do Martha a whole bunch of justice I don’t think.

Mary is sitting quietly at Jesus feet listening to him teach.

But Martha is busy trying to serve everyone at the party.

And as we see her here again, she is once again trying to show hospitality to everyone that is here.

Lazarus- Raised from the dead (so let’s kill him!)

Lazarus is a story we missed in this cycle of the lectionary.

He’s a good friend of Jesus who had actually fallen ill and passed away.

Jesus comes by to the tomb and calls him out, and Lazarus rises from the dead.

#foreshadowing

A few verses after our story, we get this beauty of a line: “John 12:10-11 “The chief priests decided that they would kill Lazarus too. It was because of Lazarus that many of the Jews had deserted them and come to believe in Jesus.”

The Tale of Two Disciples

Mary- Perfume and Anointing

Just about every time that we come across Mary, she is showing us what the ideal disciple looks like.

Incidentally, anyone who would tell you that women shouldn’t be disciples or leaders in the church probably ought to go back and read their bibles again…but I digress.

And this story is no exception.

Sacrifice

Somehow, Mary has a jar of perfume that is extremely valuable.

A whole years wages.

I did some math, and some perfume research, because that’s the kind of work you all have come to expect from my sermons...

The median income in Washington County is $39,369 a year.

The most popular perfume right now is Chanel at $146 a pop.

So even accounting for inflation, it’s like Mary poured 215 bottles of Chanel on Jesus’ feet.

So of course the whole house was filled with the aroma of the perfume.

I mean, Mike is here, do you know what it smells like when a room of middle school campers busts out the Axe body spray?

Which makes you wonder, is he worth it?

I mean, the correct answer on the Sunday School test is of course Jesus is worth it.

But we shouldn’t overlook what this sacrifice looks like.

Jesus doesn’t often roll with the wealthy crowd.

His type of ministry isn’t known for being among the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Mary makes a tremendous sacrifice.

And she does it to prove a point.

Anointing

Specifically, Mary anoints Jesus in this moment.

There were three situations when anointing was appropriate:

1) People and things were anointed in the OT to signify holiness, or separation unto God.

2) It was used to mark and signify a King in Isreal.

David gets anointed while Saul is still king, and it essentially starts a civil war.

3) It was used for healing from illness or injury, or when that wasn’t possible, it was used in the burial rituals.

When it comes to Jesus, it’s check, check, check.

And that leads us to something else that’s important to notice in this text:

Mary is in the know

This isn’t just a sacrifice.

This isn’t just a display of honor.

This isn’t just love being poured out.

Mary knows who Jesus is.

It feels like everyone gets glimpses here and there, but without speaking a word in this story, Mary tells us exactly who this Jesus is:

Jesus is the holy one, set apart for God and God’s purposes in the world.

Jesus is a King in some mysterious way, in a mysterious kingdom that he keeps talking about.

And there is something about both of those things, Mary seems to be aware, that are going to lead Jesus to his death.

Mary does what so many of us aspire to:

Without speaking a word

Without offering a prayer.

Without giving a sermon,

Mary uses her life and her actions to tell everyone around her exactly who Jesus is.

Her life in this moment is very much pointing to Jesus.

And the writer John loves a good compare and contrast...

Judas- A question of motivations

John is laying it on thick here.

In three verses, John sneaks a couple of digs at Judas in.

He makes sure we know that this is the Judas who later in the story is going to betray Jesus.

And he also makes a pretty hefty accusation that Judas has been skimming off the top when it comes to their shared finances.

When you are one of the disciples, and you get to write the story, you get a chance to settle the score.

I can’t for the life of me imagine how angry that the rest of the disciples would have been with Judas after everything came down.

So this story really wants us to compare the wordless and faithful discipleship of Mary to the loud and obnoxious complaining of Judas.

Judas says “the right things,” but with the wrong heart.

If I take away John’s description about Judas as a thief, he’s actually making some sense, right?

This feels like a tremendous waste of $39,000 bucks, doesn’t it?

Think about all the ministry you could do with that!

Think about how many sandwiches you could buy for hungry people.

Think about how much housing you could provide the homeless.

Jesus ministry doesn’t require much overhead, but imagine how much longer we could keep this thing going with that kind of cash.

And Churches just like ours have a debate along these lines all the time too, don’t we?

Why should we spend so much money on stained glass windows, when we could invest in that homeless shelter down the street?

Why should we buy a new organ when we could be sending missionaries to Africa?

Or, sometimes churches flip the script too.

Why should we send money over to Africa when we have hurting people right here in Washington?

Why do we need to support people in our community who have made poor choices?

Judas shows us that there may be multiple right answers to questions like these.

But what we need to do is check our hearts.

We can come to the right answers with the wrong heart all the time.

Preaching a sermon is good, but if I’m up here just because it want you to think I’m funny, my heart’s in the wrong place.

Giving to the poor is good, but if we’re doing it just so that our neighbors will see us and think kindly of us, our heart’s in the wrong place.

Doing mission work around the world is good, but if we’re doing it as some sort of spiritual tourism, our heart’s in the wrong place.

We always have to check our hearts.

The poor are always with you...

This is one of those teachings of Jesus that has been misused over the centuries.

There are some people who would say that Jesus is indicating that no matter what we do, there will always be poor people.

So why bother?

In fact, Jesus is saying exactly the opposite.

He is quoting Deuteronomy 15:11 “Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.”

It’s not a question of giving up.

It’s a statement of reminder that the poor, and the way we treat them, very much have something to teach us.

But..as he so often does…Jesus brings us back to the main point, doesn’t he?

The poor you will always have with you...

…but not me.

This isn’t a waste.

This is the warm up act.

Mary knows where this story is going...

And Jesus is kind of hoping that everyone else around him will catch up.

It’s not a question of which kind of disciple are you...

…it’s recognizing that we are all both from time to time.

I have my Mary moments.

I have moments where I can wordlessly commune with the Holy Spirit.

I have my moments where I can offer a true and legitimate sacrifice of praise.

I have my moments where I don’t much care what everyone else in the room is thinking, I’m focused on who Jesus is.

I have my moments where my actions point to the person and reality of Jesus.

But…I also have my Judas moments, don’t I?

We want to paint him as the bad guy, but...

There are times that I say the right thing but I do it with the wrong heart.

There are times that through my actions and my behaviors I betray who Jesus is.

There are times that I care more about my own material advantage than I do about the mission of Jesus.

I don’t know that we can ever be all one or the other in this story, can we?

What is required of us is to notice when we’re trending in the Judas direction, and try to right the ship a little bit.

How do we do that?

Apprentices

Watch out for right answers with wrong hearts.

Now is the time to start preparing.

Seek the forgiveness of the feast.