Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.12UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.54LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.54LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.57LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.7LIKELY
Extraversion
0.45UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.91LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
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.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9