“EXTRAVAGANCE”
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A sermon preached Readings: John
12:1-8 |
“Then Judas….said
‘Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii
and the money given to the poor?’”
(Jn 12:5)
And
how many of us here have a sneaking feeling
that we’d have said just the same thing as Judas had we been there?
Mary
has taken perfume apparently worth about 300 denarii
–
a years’ wages – difficult to translate -
but for us maybe £10,000 or £20,000 in our terms.
Just
think what could you have done with that sort of
money.
Why didn’t she write a cheque to Christian Aid?
Or put it towards the new Church building?
Something
useful!
Lord
didn’t you tell that guy to sell all he had and give it to the poor –
look what this thoughtless woman has done!!
But
Jesus says,
Leave
her alone – Of course I want you to care for the poor –
and someone like Mary will always do that tomorrow and the day after–
but today – she has done well, she’s anointed me for burial.
So
let’s try to make sense of this.
Think
where Mary is coming from –
·
She loves Jesus, maybe she is in love with him
·
Jesus has brought her brother Lazarus back from the dead -
how can she repay that?
·
Now Jesus is going on a long last lonely journey
into danger and almost certain death –
She
wants to say I love you
She
wants to say thank you
She
wants to say
“Jesus I want you to know on your last walk
on the dusty road to Jerusalem that someone cared”
What
can she do?
She
has a jar of most precious perfume.
Does
she stop to decide how grateful,
how much in love she is?
Does
she take it and count out a few drops –
Does
she calculate whether to spare
a teaspoon or tablespoon of thanks and love?
No
–
Her
life is just thanks and love,
and she breaks the neck of the flask
and pours the lot over Jesus’ feet –
And
as a woman in 1st Century Israel
you never let your hair down in public,
but Mary does just that and wipes his feet
with her free flowing hair –
Because
she doesn’t care what people think,
and anyway for her there is no one there but Jesus,
the Jesus she loves,
the
Jesus who has saved Lazarus in the moment of death,
Jesus
who is walking out on the road to Calvary…..
Judas
calculates and speaks -
What a waste –
And
Jesus says –
Let her be –
Her
love is worth more than all your calculation.
As
Paul was to say 20 odd years later,
I
can have all the fine words, but
”if I am without love, I am nothing.
Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess
and give my body to be burned –
If I am without love, it will do me no good whatsoever.” (1 Cor 13)
Cold
calculation has its limits.
Cold
calculation could have told Durufle and Bach and
Mozart
not to waste their time composing music –
when did music ever feed the hungry?
Why
weren’t they out growing potatoes?
Calculation
could say
don’t waste money on organs or time on singing –
this does not save lives.
“Reason
not the need”! (King Lear)
For
“man does not live by bread alone” (Mt 4) -
Go
to a birthday celebration and watch
as that extravagant and quite unnecessary bunch of flowers
arrives at the door –
and see the look of love and joy
on the faces of the one who gives and the one receives -
and tell me that all that counts is the accountancy….
That
is why we give God
our flowers and our music and our laughter and our celebration –
For
this is the stuff of love and thanksgiving.
On Thursday over 200 of us were here
for the funeral of Jim Potter.
We gave thanks for Jim’s life
And
we gave thanks to God for Jim’s safe landing on the heavenly shore,
reunited with his son and those countless host who have gone before –
And what singing, what praising of God –
“Where is death’s sting,
where grave thy victory? -
I triumph still, if thou abide with me”
And in that service we stood four square
with Mary rejoicing at the resurrection of Lazarus –
Saying “This our brother has passed through what the
world calls death –
but we know in Christ that he
has entered into the gates of eternal life.”
How do
we respond to the God who has come and found us
in our sorrow and who has promised to us and to our loved ones life -
even in the very presence of death?
This
is not the time for the careful calculations of the bank clerk -
it is a time for love and thanks straight from a battered heart.
Of course
there are still difficult and complex
decisions we have to make. –
We
had a meeting this week looking at the rebuilding of the Church –
and we talked there in terms of stewardship of our resources –
using our money well and effectively for God’s work.
And we have to make decisions –
we are not going to build a Church
with gold plated taps in the kitchen
whilst there are people starving in the world.
Yet nor are we going to build a leaking wooden shed
to the glory of God.
These aren’t easy decisions to make.
Maybe
what matters most is the how we approach these things.
Whatever
we build, if we do it in a meanly calculating way,
I guess it will become a sanctuary for tight fisted people
who begrudge the riches of life to others.
If
we build in a joyful and generous way,
it will be come a place for open handed people
who give to the poor in the same spirit of love
that has adorned their offering to God’s house.
These
are not easy questions.
We may not always get them right.
I
don’t even know if Mary necessarily got it right.
I
mean, she had not stopped to resolve the issue of poverty in the world
before she broke the flask.
Maybe
we don’t have to get everything right.
Maybe
the Lord looks at the intention of our heart
not at the outward performance.
Jesus
certainly knew the love that drove Mary and warmed to it.
And
perhaps he knew too that the burning love
which drove Mary to smash the jar
would lead her tomorrow to love the poor and the needy.
We
all have an alabaster jar of great worth.
Mary
gave but one year’s salary.
We
have a whole life at our disposal.
I
wonder how careful and calculating
we will be in disposing of the riches of our life??
Will
we pour out just a few drops
and then place the jar back upon the shelf -
there to gather dust and be a reproach to us in years to come
that when Christ walked to Calvary
we just let him go without our loving gift??
Maybe
whether we give to the Church building
or Christian Aid, or our partner or family, or our next door neighbour,
is not after all the key question.
Just as long as we give
rashly,
lovingly,
recklessly –
then will God will accept our gift,
and who knows what miracles he will work with our offering?
O
Lord, may I smash the jar
and pour out my gift for you –
for
“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my
all”