Mary Anoints Jesus Feet Oluwaseyi Alade |
A sermon for the 5th
Sunday of Lent, Year C
My
name is Josiah.
I
am not particularly important.
But
I have seen important and amazing things.
I
have come to tell you a story
about an amazing dinner party I attended
years ago when I was
young.
It
was at the home of my friend, Lazarus.
You
have probably heard of Lazarus.
A
couple of weeks before, he had died of a fever.
Dead
and buried.
Then,
the Rabbi Jesus had come and restored him to life –
after he’d been four days dead!
Many
of us had been listening to Jesus whenever we could
and had begun to hope that he might be the Messiah.
This
pretty much sealed the deal for me.
Not
long after, Lazarus invited me to a dinner party at his home.
Jesus
was there along with his twelve disciples.
Lazarus’
sisters, Martha and Mary, were there.
And
a handful of other close friends and Jesus followers.
After
raising Lazarus, Jesus had been laying low
in a small town somewhere.
This
was the first time he had come back to Bethany.
As
usual, the food was wonderful.
Martha was a fine cook and hostess.
She
understood Jesus when he had said
he came not to be served,
but
to serve
She
did the same.
There
was much laughter.
Someone
asked Lazarus,
“What
was the first thought that came into your mind
when you came back to life?”
“What’s
that smell?” was his response.
We all laughed.
We all laughed.
I
was one of those who had helped to roll away the stone
from the mouth of his tomb.
I
can attest to the stench of death it contained.
Amidst
all the laughter, I began to notice something.
We
were celebrating Lazarus’ coming back to life
and honoring the one who had done it.
But,
more and more, it began to have the feel of a funeral dinner.
There
was laughter.
There
was joking.
There
was remembering.
But
there was a somber air to it all.
Especially
among some of Jesus’ closest disciples.
A
couple of them kept glancing at the door or out the windows
as if they suspected someone unwelcome
might crash the party at
any moment.
Others
looked somehow sad – sad or determined, or both –
even when they laughed.
Then I noticed the wistful look on Jesus' face.
He
looked like someone who was enjoying a last dinner
with family and friends
before leaving on a long
and treacherous journey.
Then,
something most shocking happened.
Mary,
who had been looking intently at Jesus the whole time,
went to where he was reclining and knelt at
his feet.
From
somewhere, she pulled out a large jar of expensive perfume –
pure nard!
She
began slathering it on Jesus’ feet – a lot of it.
Everyone was stunned to silence.
From
where I was, it looked like she was weeping.
The
whole house was full of the beautiful fragrance of the stuff.
Then,
ever the impetuous one,
Mary
uncovered and undid her hair.
Several
in the room gasped.
You,
living in a different time and place,
might not realize how scandalous this was.
A
woman’s hair was considered quite erotic.
A woman kept her hair covered in public.
A woman kept her hair covered in public.
Only
her husband would ever see it down.
The first undoing of her hair
was a significant part of
their wedding night.
And
Mary had such hair!
Dark
and rich and luxurious.
Hair
that could tempt the angels.
There
was another gasp as she began to wipe Jesus’ feet with that hair.
Out
of the corner of my eye I noticed Martha shrugging her shoulders
and shaking her head with a bemused look on her
face as if to say,
“There she goes
again.”
One
of Jesus disciples, Judas, broke the silence
with a protest about the extravagant waste.
The
money that purchased that perfume could have been given to the poor.
I
learned later that some of the disciples
suspected that Judas’ motives were more selfish
and that he had been
embezzling some of the funds
from the common
purse.
Whether
he had been embezzling
or had been sincerely concerned for the poor,
I have come to think
Judas was missing the point either way.
One
way or another all of us were.
We
all had our own idea of what Jesus should be about
and where he should go and what he should do.
For
most of us, that meant Jesus should fit into our ready-made ideas
of what the Messiah should be.
Or
that he should do what we would do if we were the Messiah.
We
had our idols and were determined to have Jesus on our terms.
We
were never quite ready to take him as he was
or follow him all the way.
Except
for Mary.
Mary got it.
She knew there was need of only one thing.
Mary got it.
She knew there was need of only one thing.
And
she taught us all a lesson that evening.
She
poured out her love and devotion to Jesus
with all the extravagance of rich and costly
perfume.
And without reservation.
She
anointed his feet, signifying that she was prepared
to go wherever those feet went
and she would keep her
focus on him to lead her.
She
anointed his feet with perfume and wiped them with her hair.
And,
now, her hair was soaked with the same fragrance as Jesus.
Far
from being scandalized or offended,
Jesus
welcomed the gesture
and said she was preparing him for his death.
In
about a week we would understand just how true that was.
Jesus
was killed by the powers that be.
But,
like Lazarus, only much more so,
he did not stay dead.
He rose again.
God
had done a new thing.
Psalm
126 was in our hearts and on our lips:
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion
Then we were like those who dream
Then was our mouth filled with laughter
And our tongue with shouts of joy.
The LORD has done great things for us and we are
glad indeed!
Mary’s
extravagant sacrifice of 300 denarii’s worth of nard
was a prophetic act foreshadowing
the extravagant and costly sacrifice
of Jesus.
Jesus,
who loved us and gave himself for us
a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus,
who overcame the stench of sin and death
and filled our lives with the rich fragrance
of his extravagant love.
Mary
had anticipated it all.
I
have spent the rest of my life trying to catch up to Mary’s faithfulness.
I
have tried to sit attentively at the feet of Jesus.
I
have wanted to worship him in the beauty of holiness.
I
have tried to love him back with the same fragrant
and extravagant love with which he loved me.
I
have tried to love others with that same costly love.
I
have tried to follow in his footsteps wherever they led.
More
often than not, they have led me to the poor who are still always with us –
or at least they are with us if we choose to be
with them
as Jesus himself was
always with the poor.
I
want to be soaked like Mary’s hair with the love and joy of Jesus.
It
is the fragrance of mercy. It is the aroma of heaven.
I
want to be that aroma in the world around me.
As
another follower of Jesus, Paul, wrote in one of his letters,
I do not consider that I have made it my own; but
this one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and straining forward
to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the
heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Like
Mary, I seek to love,
even as Jesus first loved us and gave himself for
us – for me! –
a fragrant offering an
sacrifice to God.
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