John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
The first verse of our passage for this morning is very important as it sets the timetable for the events described here. It was six days before the Passover, so Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem for one of the required holy day celebrations. If we read just after our text, we find out that it was Saturday, the day before what we know as Palm Sunday. So this takes place less than one week before Jesus’s crucifixion. And we also read that it takes place in Bethany, at the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha. These friends pop up in the Gospels in several locations, so we know a little about them. Martha is the hard worker, cooking, cleaning, and making sure that everything is just so. Mary is the one who is less worried about being a good host and more interested in learning about the guest of honor. And Lazarus, well, he is the guy that Jesus just brought back to life after being dead in a cave for about three days. In John’s gospel, the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead is found in the chapter just before our text for this morning.
The resurrection of Lazarus brought a lot of attention to Jesus, and John tells us that the chief priests and Pharisees began plotting against Jesus. There are even plans made among the chief priests to kill Lazarus because many people were coming to follow Jesus because Jesus brought him back to life. The people are talking, questioning whether or not Jesus will even show his face for the Passover because everyone knows the people in positions of power are not happy with him.
Our text picks up on the day before Palm Sunday, and we find Jesus stopping off at his friends’ home. Verse 2 tells us “Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor.” This seems to be a thank-you dinner for bringing Lazarus back to life. We all show gratitude in different ways, and each of the sisters is thanking Jesus in the way that comes naturally to them. Martha was doing what Martha did best, preparing and serving the meal. Martha shows her gratitude through service. Then in comes Mary, and Mary expresses her thankfulness through gifts. Mary has in her hands a jar of nard. I’d have no idea what nard is if John didn’t explain it for us: nard was a perfume. John also explains for us later that this stuff wasn’t cheap. This jar of nard, about a pint in volume, was worth approximately one-year’s wages.
A quick online search shows that nard—or spikenard, as it is sometimes called—is an essential oil which comes from a flowering plant that only grows in certain locations like the Himalayan Mountains, China, and in India. It wasn’t easy to come by, and it is impossible to know how Mary came to have this in her possession. My guess is that she had purchased this oil to anoint the body of her dead brother in a burial ritual. But now that Lazarus is alive and well, she needs to find another purpose for the nard.
So what do you do with a jar of perfume that is worth thousands of dollars by today’s standards? You dump it on Jesus’s feet. All of it.
In a day when most travelers walked everywhere they went, it was common for a host to provide water for a guest to wash their feet when they arrived. A wealthy family would have their servant wash the feet of the guests.
Recall that each sister is showing her gratitude to Jesus in her own way. Martha is making Jesus a homecooked meal. Mary takes on the role of a servant and washes Jesus’s feet. And if washing feet with water is good, using the finest liquid she had on hand would show all the more just how thankful she was.
I tend to be a pretty practical person. Some people call that being cheap, but I prefer to think of myself as good with money, frugal, perhaps. If I were to receive a gift like this from Mary, I would be uncomfortable. In fact, I’ve been offered gifts from people that have made me feel awkward. I’ve had people who look like they are on their last dollar offer to buy me breakfast at a local fast food restaurant. People who I know are living on a fixed income will sometimes buy me candy or little trinkets, or gift cards.
My frugal side will sometimes say, “I don’t even want this,” or “keep your money and pay your electric bill.” But I also have learned over the years that this is how some people show their appreciation. And even if I don’t want a key chain from Wal-Mart or a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit from Burger King, I accept these gifts. This person wants to show appreciation, and for me to decline would be a huge insult.
All of that is to say of the five people named in this passage, the one I best connect with, is Judas. Yes, that Judas, Judas the betrayer. Judas says in verse five, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”
There is some debate about the actual value of the perfume; some suggest that Judas may have been overstating things to make a point, using hyperbole. But I get his point. That perfume, that nard, was wasted. You just dumped it out on the feet of Jesus, and now it is stinking up the entire house! Whether it was worth $50,000 or $50, it still seems like a waste to me.
John tells us that Judas really wasn’t as concerned with the poor as he led on, and he sometimes helped himself to the common purse of the group. In that way, I don’t connect with Judas. For a little bit of fun, check out the new Instagram account called “preacher’s sneakers,” where they show pictures of pastors in very expensive shoes. My shoes, by the way, are the BOGO deals from Rack Room Shoes. But I get why Judas feels that the whole act was a big old waste of money.
Notice who comes to her defense: it’s Jesus. And this is why I suspect that the perfume was purchased to anoint Lazarus’s dead body. Jesus says in verse 7, “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.” Well, if she got it for Jesus’s burial, she jumped the gun a bit. But recall that many people were plotting Jesus’s death, and many in the city didn’t even expect Jesus to show up for Passover because of this threat. His time was short, and Jesus understands this anointing as preparation for his death.
But now we come to a challenging part of this passage, the last verse, verse 8. “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
This sounds like Jesus is saying that we really can’t do anything to help the poor, so why bother. In the last presidential primary election one of the candidates paraphrased this passage when asked about helping those who are less fortunate. Even Jesus said that we are always going to have poor among us.
So if there are always going to be poor among us, why bother? Earlier today we heard a presentation from a family that is planning a trip to Costa Rica to work at rebuilding some homes that were destroyed in Hurricane Nate. Why bother? The poor will always be among us.
Or if you look at our Church Council minutes, you will find that we are planning another drive for the Valley Mission. We gave a couple thousand dollars to the Mission last year, as well as donating food, time, and other goods. We give money to SACRA, the Staunton/Augusta County Church Relief Association every year. Why bother? Jesus said the poor will always be poor.
When I sit in the church office and the phone rings during the day, I know it is either someone trying to sell me something or someone looking for financial help. Why bother? The poor are always going to be among us, and there is nothing we can do. Jesus said so. Go ahead and buy the $800 Yeezy’s, and do it for God’s glory.
Unfortunately, some people have actually interpreted these words in such a way. Hopefully this sounds odd to you, because this doesn’t seem to coincide with many of the other things that Jesus said, like “blessed are the poor,” or when he told one man to sell all he owed and give the money to the poor. Obviously, something else is going on.
I know that most of us don’t spend a lot of time reading the Old Testament. Sure, there are some good stories in Genesis and Exodus. But when you get to Leviticus and Numbers, it is very easy to get bogged down with all of the laws. Then you come to Deuteronomy and you soon realize that this entire book is simply a retelling of the law as the Israelites are about to go into the Promised Land. But every male Jew would have spent his early years memorizing these passages. So when Jesus said, “the poor you will have with you always,” his disciples would have thought of Deuteronomy 15:7-11:
If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need…Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
That sounds a lot like what Jesus said. Additionally, we need to remember that Jesus probably spoke to his disciples in Aramaic, and then the gospels were written in Greek. And there is a reason why people say, “It’s all Greek to me” when something is difficult to understand. Sometimes the same word can mean something very different from one sentence to the next. One thing that is debated in this passage is whether this was intended to be an indicative statement or an imperative. An indicative statement simply says how things are. An imperative is a commandment. In this particular verse, this is the difference between Jesus indicating that there will always be poor people around and Jesus telling the disciples that a part of who they are and what they are called to do involves being among the poor. So rather than this being an observation by Jesus that there will always be poor people around, we can also read this as Jesus saying, As my disciples, you will always be among the poor, caring for them, working with them.
I think that the point of this story is to consider the contrasts. In the previous passage we read about the dead Lazarus, and there was a fear that when they opened the tomb that they would be overcome with the stench. In today’s passage, the home is filled with sweat-smelling perfume. Likewise, we can contrast Judas and Mary. Judas appears to be worried about those who are less fortunate, but ultimately he is only interested in how he can benefit from the situation. Less money in the shared purse means less money for him to steal. But where Judas was motivated by selfish interests, Mary’s motivation was selfless. Mary took what was surely her most valued possession and literally poured it out for Jesus. Out of her gratitude, Mary performed an act of radical service for Jesus.
Yes, we can question Mary’s actions. I still think that if the perfume was worth as much as Judas claims then this was poor stewardship. But maybe the point is that Mary’s intentions were pure and selfless. I circle back to this idea that we all show gratitude in our own way. Many of us are Marthas, showing our gratitude through acts of service. There is nothing wrong with that. But may we never diminish the gifts offered by the Marys around us.
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