You have to admit that Judas had a point.
A pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, poured out over
Jesus’ feet. It is reckoned to have been worth thousands of pounds in today’s money.
This was an extravagant gift, an extravagant gesture.
Nard was used to anoint the dead, among other purposes, and
it was very pungent stuff, made from the spikenard plant. Maybe it had been
bought when Mary’s brother, Lazarus had died. But Jesus had restored him to
life, so it wasn’t needed. We don’t know, but, as I said, Judas had a point.
The Gospel writer casts doubt on Judas’ motives, suggesting he was stealing
from the common purse, and maybe he was, but whether that’s true or not, this
does look like a terrible waste. It
could indeed have been sold and the money given to the poor.
But Jesus defends Mary. She’s recognised what none of the
rest of them have, that he really is going to die. She’s seen that he knows
this, and that he needs this loving, tender gesture, an action which communicates
her care for him. Jesus didn’t go to his death with unruffled courage. He wept
and prayed and sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew that crucifixion
was the inevitable result of sticking to his message – you didn’t challenge the
authorities and get away with it in his world – but he didn’t want crucifixion,
no sane human being would. Mary saw his struggle and his pain, and she did what
she could to give him her support. She gave him what she had, all that she had,
that precious jar of ointment, because that’s what he needed at this moment.
As I said, nard is pretty pungent stuff. “The house was filled with the fragrance”,
we’re told and my guess is that the smell clung to Jesus for a long time
afterwards. Perhaps he could still smell a faint trace of it when he was
arrested, beaten, crucified. Perhaps it reminded him that though the cruelty
and pain were real, the love he’d been shown was real too.
Mary gave what she could. It might not have looked like a
sensible use of resources to those around her, but she knew that cost/benefit
analyses don’t always tell you what you most need to know. Balance sheets are
important, but they often can’t measure the things that matter most to us.
Mary’s extravagant gift here reminds me of the story of
another gift in John’s Gospel, a few chapters earlier. It might not seem
anything like as lavish, but to the person who gave it, it was everything.
It’s in John chapter 6 if you’re interested. A great crowd –
thousands and thousands of men, women and children - had followed Jesus out
into the wilderness to listen to him preach. The day had drawn on, and suddenly
everyone realised they were hungry. Jesus said to his disciple, Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people
to eat?” Philip, ever the realist, answered, “Six months wages wouldn’t be enough to give people even a little”.
Jesus had set them an impossible task. Logically speaking there was nothing
they can do here ; they would have to send people home hungry. It seemed they
had nothing to work with. Looking around
rather desperately for any scrap of hope, though, Andrew announces “There
is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish” but he then quickly
dismisses the thought that that might help, “what
are they among so many?” Five loaves
and two fish aren’t even going to scratch the surface of the hunger of this
vast crowd; that’s obvious to any rational person.
But Jesus only seems to hear the first part of Andrew’s statement. “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish”. Jesus
sees what they have, not what they haven’t. He sees that this small boy, in
offering his lunch, is giving everything he has. I don’t know about you, but
most small boys of my acquaintance are extremely reluctant to be parted from
their food, but this boy gives it willingly, his best, his all. That’s what
Jesus sees – a generous gift, a loving gesture. And that’s why he knows it will
be enough, because in God’s economy, it isn’t the size of the gift that matters,
it’s the size of the love with which it is given. In the same way, Mary’s gift
of this precious ointment isn’t sensible, logical, practical – you can’t
prevent crucifixion by anointing someone’s feet – but it makes all the
difference in the world to Jesus. The love with which it is offered makes it
priceless, something which sustains Jesus through this terrible time. It might
look like a waste, but love is never wasted.
Both these stories encourage us to be aware of the gifts we
have to offer, an important thing to do as we come to our Annual Meeting after
this service. Our gifts may not seem
great, like those loaves and fishes. Like Andrew, we might say “what are these among so many?” , “What can
I do that will be any use?”. We might look at our church and think, “if only we had a spare million pounds or
so, or a hundred more people, or a decent heating system and some toilets, just
imagine what we could achieve…” But when we think like this we often miss what we have, the precious
treasures God has given us, as individuals and as a church; our
personalities, our experiences, our voices, our time and
talents, the particular strengths of being who we are. We may not be
able to do what others people or churches do, but they can’t do what we can
either. We are called to offer what we have, not what we haven’t, to serve as
we can, not as we can’t.
Our gifts, like that small boy’s lunch, may not always seem
great, but in Jesus hands, they can do much more than we imagine. Our gifts may
not always seem practical or sensible, like Mary’s outpoured ointment, but they
might make all the difference to others. We may see a sick friend and be aware
that all we have to offer is prayer, or a hug, or a cake, when we know that
what they really need is a cure for cancer. But that prayer, that hug, that
cake may give them the strength to get through it. We could draw up a list of
skills we wish we had on tap in our church – I bitterly regret that there was
no module on boiler maintenance in my ordination training! – but we are great
at loving and welcoming people, and if I had to choose between a cold
church and a warm welcome, I go for the warm welcome anytime. Judas complains
about the waste of money that Mary’s offering represents. He doesn’t understand
that love is never wasted.
At our Diocesan Clergy Conference last autumn, one of our
most inspiring speakers was the Director of Social Justice for the Diocese of
Liverpool, Canon Ellen Louden. After many years of working in the area of mission
and social justice, she’d come up with what she called her 12 rules for Christian
Activists – and surely we should all be Christian Activists, people who act to help the kingdom of God grow
in our midst. I won’t go through them all, but there was one which really stuck
with me. “Identify the good things” she
said, “and give good things away”. Find
the best things you do as a church, your treasures, and give them away. It is
so tempting to try to hoard and protect and control what we think our treasures
are, in the church or as individuals, to be precious about them. It is tempting
only to give away what is leftover or doesn’t cost us much to lose – like the
pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap “loss leaders” you see in supermarkets which aren’t
really worth much, but lure you in to buy more of the expensive stuff. Churches
do this when they attract people in with a glossy programme of events, but then
make people jump through hoops really to belong, insist that they must believe
and behave as the existing members of the church do before their voices can be
heard. “You can’t just let any Tom, Dick
or Harriet in; they might change things!”
Ellen Louden said that she’d learned that the churches that
really made a difference in their communities were the ones who were
open-handed with the things they did well, who identified the things they were
best at, and gave them away freely, the churches which didn’t set barriers
around their church life, but let everyone share their gifts and their
opinions, whoever they were and however long they’d been there.
One of the reasons we set up our Talking Village initiative was
that we recognised that talking is something we’ve got a gift for! We’re a
welcoming and inclusive community; that’s one of our strengths. We’ve learned
that and proved it over many years; Know Your Neighbours, Friday Group, our new
Community Lunch, all those village events we’ve been involved with, often
forming the bulk of the organising group. They aren’t the answer to all the
world’s ills, but they make life better, and people who needed company and
support have found it through them. God has been at work, blessing people and
enriching our community. And part of the reason for that is that we have,
perhaps unconsciously followed Ellen Louden’s rule, identifying this skill, but
then giving it away, involving everyone who wants to be part of running those
things whether a part of the church or not,
rather than trying to hold onto and control them ourselves.
Our Annual Meeting, after this service, gives us a chance to
celebrate the things we do well – and there are many of them – to identify our
good things. We look back, and look forward as we think about our church’s
life. As we do, it’s great to be reminded of this Gospel story, of Mary’s
extravagance as she gave the best thing she had, poured it out, literally, in a
gesture that looked completely wasteful. But love is never wasted. Her story reminds
us to notice what we have rather than what we lack, what is most precious to us,
not so that we can hoard it protectively for ourselves, but so we can give it
away, knowing that as we do, God will bless it and use it for the good of all.
Amen
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