The Disciple

A sermon on John 12:1-8, given on March 20-21, 2010.

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May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

If you asked him just then which label he wanted to be remembered by, he probably would have said, “disciple.” He would have been proud of this. After all, he wasn’t just any old disciple, he was the one they’d put in charge of the money – and it is hardly a recent phenomenon that money in the church is a very big deal.

And if, after the incident, you asked him how he felt about what happened, he probably would have said, “angry,” or maybe “humiliated.” The One to whom he’d dedicated his life had chastised him openly, in front of other people, and all he was trying to do was be practical. He’d tell you that he was trying to remind them of their purpose, and all the thanks he gets is Jesus telling him that it was perfectly fine – even admirable - to throw away an entire year’s worth of money.

But it wasn’t perfectly fine, he’d tell you. It was reckless and extravagant and… wild. And it wasn’t as if they had a whole lot laying around to waste, after all.

And maybe if you looked into his eyes, sitting there outside the house with the odor of that cloying, musky, noxious perfume still hanging in the air around him… if you looked into his eyes as he sat there, alone and feeling indignant, you’d see in those eyes the beginnings of a plan… a scheme… a rumbling dark something in the seat of his soul that both drew him deeper and terrified him – the beginnings of betrayal. Of course, he wouldn’t tell you about that part. How could he?

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We think of this passage from the 12th chapter of the book of John as the passage where Mary anoints Jesus. That’s how it’s labeled in most Bibles – in the New Revised Standard Version, “Mary Anoints Jesus.” In the New International Version, “Jesus Anointed At Bethany.” In The Message, “Anointing His Feet.” In the previous chapter, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. The Gospel of John says that Lazarus was Jesus’ good friend, along with his sisters Martha and Mary. We hear how Jesus weeps at the news of Lazarus’ death, and that Lazarus had been dead four days – long enough to stink – by the time Jesus shows up. Jesus has them roll away the stone, cries out “Lazarus, come out!” and the dead man comes to life and walks out, still bound in his burial clothes.

When you start bringing the dead back to life, people take notice, including the chief priests and Pharisees, who are now actively plotting to kill Jesus. So Jesus travels to the wilderness for a while, afraid to walk out in the open, but then returns to visit his friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary in Bethany one more time before going to Jerusalem.

And that’s where we find them in this week’s Gospel passage – Jesus’ friends are having a special dinner for him. Martha is busy, as she always seems to be when we meet her in Scripture, cleaning up after dinner. She’s bustling around in the kitchen, surveying the stacks of dirty dishes, maybe wishing that just once, Lazarus would get up from the table to help her out a little bit. And she’s wondering where on earth Mary is and why she never notices when there’s work to do. Because there’s always work to do.

Lazarus is sitting at the table with Jesus, probably still a little bit mystified that he was dead – dead to the point of starting to rot – and this man, the man casually sitting here at the table with him, was the one who brought him back to life. How could he possibly notice that Martha’s in the kitchen needing some help when the One who raised him from the dead is sitting there next to him?

And then there’s Mary. Flighty. Irresponsible. Head in the clouds. That’s what Martha would say about her. But Jesus didn’t see that. And she’s wandered off for a few moments, only to reappear with a heavy jar of perfume. “Great,” Martha thinks. “I’ve got a pile of dishes that aren’t going to clean themselves, and she wants to show off her new perfume. Typical.” Martha starts back to her work.

But then Mary sits down at Jesus’ feet, and looks up shyly at his face, quickly dropping her gaze down again. The room goes silent. She breaks the top off of the jar of perfume, and the heady scent fills the whole house and the nostrils of all those present. She pours the thick, goopy stuff into her hands, sneaking just one more glance up at Jesus’ face, and then slathers it onto his feet – an entire pound of it. It squishes through her fingers and drips in fat drops onto the floor and soaks into Jesus’ cracked and calloused feet.

Martha turns to see what’s happening, pulled by the smell of the pure nard, and her face exhibits a mix of shock and confusion. Mary is at Jesus’ feet. Mary is covering Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. Mary’s hair is down. You just don’t do that if you’re a woman in first-century Judea. Martha knows that unrestrained, wild hair means an unrestrained, wild woman. And that’s precisely what Mary is in this moment.

After the perfume is all used up, the odor hangs heavy in the air. Mary bends forward and her face falls to Jesus’ feet. She wipes his feet with her hair.

The silence in the room is as thick as the smell of the pure nard, as strong as the smell of Lazarus’ dead body just a few days earlier.

Suddenly, the disciple can’t stand it any longer. He’s sat through this whole ridiculous incident and not said a word, but he can’t take it anymore. “Why,” he yells, the anger bubbling up in his voice, “didn’t you sell that perfume and give the money to the poor? It’s worth a year’s wages!” He can’t believe that they’ve all just sat here and done nothing in the face of such reckless, wild extravagance – especially Jesus! 

And all Jesus says is, “Leave her alone.” His voice is calm, with maybe a touch of exasperation, or is that sadness? “She bought it so that she could keep it for the day of my burial. You’ll always have the poor with you. But you won’t always have me.”

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This passage is about Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with a pound of expensive perfume. But it’s also about something else. Three of the eight verses – almost half the passage – are about the disciple who spoke up and asked why the perfume wasn’t sold so they could give the money to the poor. These verses don’t talk about how this disciple was the practical one, or how this disciple was the one who was good with money, good enough to be trusted with the common purse. They don’t talk about how he was a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, about the miles and miles the disciple walked with Jesus just to be near him.

These verses say that Judas Iscariot was about to betray Jesus. That Judas Iscariot didn’t care at all about the poor. That Judas Iscariot was a thief who stole from the common purse.

The gospel of John leaves little room to see anything even a little bit good in the disciple who betrays Jesus. It’s easy to call him a bad guy or a villain. And yet, we must take a long, hard look at this disciple if we are to truly understand our own deep brokenness and our desperate need for God’s grace.

I ask myself, who would I be if I were there at that dinner? Would I be Martha, keeping myself so busy that I’m missing out on God as he lives and breathes and eats at my table? Would I be Lazarus, sitting in stunned stupor, staring at the man who is God who raised me from the dead? Would I be Mary, the passionate one, reckless and extravagant and wild with devotion to Jesus Christ?

Or would I be Judas… the one so deeply broken he doesn’t know he’s broken?

Would I be Judas… the betrayer who thinks himself a devoted disciple?

Would I be Judas… so worried about making sure everyone knows I know the right thing to do, the Christian thing to do, that I can’t even see real faith and love and devotion right in front of my eyes?

*****

Jesus does not rebuke Judas. Jesus doesn’t cry out, “Thief! Liar! Betrayer!” He simply says, “Leave her alone.”

Jesus does not send Judas away after this. He eats with Judas and washes his feet.

Jesus does not call for Judas to be punished or killed. He cries out, “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.” He cries out, “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them.” He cries out, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

Jesus is reckless and extravagant and wild in his love. It baffles the mind and maybe even angers us to know the true recklessness and extravagance and wildness of it.

It looks reckless to wash the feet of the one who would betray the savior of the world.

It looks extravagant to fill the universe completely and indiscriminately with redeeming light when there seems to be so much willful and wanton darkness.

It looks wild for God’s love to be poured out for those who don’t even know the depth of their own brokenness.

And yet, this is Jesus. This is what Jesus does.

This is the creating and saving and sanctifying God.

He empties himself for a broken betrayer and a broken world.

Reckless and extravagant and wild.

Comments

[Gregory Olsen]

Awesome reflection on the scandal of the gospel. It had me thinking -"Where is she going with this?" - the whole time. I love the focus on Jesus' response to Judas. I wish I'd picked up on that. He doesn't condemn (although the narrator does), he simply puts a stop to the behavior.