24^th March 2013

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 17 March 2013

Lessons - Psalm 126; Philippians 3:7-14; John 12:1-8

Measured by reasonable standards Mary's actions are wasteful and immodest.
Instead of anointing Jesus' head - the customary way to honour an
important guest - she wipes his feet as a sign of special adoration,
humility and service. She abandons all sense of decorum by using vast
quantities of costly perfume and unselfconsciously 'wiping his feet with
her hair'.

Judas represents many in being appalled by the behaviour of Mary and
Jesus. He is livid that Mary should use expensive perfume for an
unnecessary and extravagant show of affection. How dare she fritter away a
valuable resource that could have been sold so that the proceeds could be
used to help the poor! He is incensed that Jesus not only allows her to
act in this way but commends her in a way that displays an apparent lack
of concern for the poor.

Jesus responds by saying, 'Leave her alone. She bought it so that she
might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you,
but you do not always have me.' (John 12:7,8)

Clearly, this saying is an embarrassment to John. Knowing that helping the
poor is a good thing John condemns Judas because he is insincere and
deceitful. He does not really care for the poor but wants to steal the
money that could have been used to help them (v6).

Jesus' comments must be understood in the context of an impending crisis.
He is about to be arrested, brought to trial and crucified. As his entire
ministry has shown, Jesus is not callous or indifferent to human
suffering. Indeed, neglect of the poor is judged harshly! As Mark makes
clear, the point is that, while there is always time to show kindness to
the poor, there is little time in which to lavish extravagant love on One
who is about to be crucified (Mark 14:7).

There is a profound difference between what is of primary importance and
what is of secondary importance. Concern for the poor is a binding
obligation. But it is not to be confused with the central event in history
where God's costly love for sinful humanity is singularly displayed!

Sadly, commitment to just and compassionate treatment of the poor often
takes the place of faith in God's redemptive act of grace in Christ.
Social justice - not God's costly love for all - becomes the faith of the
Church!

Judas, like many good and devout people, makes this mistake. Like the
elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he does not see that, in
Christ, the magnificence of God's grace to sinners is embodied - that in
Jesus' costly life, death and resurrection God's mercy is extravagantly
poured out! Why then would he begrudge Mary her uninhibited act of love?

By refusing to join Mary in carefree devotion to Jesus, Judas already
betrays him, joining the ranks of those who grumble about Jesus mixing
with 'tax-collectors and sinners'. (Luke 7:36ff) Being a close disciple of
Jesus is no guarantee of seeing in him the fullness of God's reconciling
love for our broken world.

It is most regrettable that our most humane, just and charitable actions
may blind us to the reality of grace and prevent us living with a deep and
overflowing sense of joy and gratitude for what God has done for us. Our
concern for the poor may be a smokescreen to hide our hatred of God's
grace!

Mary, on the other hand, shows thankfulness befitting God's grace. She
goes way beyond what was expected or permitted. 'To anoint the feet (of a
guest) was exceptional. For a woman to loosen her hair was considered an
act of considerable immodesty.' (J Marsh, St John, p455.)

Although, unlike Luke, we are not told by John (or Mark) what she has done
wrong. This is the act of a penitent believer who is so overwhelmed by
Christ's love for her that she cannot contain herself. Knowing what it is
to receive God's grace, Mary's love for Christ is expressed
unselfconsciously, extravagantly, sensuously.

But there is more to this story than meets the eye. In John and Mark
(though not in Luke) the encounter between Jesus and Mary is intimately
connected with Jesus' death. She anoints his body and loosens her hair:
acts that signify death and the expression of deepest grief. 'She comes
forward to perform a deed which is both the expression of the utmost
possible humility, love and devotion, and a sign . . . of that which lies
before Jesus.' (L Newbigin, The Light has Come, p150.)

'She has bought the perfume for the day of my burial' (v7) or, as Mark
puts it, 'She has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.' (Mark
14:8.) This moving story is inextricably linked to the destiny awaiting
Christ. A very personal story of God's grace being met by uninhibited love
is a foretaste of the great cosmic story of God's costly love for all that
reaches its climax in Jesus' death and resurrection.

The universal scope of this local incident is suggested in a seemingly
trivial detail. After Mary has anointed Jesus' feet with perfume and wiped
them with her hair and before Judas enters the scene, we are told that
'the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume' (v3).

On one level this is stating the obvious. John, however, is interested in
the deeper meaning of the episode.

* The Greek word for 'house' - oikos - is in the same family as
'ecumenical' - oikoumene - which means 'the whole inhabited earth'. (The
Ecumenical Movement encompasses the global Church whose mission is to the
whole world.)

* The Greek word for 'filled' - pleroma - is used in the Gospels to say
that 'in the fullness of time God sent his Son into the world not to
condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him' (3:17).

John is saying that where Christ is received with unbounded joy, the
immediate environment and the world as a whole are filled with the
'fragrance' of God's costly grace. The 'stench' of self-righteousness,
deceit and betrayal is overpowered by the 'sweet smelling scent' of mercy
and unrestrained gratitude.

This is true, too, of the event to which it points: Jesus' crucifixion and
burial. There the foul smell of death, caused by hatred, self-
righteousness, betrayal and deceit, hangs like a pall over God's eternal
purposes and humanity's future. Yet the presence of the Risen One who was
'crucified, dead and buried' (Apostles Creed) fills the earth with the
fragrance of costly grace!

As we hear this moving story, may we not mistake the obligation to the
poor with faith in God's costly grace. May we be so overwhelmed by the
sweet-smelling scent of God's costly grace in Christ that we, too, will be
moved to extravagant adoration. May our eyes be opened to the incomparably
costly grace of God in the crucified-and-risen Christ so that - like Mary
and unlike Judas - we will respond in lives of uninhibited joy and
gratitude.

---------------

Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church,
Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of
Confessing Congregations within the UCA.