Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living. Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them. Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house. Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, even then getting ready to betray him, said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces.” He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them. Jesus said, “Let her alone. She’s anticipating and honoring the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have me.”
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The story from this week reminds me in a way of the 2010 movie “Alice in Wonderland”. Alice is now a young woman, almost an adult. She’s not happy with her options, but isn’t certain of herself, not sure of what she should do, or what she could do. So when she falls down the rabbit hole into Underland, she is older than when she first visited, and also a very different person: less bold, less confident - so much less herself that the March Hare and the Mad Hatter are sure that she’s The Wrong Alice. “You were so much more, muchier then”, the Hatter says, looking sad. “You’ve lost your muchness.”
In scripture the Hebrew word "me'od" means, literally, "muchness." In Deuteronomy 6:5, when we are told to love God with our strength, the word is actually "me’od” - muchness. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, and the word is translated variously as "strength" or "might." but it really is “me’od”, muchness. Jesus says to love God with “all your muchness”.
Second, the dictionary tells us that the meaning of the word “prodigal” means rashly or wastefully extravagant - but also giving, or given in abundance, lavish or profuse. A prodigal person is one who is given to wasteful extravagance, but a prodigal is also someone who gives lavishly, profusely, generously without restraint.
The major theme of this Gospel story is one of muchness, extravagance, close moments. At the same time, it is a story about the life of Jesus, and the people around him- and how he lived out the command to “love God with all your ‘muchness’.” It’s a story that surely brought gasps from the religious leaders, and those whose were afraid of his message of equality - as they saw their careful structure of power being assailed by a man who preached and lived equality.
Enemies had accumulated and trouble was brewing for Jesus. The religious authorities had been trailing him just waiting for a misstep. They saw him as an enemy."He mocks our time-honored rules," they must have said amongst themselves. "He knows the rules.”
Never talk to or be seen near a Samaritan woman. Don’t heal on the Sabbath, no matter how ill or distressed the person may be. Human beings are less important than the Sabbath rules. Never raise anyone from the dead.
But Jesus had a few real friends. Lazarus, Martha, and Mary were not among the twelve, but there were more than just the twelve - Luke tells us that there were women who travelled with Jesus and the twelve. Lazarus, Mary and Martha may not have been among them, but even so they were followers and friends. In a rare scene, the Gospel tells us Jesus spends a evening among friends, at the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
According to preacher and teacher Barbara Brown Taylor, something else left unsaid heightens this evening with friends. A trade-off had occurred - as long as Jesus stayed on the opposite side of the Jordan, his enemies in Jerusalem would leave him alone; but when he came back to help his friend Lazarus, it was the last straw. Jesus had signed his own death warrant. He had traded his life for the life of his friend.
So when Jesus comes to their home, he knows that his enemies are closing in. Yet, for the moment he has come home to relax with friends one final time.
What Mary does is absolutely taboo for a respectable woman, and for Jesus to allow. She loosens her hair, in a room full of men. Just as unorthodox, she pours this expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet. Then she touches him.
In the world of Jesus, the roles of men and women are supposed to be absolutely clear - breaking the rules can get you killed. Mary, Jesus’ mother, knew that. Mary the sister of Lazarus knows it. The fourth rule is that rabbis do not allow single women to touch their feet. Not even among the best of friends. Yet Mary takes the risk of using her hair to wipe the extraneous ointment from his feet.
Only prostitutes do such things. - and Judas pretends to be aghast at the waste of the expensive nard."Well, let me just say that I’ve never in all my life seen such a thing. What a complete misuse of that expensive nard. A whole family of day labourers could live on the price of rthat for a year. It’s just too much. Shame on you, Mary,"
Jesus’ response to Judas is as bizarre as Mary’s actions. Jesus is the friend of the poor; and yet he says something shocking - “Given the way human beings are, you’ll be caring for the poor until the end of time. Let her do as she wishes in these last few days of my time."
Jesus uses Mary’s action as a parable. Everyone there knows that had she poured the nard on his head, she would have been proclaiming him a king. Instead, she got on her knees and began to pour this expensive burial ointment on his feet. Jesus knew that the only man who got his feet anointed was a dead man - he has been given a clear picture of what is coming. So he says, "Leave her alone. Leave her alone." It was a worship of incredible expense, using an ointment purchased for the family’s own burial.
I wonder what costly worship looks like? I wonder if worship for us is sitting around with Lazarus, Martha, and Mary’s table in polite conversation, while a divine encounter is happening under our noses? Someone has said of current worship, "We no longer need ‘fasten your seatbelt’ signs in our pews because we no longer fly in our churches."
Author Annie Dillard yearns for an extraordinary worship that is both extravagant and costly, a worship that approaches Mary’s worship of muchness:
“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we Christians so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
There is nothing skimpy or frugal about Jesus. In him, God’s extravagant and costly love has been made flesh. In him, the excessiveness, the ‘me’od’, the muchness of God’s mercy is made manifest.
This bottle of costly worship will not be held back to be kept and admired. God calls us to open up, offer, use, pour out to the last drop worship that costs us something, a worship that enters into our world, filling it with life and fragrant hope, an extravagant worship of muchness, despite the critics around us. Mary got the message right, and Jesus recognised that her understanding transcended boundaries, just as he did. The others stood about as worship critics.
The good news is that, even on this road to Jerusalem, God is lavish and extravagant. God is there, waiting with the lavish gift, waiting for us to understand the moment and respond. May it be so. Amen.
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Sources:
1. Sermon “A Holy Muchness”, by Rev. Susan Leo, Bridgeport United Church of Christ, Portland, Oregon.
2 Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1997), page 58.
3. Annie Dillard, "Teaching A Stone To Talk" form Quotes for the Journey, Wisdom for the Way, Gordan S. Jackson, ed. (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2000), page 178.
4. Wholly Waste or Holy Waste? based on John 12:1-8 by Rev. Thomas Hall
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