Monday of Holy Week 2021 John 12:1-11
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to
Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There
they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the
table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of
pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was
filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot,
one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5‘Why
was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the
poor?’ 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but
because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put
into it.) 7Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that
she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have
the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
9 When the great crowd of the Jews
learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see
Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10So the chief
priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, 11since it was
on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in
Jesus. (NRSV)
The scene is the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus who we know are
friends of Jesus. They are close friends, such that Jesus is recorded as weeping
when he hears that Lazarus has died and then famously raises him from the dead.
And the authorities clearly thought Lazarus was close to Jesus, as they planned
to execute him – as if he hadn’t been through enough already. In this home
setting, Mary gives this precious perfume to Jesus. It is hers to give, and she
does it out of love and devotion to her friend. Perhaps there is also a
suggestion of worship here too. The key point is that that the gift isn’t
Judas’s to give – he wants to exercise control over something that isn’t his,
and suppress the generosity of one friend to another. And, according to John,
it was all hypocrisy anyway, as he had his fingers in the till. He was
syphoning off funds for himself.
But there is also a problem with Jesus’ answer: “The poor are
always with you” Is that how things have to be? Is Jesus saying we should be
resigned to that? For example, there’s a verse we no longer sing in All Things
Bright and Beautiful:
“The
rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his
gate,
God made them, high
and lowly,
And ordered their
estate.” Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895)
That suggests our social standing is ordained by God; we should be content with
it.
No. In fact Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament – from Deuteronomy, one of the books of the Law:
“There will always be poor people in the land.
Therefore I command you to be open-handed towards your fellow Israelites who
are poor and needy in your land”. (Deut
15:11)
It is a command to be open-handed, generous in spirit and in
action. It is not suggesting complacency at poverty, but a communal obligation
to be open-handed and not tight-fisted in the face of a poor neighbour. This
was not just a plea for action by charitably minded individuals – it was the
sacred law of an entire community, it was to be the culture of a community, and
Jesus reminds them of it.
Why? Why at this point. Well, Jesus is moving towards a very
different act of generosity at the end of the week. He will give himself up to
arrest, a rigged trial, cruelty and abuse, and finally a terrible execution on
the cross. He will do it voluntarily, because he knows that the gift of his life
is the way God’s love and reconciliation is to be manifested in the world. He
will absorb rejection, hate, spite, and even death in the belief that
ultimately love can triumph over it all. Offering up his life for the world
will be an immeasurable act of generosity, and so he affirms someone else
pouring out their most precious gift for him and asks for that spirit to be
manifested here with his friends to all.
So, I won’t stand up for Judas here, although we will come back to him later in the week. He didn’t understand what was going on here. And Jesus isn’t calling for the status quo to be maintained; far from it. Instead, he calls for a world where everyone is open-handed, where generosity is the hallmark of everyone’s thoughts, aspirations and action. That’s what the church – the community that claims to follow him – ought to be like.
I wonder what
holds us back?
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