Extravagant Love

¹Six 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."

What’s a stained glass window worth, one that has been hanging in a church wall for almost 100 years?

How much is a meal for a hungry person worth, one that may be the only meal that person may have that entire day and one of only several in an entire week?

How much is a new carpet worth? Or an extravagant gold goblet to grace a sacred communion table? Or a shiny candelabra to lend light and life and vibrancy to a holy chancel?

What is the worth of a bushel of corn or a bag of diapers or a can of formula given to a family that struggles to scrape up enough money to make a rent payment and hasn’t much left for the rest of the expenses to care for their family?

A few years ago there was a true story about a man in New York City who was kidnapped. His kidnappers called his wife and asked for $100,000 ransom. She talked them down to $30,000.

The story had a happy ending: the man returned home unharmed, the money was recovered, and the kidnappers were caught and sent to jail. But, don't you wonder what happened when the man got home and found that his wife got him back for a discount? Can you imagine what the negotiations must have been like: "$100,000 for that old guy? You have got to be crazy. Just look at him! Look at that gut! He doesn’t even have half the hair he had when we first met. You want $100,000 for that? You've got to be kidding. $30,000 is my top offer."

Jesus is on His way to the cross. It is just a few days before Passover. The chief priests and scribes are plotting against Him. Judas is about ready to betray Him. The crucifixion is less than a week away and Jesus knows it. Jesus and His disciples stop at Bethany. just a few days before, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead there in Bethany. Now, as they are having dinner, a woman comes to Jesus and does a beautiful but extravagant thing for our Lord. The Gospel of John tells us that the woman was Mary, (the sister of Martha and Lazarus). Mary brings an alabaster jar of very expensive ointment. She breaks open the jar and pours the costly perfumed oil on Jesus' head. She anoints His head with oil.

Why did she do that? Some say it was an act of gratitude in which she was thanking Jesus for raising her brother Lazarus from the dead. Some say it was an act of consecration in which she was anointing Jesus to encourage Him to go into the Holy City and do what had to be done. Others say it was a foreshadowing, an act of preparation, in which she was anointing His body for the death which was to come in Jerusalem a few days later. Despite all these various opinions its pretty mechanical an act of love and kindness.

Judas vs. Mary. The spendthrift and the prodigal? When Judas speaks out in criticism of Mary Judas was posturing. You remember what prodigal means, one who wastes extravagantly, one who squanders. Judas would have called Mary prodigal. But the comparison isn’t really Judas the spendthrift, the good steward versus Mary the foolish, thoughtless prodigal. Remember, Judas had his hand in the till. Judas betrayed Jesus for handful of cash. Judas wasn’t a good steward; he wasn’t a thrifty, thoughtful man. He was a conniving, slick fraud who was shocked that someone among them had such resources to have spent a labourer’s wages for a year’s[1] on a jar of perfume and then to have wasted it on some silly anointing. Even if someone tripped, across a jar of the stuff he would have required them to sell it, turn in the money to him to Judas himself, where he could pretend to watch over it as treasurer and then use it in whatever way he wanted.

No Not Judas the thrifty versus Mary the prodigal. But Judas the selfish, Judas the thief and Judas the Critic.

While traveling separately through the countryside late one afternoon a Hindu, a Rabbi, and a Critical Christian were caught in a terrific thunderstorm. They sought shelter at a nearby farmhouse. "That storm will be raging for hours." The farmer told them. "You ought to spend the night. The problem is there is only room for two in the house. One of you must sleep in the barn."

"I'll be the one" said the Hindu, "a little hardship is nothing to me." And he went to the barn.

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. It was the Hindu. "I'm sorry," he said to the others, "but there is a cow in the barn. Cows are sacred creatures and I cannot impose."

"Don't worry," said the Rabbi, "make yourself comfortable. I will go sleep in the barn"

A few minutes later there was another knock at the door. It was the Rabbi. "I hate to be a bother," he said, "but there is a pig in the barn. In my religion pigs are unclean, I wouldn't feel comfortable sleeping near a pig."

No Not Judas the thrifty versus Mary the prodigal. But Judas the selfish, Judas the thief and Judas the Critic, verses Mary.

It’s not often that we see in our churches and in our communities people like Judas. Nothing Judas did was anything of his invention, nor was he the last one in history to steal or betray a friend or to criticize and argue and disparage another person for personal, financial or political gain. But the level of scandal to which Judas stooped is fairly rare.

Unfortunately, what is not as rare as we would wish is the critical Christian. The one who values a personal agenda and a sense of their own infallibility around the issues of what’s right and wrong, devaluing another person who might disagree, knocking them down and making them less important than oneself just to make a point. This is not as rare as we would hope.

If you lived strictly by the Judas mind-set, you would have no Spire on the church, no flowers on the altar, no stained glass windows, no beautiful weddings. You would have old carpets for your Sunday School and smelly septic systems. Your daughter would come to you and say, "I'm in love and I'm so happy. I want to get married." And you would say, "Well, why don't you just elope? It's much cheaper. It would be wasteful to have a wedding."

The Mary mind-set says, "Sometimes in the name of love and kindness and gratitude, it's O.K. Indeed, it's beautiful to be extravagant." illustrations@ministersmail.com

Judas the selfish, Judas the thief and Judas the Critic, verses Mary. Mary the extravagant – extravagant with her money, extravagant with her time and her devotion, sitting at Jesus’ feet to hear what Jesus had to teach her, Mary the extravagant with her love and with her faith.

What happened at Jesus' anointing in Bethany has plagued the followers of Jesus from then until now. How much do we spend on ourselves and how much do we give to missions? Couldn't we do more good by giving all this money to the poor instead of spending it on, say, a new building?

William Willimon, chaplain at Duke University tells of the time the faculty of Duke was discussing a proposal to renovate the seminary chapel. They had received a modest proposal from the architect. But, would the chapel be renovated? No. "With all the poverty and hunger in the world," said one faculty member, "how can we as Christians justify spending $50,000 to pretty-up our chapel?" Of course, this person failed to offer similar objections when faculty salaries were raised each year, (a figure that collectively exceeds $50,000) nor does he question the morality of the luxurious faculty lounge. Obviously the man was posturing, just as Judas was posturing. Even so, the problem is tough. How much should we give to others and how much should we reserve for ourselves?

What was her brother Lazarus’ life worth Mary? What was her friend Jesus’ life worth to Mary? What would the life of a complete stranger have meant to Mary? Would Mary have chosen to anoint her friend Jesus with costly perfumed ointment but refused to love a stranger and invite an outsider to her table or care for someone whom she didn’t know? What do you think Mary learned sitting all that time at Jesus’ feet?

What would Mary have done today? Spent money on youth ministry, on missions projects overseas or the battered women’s shelter in her town? Or would she have worked to honor Jesus by creating wonderful art for a church sanctuary, or spending money for wonderful music to be used at worship or giving time to replace a roof on a battered old church building, or would she have donated $50,000 for a Christian education wing?

If you asked her in the moments after she sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to his compassionate and caring teachings, or in the days after her brother rose from her tomb, Mary would likely have found none of these actions extravagant. They would have felt natural to her - a normal, spontaneous and sincere expression of her love for her savior.

And the question would not have been which one – missions or worship, renovating the sanctuary or supporting the local soup kitchen, but how to do both, and how to do them as extravagantly as possible.

Jesus models such extravagance as he walks the path toward Jerusalem, the path we’ve been following all the way through Lent. Mary, like we do now, must have known that what Jesus was teaching, what he was doing was going to mean trouble and probably persecution and death for him. In her extravagance was probably some sadness as well, knowing how extravagant Jesus was being for her and for her friends and for us all.

“God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son,” maybe she had not yet heard these words as we know them today from John 3:16. But she knew that love first hand. She understood God’s love and Jesus’ extravagant sacrifice.

How well do we understand? What do we value? Do we have it in our hearts to give as Mary did? To give as extravagantly from what God has given us? Maybe we don’t have a year’s wages to lavish on the body of Christ. Maybe we don’t have the music or the art to make spectacular contributions to the worship and celebration of that extravagantly loving Lord whom Mary loved.

But what have we to give? Where can our extravagance come from? Prayer? Encouragement? Love of another in pain? Nurture of another in need of growth and love? We each have something to offer. And if we’ve known Christ, we each have the abundance in our hearts to be as loving and gracious as him or as extravagant as Mary.