Use the Nard - John 12:1-8

I find the dinner party drama in today’s Gospel passage delightfully cinematic. The cast of characters is on full display. Tensions are high as the conflict emerges. A satisfying climactic pronouncement is made by the star of the evening, and we’re left content as the scene fades to black. There is plenty of sermon fodder around this table. We could explore the balance of piety and social justice, or unpack the nature of discipleship, or take a pastoral look at the value of burial practices and preparation. It’s a rich story, teeming with theological implications.

However, as with any good dinner party scene, it’s the context, what happened in the lead up to this episode, that makes it so compelling. The story of a woman anointing Jesus, and Judas being outraged at the extravagance, appears in all four Gospels. But my favorite (and this may be the only time you’ll ever hear me say this) comes from John. This is because in John’s version, the dinner party comes immediately after the raising of Mary’s brother, Lazarus, from the dead.

The placement of the event should draw our attention, We can trust that John wants us to connect the two stories, that Judas and Mary’s emotions and reactions are deeply tied to their recent experience. Frankly, I don’t understand why the Lazarus situation doesn’t come up even once in this passage. It would be all I could think about, much less talk about.

But we can definitely see the impact of the recent days in Mary’s behavior. She is calm, she is joyful, she is celebratory. She is everything we would expect from a woman who got her beloved brother back after having lost him. It’s no stretch to assume that everyone in proximity to this miracle might share in the joy of the occasion, but for some reason, we find Judas in a foul temper, full of scathing criticism. What is going on here? How can two people who witnessed the same miracle be so at odds in their demeanor?

For John, it has everything to do with how we understand the miracles of Jesus. Distinct among the Gospels, John refers to the miracles of Jesus as “signs.” There are seven, and the raising of Lazarus is the final and most spectacular before the crucifixion. On a surface level, these signs point to God’s strength and power, which are of course, magnificent. But as is always the case with Jesus, a deeper look reveals so much more.

From the feeding of the five thousand to the healing of the man born blind to the raising of Lazarus, the signs of Jesus in John’s Gospel are wonderful and life-affirming. Even so, they are not an end in themselves. They are pointing us towards something that is still to come, something that is even more incredible than what we’ve already seen - namely, the resurrection of Christ and the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. The signs reveal to us that the world as we know it is being totally remade into something new.

At the time of today’s dinner party scene, Mary has been hanging around with Jesus for quite some time. But when he brings her brother back from the dead, something clicks for her. She gets it. She understands that not only is her brother restored to her, she’s living in a whole new world, one of hope and possibility and abundance, the likes of which she’s never known before. She has no fear of scarcity, only radical hospitality and generosity. As she anoints Jesus with oil meant for burial, she is actively preparing her heart for what is coming next.

Judas, on the other hand, is unable to see the sign of Lazarus’ resurrection for what it is. He recognizes Jesus’ power, but he cannot imagine the new world order which that power signifies. He cannot envision a world in which God’s saving grace is offered freely to all people, and so he rejects Mary’s sense of abundance and clings to the meager security he finds available to him. Jesus sees Judas clearly. He says, “Your world, Judas, will always have poverty. Don’t miss your chance to live in the new world that I am making.”

Jesus sees me clearly too. I fear I am much more like Judas than Mary. I have trouble witnessing examples of generosity, kindness, or good fortune, and trusting that they are signs of the kingdom of God. Instead, I typically worry that the good fortune of others means less for me, because there surely can’t be enough to go around. And I worry deeply about the impoverished among us. I get worn down by the never-ending stream of need that comes through the doors of Christ Church.

But last week, I had an incredible encounter. The doorbell rang and a woman asked for a sack lunch and some water. I gave her both, and she thanked me. But before I turned away, I watched her uncap the bottle of water and drink almost all of it in a few gulps. All of a sudden, the sheer amount of thirst in this world hit me like a brick. I felt dizzy with sadness. I felt overwhelmed by the sense that we will never have enough for the people who knock at our door.

A few minutes later, as I sat stewing in my office, one of the HVAC workers (who are themselves a sign of God’s saving grace at Christ Church these days) poked his head in to tell me that he had seen me give the woman the bottle of water, and that he just knew it had really made her day. I was stunned. He was the Mary to my Judas. Where I only saw only a useless contribution to an insurmountable problem, he saw a sign of the Kingdom of God. I am eternally grateful to him.

I’m also grateful for Debie Thomas, a columnist for The Christian Century, who describes Mary this way. “Mary recognizes the importance of meeting the world’s brokenness, cynicism, and pain with priceless, generous beauty….Her perfume is her protest….In anointing Jesus in beauty, she declares that the stench of death will not have the last word in our lives — the last word will belong to the sweet and sacred fragrance of love.”

I want to be more like Mary. In a world that insists on scarcity and poverty, I want my perfume, my generosity, to be my protest. When the weight of the world is on my shoulders and I feel the need to do something about it, I want to remember that God is making all things new. When I catch a glimpse of this new creation, I want to trust that sign and lean in to the abundance of God. I want to imagine the world that is coming, not get stuck in the world as it is. Inevitably, I’ll slip back into my Judas stress from time to time. And when I do, I’ll repeat my new mantra: “Hannah, you can’t solve poverty, so just use the nard.” Amen.