The Sweet Smell of Grace
John 12:1-8
I once told you of my high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Rooney, whose teaching methods were…shall we say…unorthodox. For example, on the midterm exam he offered extra-credit questions but only to the girls, much to the outrage of my usually imperturbable best friend and lab partner Dave.
In addition to teaching chemistry, Mr. Rooney also coached basketball, not at my school, however, but at a Catholic high school in the next town. I’m not sure how he landed that gig.
As a teacher and as a coach Mr. Rooney had an appreciation for anything offbeat and amusing. He once shared with the class, much to his own amusement, an altercation that he had with the opposing coach during a game. The rival coach was so incensed with Mr. Rooney that he threatened to “rip his arm off and beat [him] with it.” I cannot share with you here in church Mr. Rooney’s response to that threat.
Mr. Rooney told us that story, even though it was at his own expense, simply because he appreciated the other coach’s creativity in crafting a threat.
Something else that he appreciated in his role as coach was the motto of the school. School mottos typically strive to sound important, all the more so if they are in Latin. For example, the school motto of Yale University is Lux et veritas, or “light and truth.” You might think that the motto for a Catholic high school would reach into their Latin vocabulary and pull out something equally impressive sounding. Not so. The motto for Kolbe Cathedral High School was then and remains to this day “Work hard and be nice.”
For many people outside the church, to the extent that they have a favorable view of the church, it’s probably based on their belief that the message of the gospel is essentially “work hard and be nice.” They view Christianity as a system of ethics that espouses charity for the poor and compassion and kindness toward one’s neighbors. To this way of thinking, people are basically good, and all we really need is to be encouraged to be our best selves—more generous with the poor, more patient with our neighbors, more conscientious about recycling.
I have nothing against working hard and being nice, but that’s not the gospel—not even close. What’s missing from that equation is the central symbol of Christian faith—the cross. Try as some might, there is no Christianity without the cross. We cannot have the moral teachings of Jesus—love your neighbor and all that—without accepting what Jesus himself said that he came to do, which is to undergo suffering, rejection, and death, even death on a cross.
This desire for Christ’s ethics without the cross is not a new phenomenon. We see it on display in today’s reading from the Gospel of John. Jesus is in Bethany, a village just outside Jerusalem, in the home of three siblings, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. It is just days before the Passover, the festival during which Jesus will be handed over, tried, and executed. Mary, who seems to have a sense of what’s about to happen, anoints Jesus by pouring a wildly expensive perfume on his feet.
However, Judas, the only disciple mentioned as being present, objects to this lavish display. Why, it’s immoral! That perfume could have been sold for a small fortune and the money used to feed, clothe, and house the poor.
Doesn’t Judas have a point? Isn’t concern for the poor central to Jesus’ ministry? Let’s leave that question hanging for the time being. We’ll come back to it later.
Doesn’t Judas have a point?
Isn’t concern for the poor central to Jesus’ ministry?
Although we’ve been reading from Luke for the past several weeks, today we take a detour into John. Similar to how a few weeks ago we set our clocks forward one hour, this reading from John recalibrates Jesus’ timeline with our own. As we pick up the story in chapter 12, we’re told that it’s six days before the Passover, while in our own timeline it is but seven days before Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem during the Passover. The Gospel’s timeline and our timeline are now in sync.
As was the case with last week’s parable of the two lost sons, death hovers over this passage. In that parable, when the younger son asks for his inheritance while his father is still living, he essentially is wishing his father dead. And in granting the inheritance, the father also agrees to “die” metaphorically.
But here in John death is not metaphorical but quite literal. Jesus is in the home of Lazarus, a man whom he has just raised from the dead, as told in the preceding chapter. It was upon learning that Lazarus was ill that Jesus came to Bethany, only to find him already dead and buried for four days. Nevertheless, in a sign of his power, Jesus called Lazarus from his rocky tomb, and the dead man stumbled forth, still wrapped in his death shroud.
That’s one way that death hovers over this story, but it’s not the only one, for it’s immediately after Jesus raises Lazarus that the chief priests and elders begin to plot to kill Jesus, fearful that he may attract even more followers to his growing movement. They also worry that the Romans, ever mindful of potential challenges to their authority, may not take kindly to a charismatic Jewish leader attracting such a large following and in response may bring the might of the Roman Legions down upon all of Jerusalem, including themselves.
As the picture comes into view, Jesus is in the home of a man who was recently dead, knowing full well that the plot to kill him has commenced. In yet another sign of the way that death hovers over this passage, Mary, one of the sisters of Lazarus, anoints Jesus’ feet with an expensive perfume. In this act of pouring perfume on Jesus’ feet, Mary anoints Jesus for his death.
In the Bible anointing is a ritual in which someone is smeared with oil and thereby marked as set apart for a particular purpose, often in an official capacity. Priests were anointed. So were kings. Yet Mary seems to intuitively understand that Jesus will soon die. Jesus says as much. When Judas objects to what he perceives as a waste of costly perfume, Jesus defends Mary. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”
Call it what you will—coincidence, intuition, or prophecy—but Mary, who saw Jesus raise her brother Lazarus from the grave, understands in a way that his disciples do not, that Jesus is going to Jerusalem to die. He’s not going to “pass away” or “pass on” or any other anesthetic phrasing we use to numb ourselves to the reality of death. He is going to offer himself up to death. Although he has committed no crime, although he is guiltless and without sin, he will allow himself to die the death of the lowest of the low. Because this is what he was sent to do. This is how he will achieve victory over sin and death…by dying and three days later rising from the grave.
Even as I say these words, they give me pause. This isn’t at all the way the world works. In our world, death equals defeat. That’s why we like winners. That’s why we want someone who will fight for us not die for us. I like saviors who aren’t crucified, okay? I’m just saying.
To worship a crucified savior is beyond irony! That’s why Paul calls the crucifixion a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. A “crucified savior” sounds like a joke—an oxymoron like” jumbo shrimp” or “civil war.” A crucified savior cannot defeat our enemies, he can only die for them. Death on a cross? Is that really how we’re supposed to define success? Because from the world’s perspective that “success” looks a lot like failure.
A “crucified savior” sounds like a joke—
an oxymoron like” jumbo shrimp” or “civil war.”
From the world’s perspective success equals more…more of whatever is at stake. More points in the game. More votes in the election. More dollars in the bank account. More profits for shareholders. More likes on social media.
Even in the church we tend to equate success with more. More people in the pews. More money on the offering plate so that we can fund more programs and more ministries that will bless more people. I mean, why waste this costly perfume on one person when we can sell it for a bundle and use the proceeds to bless many people?
It’s not hard to see the logic of Judas’ position, whether or not he is sincere. Three hundred denarii was a year’s worth of wages for the average laborer. Imagine what a year’s worth of wages today could buy for a poor family! Judas is just being practical, sensible, and perfectly reasonable.
And yet Judas is completely oblivious to the truth that the grace that Jesus embodies is none of those things. The grace of God has its own otherworldly logic. It’s not practical, sensible, or reasonable. It’s a logic that says “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” It’s a logic that says whoever wishes to be great must become a servant, and whoever wishes to save their life must lose it. It’s a logic that says whoever loses their life for Jesus’ sake will save it. Whoever dies to their own misguided agenda of self-interest in which more is never enough will live in the joy and freedom of God’s life-giving grace.
The gospel is not about working hard and being nice by doing the most good for the greatest number of people. The gospel is about the priceless riches of God’s grace poured out for sinners like us in the death of Jesus Christ.