A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with one of our church members, Bob Eydt, and he asked me about the benediction that I give each Sunday.
Most of you know that I end our services each Sunday with the benediction to “Live Fully” and to “Love Wastefully.”
Well, I explained to Bob that those words are not my own. They come from Rev. John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal bishop who died in 2021 at the age of 90.
Bob was saying that he preferred the word “generously” to the word “wastefully,” and, I can see Bob’s point. “Generous” is a much more positive word than the word “Wasteful.”
But, I what I think Bishop Spong meant by that is that we can be wasteful with love, because love never runs out. We can be extravagant with it.
And, I share this with you today, because today’s gospel message is all about extravagant love, wasteful love.
As we just heard, Jesus is at the home of his friend, Lazarus, whom you may remember, he raised from the dead.
And, during Jesus’s visit, Lazarus’s sister, Mary of Bethany, washes Jesus’s feet in an expensive perfume that cost 300 denarii, which was more than 3 times the yearly wage for most people…so, a real extravagance!
Now, a version of this story appears in all 4 of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), but they’re all a little different.
In Matthew and Mark’s gospels, the woman is unnamed, and she anoints Jesus’s head with an expensive oil in a precious alabaster jar.
In Luke’s Gospel, the woman is referred to as a ‘sinful woman’ who washes Jesus’s feet with her tears, and then anoints them with a precious oil.
Then, of course, in John’s Gospel (which we’re reading from this Sunday), the woman with the expensive perfume is named as Mary of Bethany.
Now, to complicate matters even further, in the 6th Century, the Pope at the time, Pope Gregory, declared that all the woman in all 4 of these Gospel stories were actually the same person, but another Mary: Mary Magdalene!
Now, all these inconsistences in the Bible may lead you to discount this story entirely, but, remember, the Gospel stories were written many decades after Jesus died, and they were never intended to be taken as literal history.
They were meant to be taken and understood symbolically.
And, in all four of these stories, we see the symbol of extravagant love.
All these women pour out fragrances as symbols – as expressions – of their extravagant love towards Jesus.
Now, fragrance has always played a symbolic role in religious and spiritual practices. Not only in Christianity, but in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Native American spirituality, we see the use of incense and essential oils, fragrant candles and burning sage.
Fragrance opens us up – lifts us up – into the spiritual realm. It helps us to experience the Presence of the Divine.
Our God of Love gifted us with – not one – but 5 physical senses, and God wants us to use all of those senses to experience life to the full.
Often times, we focus too much on what we can see, hear, taste or touch, but we often forget about our sense of smell…maybe because it’s not visible.
But, think about the smell of coffee in the morning or the smell of baking bread. Think of the smell of the beach, or a beautiful bouquet of flowers, or the smell of a newborn baby?
Fragrance has the power to lift us, to awaken, renew and transform us, which is why used so much in spiritual practices and even in healing.
It allows to become fully present in the Presence… the Presence of God.
And, that is what Mary of Bethany is doing in today’s Gospel. She is sitting there fully present with Jesus, while her sister, Martha, is running around, so busy with getting everything ready for dinner.
How many of us are like Martha, always so busy that we never stop to smell the roses and become present?
Now, Jesus, of course, loved all people, but Mary, Martha and Lazarus are the only individuals in the Bible specifically said to be loved by Jesus.
If you remember, when Jesus was summoned to come and heal Lazarus, he was told, “Lord, the one whom you love is sick.”
Many Biblical scholars believe that Lazarus was the man described in the Bible as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who was there with him at the foot of the cross.
Mary and Martha were there, too, and they were among the first to discover the empty tomb.
So, Mary, Martha and Lazarus were three of Jesus’s closest loved ones.
And, in today’s Gospel reading, we’re told that Jesus is at their home 6 days before Passover.
That means that this is the week before Jesus would be arrested and crucified.
And, I’m sure Jesus was very afraid. Jesus knew that his life was in danger and that people were plotting to kill him. So, he goes to home of the people who truly love him.
But, did you notice who else was in Martha, Mary, and Lazarus’s house? Judas, the man who would betray Jesus.
So, in this week leading up to his death, Jesus (everywhere he goes…even in the house of his friends) is surrounded by the stench of fear, betrayal, jealousy, and looming violence.
But, Mary does an extraordinary thing, a very loving thing: She takes this incredibly expensive perfume (a very precious and valuable gift of hers) and she lovingly bathes Jesus’s feet it.
This, of course, foreshadows what Jesus will do later that week when he washes the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper.
Mary doesn’t just dab a little dot of perfume on the top of Jesus’s feet. No, she pours the entire bottle of perfume all over his feet. She wastes all of it… so much so, that it fills the entire house with such a beautiful and lovely fragrance.
And, she lets down her hair and dries Jesus’s feet with it. Such an incredibly intimate act!
This act, of course, is criticized by Judas, who calls Mary “wasteful.”
He says, “You could have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor.”
But, Jesus defends what Mary did. He tells Judas, “Leave her alone. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
What Mary did was not wasteful. She took a valuable gift and gave it all away as an expression of love.
As Christians, we are called to do the same: To “love wastefully” and extravagantly. To give everything we have without counting the cost, just as Jesus did for us.
And, so, my friends, on this Fifth Sunday in Lent – as we get closer to Jesus’s passion and death – we are being called to do as Mary did: to sit at the feet of Jesus in loving devotion and to give our ALL to him.
May you find time each and every day this week to “stop and smell the roses.” Stop from the busyness of your day, and find time to BE STILL and to sit intimately at Jesus’s feet and shower him in love.
And, may the fragrance of that extravagant and wasteful love fill you and fill our world with Presence and Power of God.
May it be so. Amen.