Lent 5C
St. Christopher’s, Garner Closing Service 4/3/2022
The Rev. Dr. Jim Melnyk: “Anointed For the Journey”
Mary of Bethany gets it. She figures it all out. And the men stand by dumb-founded and unable to comprehend. "Leave her alone,” says Jesus when the men around the table confront Mary, deeming her anointing of Jesus with costly perfume an unnecessary extravagance. “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, and you will always have the opportunity and obligation to care for them; but you do not always have me."
Throughout all four gospels it seems the women are the ones who really understand Jesus – who he is and where he’s headed. They are the ones who understand that the messiahship Jesus proclaims will involve both blood and death before it ever reaches glory. In John’s gospel, Mary is the one who “cracks the Gospel’s messianic secret and, without words, proclaims to all who are present that Jesus is the Anointed one of God.”[1]
In this moment Mary does for Jesus what he will do for his disciples on the night he is betrayed, and it causes confusion and consternation for everyone but Jesus. It is an extravagant act of love and discipleship on Mary’s part – caring for her Lord, and Teacher, and Friend. And perhaps it is Mary’s action this night in Bethany that prompts Jesus to later wash the feet of his disciples as a sign of servanthood and love. Wouldn’t that be cool – if Jesus got his Last Supper foot washing brainstorm from disciple Mary?
Beth Sanders writes, “In this moment between the stench of Lazarus's four days in the tomb and the spicy scent of myrrh and aloes with which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will embalm Jesus' body, the sweet aroma of God's love is wafting in the air. It sticks in Mary's hair as she brushes it against Jesus' feet and fills the house wherever she goes. [And two thousand years later we still wrestle with the scandal of a God who would take on human flesh, kneel before us washing our feet, and die on a cross for the life of the world.] Has anyone caught a whiff of God's love on us 21st-century Christians lately?”[2]
All four gospels tell us about a woman coming to Jesus to anoint him prior to his crucifixion. Each Evangelist tells the story in his own way. In both Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels an unknown woman opens an alabaster jar of costly nard and pours it upon Jesus’ head. In Luke’s gospel an unknown woman both kisses and anoints Jesus’ feet. Only John identifies the woman doing the anointing as Mary of Bethany.
The details of the story are not as important as the meaning behind their actions. The women in all four stories perform an extravagant act of beauty and love toward Jesus, with much of what is taking place left to the imagination. What would cause the unnamed women, or even a good friend like Mary of Bethany, to jump into this scene with the boldness of a prophet – exercising a prophetic imagination that only Jesus seems to understand in that moment
Her actions – her anointing of Jesus – carries with it a multitude of meaning. We’ve already mentioned the anointing of a body which took place before burial in the first century. We’ve also mentioned anointing as a messianic symbol. It is also a way of identifying and setting apart someone as a prophet, a priest, or a king – and the evangelists want all of these images to come to mind for the listener.
By placing the story between the death, burial, and resurrection of Lazarus and the betrayal and death of Jesus, there is little doubt that John wants us to understand this act as preparation for the crucifixion of Jesus as well as the promise of his resurrection. The way, the truth, and the life of Jesus is the way of the cross and death – a way which leads us toward new life. When we choose to embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the way of life, we choose the hard reality of the cross as well. As Jesus reminds us seemingly moments after this encounter with Mary, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”[3]
The men in the room don’t get it. They only see waste on Mary’s part. Think of how many people could be fed with nearly a year’s worth of wages. Yet Mary’s lavish act becomes a poetic statement of the extravagance of Jesus’ love for the world. Mary, and the unnamed women in the other gospel accounts of this act, “convey truth where words would falter.”[4]
Mary’s act of deep abiding love foreshadows Jesus’ act of deep abiding love on the cross. As Presbyterian Pastor Jonathan Ryan puts it, “…the strange beauty displayed in the cross breaks open our containers of reciprocity, fairness, and symmetry. [In] the life and death of Jesus Christ, God pours God’s self out ....”[5]
As the people of God gathered in Garner, NC bring to a close worship together in this beautiful space, it may feel as though the harsh reality of Holy Week and the cross is upon us this afternoon, rather than looming on the horizon. Yet there is a line in our funeral liturgy that reminds us that in death life is changed, not ended. And while this moment signifies an end to the reality that is St. Christopher’s, each person connected to this congregation is an integral part of the Body of Christ – life is changed, not ended.
Mary reminds us of our need to be extravagant in our love toward God and our love toward others – even as we prepare to depart this space to join new faith communities nearby or far away. Each of you have the opportunity to bring the best of who you are to new places – enriching the Body of Christ there by your presence. Dare we risk embracing this moment, with all its grief and all its powerful memories, and understand ourselves to be anointed by God’s Holy Spirit to bring our own experiences and understandings of the Good News to new places? Dare we risk breaking open the alabaster jars of whatever we hold dear, to anoint the head and feet of Jesus by anointing those around us most in need of God’s love in their lives?
Because that’s what this is all about… not only breaking out our containers of “reciprocity, fairness, and symmetry,” but also breaking open our containers of mercy, justice, hope, and love for all of God’s people. Because Jesus doesn’t tell the men in the room “you will always have the poor with you” as an excuse to give up out of frustration, or to see that brokenness as the way the world is meant to be.
Mary, and the unnamed women in the other three gospels, point us to the extravagant love of God made known to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They remind us that our love toward one another should be just as extravagant – just as loving – just as selfless – as the love shown to us in Jesus – because there will always be people in need of our loving response – and because we can act out that love wherever we journey. And as Paul reminds us in today’s passage from Philippians – anything beyond our love for God and our love for neighbor pales in contrast to that love. God has given to each of us a ministry of healing this broken world wherever we may find ourselves.
As a symbol of God’s call to us, we have an opportunity to come forward in a few moments to receive the laying on of hands and anointing with oil as a symbol of God’s call to us, and as a symbol of God’s Holy Spirit alive and active in our hearts. Allowing ourselves to break open the alabaster jars of our hearts and pour out our love toward God, we find the will and the strength to pour out our love toward others, and help mend this world as well.
