April 7, 2019 “Extravagance” – John 12:1-8

John 12:1-8
“Extravagance”
April 7, 2019 – Fifth Sunday in Lent

Stu and Joan walked in and were totally amazed. About a dozen students and colleagues of Stuart Cornelius Hackett had gathered for a surprise dinner in his honor. Going around the table, each of us stood and said a few words about what Stu meant to us. Then we presented him with a book, a festschrift it’s called, a festive writing. Each of us had written a paper on a theme inspired by Stu’s life or teaching. Then they were collected and published. We held that dinner to surprise and honor him because he meant so much to us.

Something like our dinner for Stu is what we see in Bethany a few days before Passover. A group of friends blessed by Jesus assembled to honor and thank Him. In Matthew 26 and Mark 14 we learn that the dinner was held in the home of a man called Simon the Leper. John tells us that also present were other residents of Bethany, the family of Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary. It was a gathering of the grateful, a man healed from the deadly illness of leprosy was the host. Among the guests was a man raised from the dead. There may have been others whom Jesus healed. As verse 2 suggests by saying, “they gave a dinner for him,” Jesus was the guest of honor.

We don’t have the speeches made as they reclined around that table. We don’t know everything said or done there to honor Jesus. But the Gospel gives us a glimpse. Verse 2 informs us “Martha served.” That’s consistent with Luke chapter 10 and Martha on another occasion. She was a dedicated housekeeper and hostess, a woman who got things done. She served her Lord best by feeding Him well. While the men honored Jesus with their presence and their words, she adored Him with food and drink prepared with love.

Most of the time, you and I are like Simon, Lazarus or Martha. We honor Jesus with good words and good works. We praise Him and thank Him in prayers and songs. We teach Sunday School, cook potlucks, repair the church building, and help those in need. In our own ways we offer words and service in Jesus’ honor. But in verse 3, Mary comes along to make us wonder if there isn’t something more.

Crashing party, Mary entered where the men ate. They were lying on cushions around a low table. She held in her hands a pint of pure nard. This was oil of spikenard, a perfume imported from the Himalayas in India. In ancient times in the Middle East it was packaged in alabaster boxes which were opened on special occasions. It’s also an ingredient in ancient Japanese incense recipes and is still used in some Buddhist temples today.

John tells us the perfume Mary brought was expensive. We learn from the words of Judas in verse 5 that it was worth about three hundred denarii, which meant about a year’s pay for an ordinary worker. At the current minimum wage in Oregon that would be over $20,000, no little gift.

As Mark chapter 14 tells the story, Mary broke the alabaster container when she poured it on Jesus. She used it all, an amount that might have lasted for years. She honored Jesus in a way that went far beyond grateful words and humble service. She lavished upon Him an incredible extravagance.

It was not only fiscal extravagance. Mary’s behavior was extravagant, almost bizarre. We expect Bible people to be strange, so we may miss how outlandish Mary’s actions were then. Women did not appear in public with their hair down. It grew long, but was kept bound up and often covered. For Mary to appear in a gathering of men with her hair down, much less to use it to wipe the feet of one them, would be an outrage. Both her gift and the way she gave it were wildly excessive.

Smells are a key part of memory, so John recalls at the end of verse 3 that “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” It was a powerful aroma. Imagine even an ounce of some scent like Chanel No. 5 (which, by the way, would cost about $100) poured out all at once. The olfactory experience would remain with you the rest of your life. This was more like twelve ounces. It was overpowering.

It overpowered Judas in a different way. In verse 5, he objected to Mary’s action as a terrible waste. “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” Forget for a moment who asked that question and that John tells us in verse 6 that his real motivation was getting his hands on that money, about a year’s wages. Regardless of what lay behind it, Judas’ question about serving the poor has a ring of rightness about it. Isn’t it what we ought to be asking all the time in the church?

In Franco Zeffirelli’s film, Brother Sun, Sister Moon about the life of St. Francis, Francis is overcome in church one day as he looks at the gold and jewels adorning the clergy and even Christ on the crucifix. He turns to see the rags worn by the huddled poor at the back of the sanctuary. He keeps looking back and forth until in the middle of the mass he cries out “No!” Though the son of a wealthy man, he turns his back on all extravagance in worship and seeks out a bare unadorned crucifix in a broken down stone church.

Francis’ reaction seems to us the proper Christian spirit. Jesus was concerned for the needy and those who haven’t heard the Good News. Shouldn’t we have the same concern? Why spend excessive amounts of money on sanctuaries and musical instruments and fine art when people at home and around the world are starving and going to hell without hearing about Jesus?

But the spirit of Judas’ question is different from the spirit of Jesus’ own love for the poor, different from the spirit of St. Francis. Judas’ challenge to Mary’s gift is based on the assumption that our actions should be guided by what ethicists call “utility.” The general principle of utilitarianism is that you should do whatever produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Utilitarians imagine that ethical choices can be decided by a kind of calculation. Add up the benefit to everyone involved for each choice you could make and choose in the way which produces the most good. That’s what Judas said Mary should have done. Had it been sold and the money used for the poor, her expensive perfume would have benefited many others besides Jesus. The real way to honor Jesus—and benefit the greatest number—would have been to dedicate the gift to the poor in His name.

Yet Jesus wants nothing to do with utilitarian calculus. “Leave her alone,” He said. John recorded that Jesus saw it as a precursor of His burial. Mary had anointed Him as if embalming His body. In Mark 14 verse 6 we find that He also said, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” It didn’t matter if Mary’s gift was practical, because it was beautiful.

Jesus found Mary’s extravagance better, more honoring to Him than feeding a hundred poor people. The beauty of what she did outweighed any benefit there might have been to others. As strange it might sound, the honor of Jesus was more important at that moment than the hunger of the poor.

We all know there are times when extravagance makes the most sense. Cheap, overly practical husbands buying gifts are the stuff of jokes. Like the one about Glen who bought his wife a huge diamond ring for her birthday. When his friend Larry heard about it he said, “But I thought she wanted a sporty, four-wheel drive vehicle?” Glen says, “Yeah, she did. But where was I going to find a fake Jeep?”

Stinginess is not a Christian virtue. Jesus was never stingy. At the wedding in Cana, He transformed water in six huge jars into the finest wine, 120 gallons of it, way more than needed for the wedding reception. When He fed the five thousand He didn’t just make enough bread for that meal. The disciples picked up twelve baskets full of leftovers.

Jesus is extravagant with us. He did not just die for us. He suffered hideously. He endured pain and torment which went beyond mere death. He surrendered His honor and dignity to ridicule. He didn’t just die. He died in the most extravagant way then possible. Shouldn’t we be willing to respond in extravagant love toward Him?

The threat of death justifies a non-utilitarian extravagance. Our friends Eric and Shelby can tell you how the Make-a-Wish Foundation sent them and their son Zeke to Disney Hawaii in response to Zeke’s childhood leukemia. That foundation has blessed thousands of critically ill children like Zeke. Many years ago they totally redecorated a bedroom for Brittney, a little girl across the street from us who had Ewing’s Sarcoma.

On a strictly practical, utilitarian level, what was done for Zeke and Brittney makes no sense. Money lavished on their wishes could have fed hundreds of malnourished kids in Yemen. Or it might have been directed toward cancer research so that in the long run children like them would have better medical treatment. Yet few of us would begrudge Zeke and Brittany their wishes. Not many of us want the Make-a-Wish people to quit doing what they do, brightening the lives of suffering children with expensive new rooms, fancy game consoles, and luxury theme park vacations. Insofar as it’s possible to give a reason for such things, we would say the gifts are justified by what those children go through.

What Jesus went through for us justifies almost anything we might do in His honor. It justified what Mary did. Jesus told the calculating Judas to leave her alone. In the same way He puts the kibosh on all our conservative calculations about giving. At another time Jesus spoke to diligent Pharisees about how they computed their tithes—even a tenth of the herbs they grew in their gardens. He sternly warned them, “This you ought to have done, and not left the other undone.”[1] Jesus then meant not leaving mercy and justice undone, but the implication is the same. Careful counting is not enough. Sometimes the Lord asks us to set aside calculators and spreadsheets, and to praise Him beautifully and extravagantly, without considering the price. What He did for us merits anything we may do for Him.

Jesus said, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” This was not abandoning the poor. He did not say we should not consider them. In fact, that first part about the poor always being among us is a reference to Deuteronomy 15:11. God said, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Everyone there at the dinner would have remembered that verse and God’s command to care for the poor. Jesus wasn’t saying not to care. If anything, He reminded them that we always have a duty to those in need. But He also called us to giving beyond mere duty, mere practicality. He allowed us, even asked us to sometimes be extravagant.

As Protestants we inherit a tradition which revolted against a church hierarchy grown too rich and self-indulgent. St. Francis rightly objected that priests were clothed in gold while people around them starved. Churches were ornately decorated with paintings and sculpture while people lived in drab hovels. There was much wrong about that. But it may be that in protest things have gone too far in the other direction.

Too many church buildings today are practical rather than attractive. Christians worship in spaces which look like auditoriums or warehouses. We focus on parking flow and classroom size. How do we get the most building for our dollars? Our own building committees asked those questions. But this text reminds us that practical matters are not the only considerations. “Will it work?” and “Can we pay for it?” are not the only important questions. Above and beyond and over those sorts of utilitarian worries lies the question, “Does it honor Jesus? Is it beautiful? Are we are doing it for Him?”

It’s hard to set aside practicality, but Jesus deserves it. Long ago in Lincoln, Nebraska our church raised funds to buy, of all the impractical things you can imagine, a large set of brass handbells. Our minister of music was trained in conducting handbells. She had a vision of a First Covenant handbell choir ringing out the glory of God. It was going to cost about $20,000, which sounded like even more money back then in the late 1980s.

A number of people in our church couldn’t quite see it. “Why do we need that?” they would ask. “We have plenty of good music now. What’s the point? It’s just not practical.”

So I preached a sermon on the building of the tabernacle by the children of Israel. I pointed out how they made an ark of acacia wood and covered it all in gold, how they wove cloth from blue, purple and scarlet threads to make the walls and curtains, how they made poles for the structure from more fine wood. They molded sockets and curtain rings out of bronze and silver and even gold. They made lamps and bowls of gold. They brought the purest oil to burn in the lamps and formulated an expensive incense that would only be used in the tabernacle. All of it was done by people living in tents, wandering homeless in the wilderness. It made no practical sense, but it was beautiful, and it honored God.

As I stood at the back after preaching that Sunday, one of our most conservative members came up to me. “You know,” he said, “I just didn’t get this handbell thing. I thought it was a waste of money. But now I see it.” And he handed me his check for the campaign.

Here at Valley Covenant Church, we are often practical. We have a mission to those in need. Those barrels in our narthex reminds us every week that the poor are with us. In the winter our beautiful sanctuary becomes a dormitory for unhoused people. God gave us that ministry. But the cross which hangs above us here, in fine wood carefully finished, reminds us in more than one way that practical is not everything when it comes to honoring Jesus. In itself, that cross an extravagance. It adds nothing to the practical uses of this space. It serves no structural purpose, adds nothing to the acoustics, and does not reduce our utility bills. But it is beautiful.

The cross before you is beautiful because it honors Jesus. It honors His own extravagant offering of Himself on a much less beautiful Cross. That’s all the reason that cross needs for being there or for the beautiful works of art that Terry shared in Sunday School or that many of you are bringing for our sanctuary walls this Lent. What Jesus did for us is a perfect reason to be extravagant. My hope and prayer is that the example of Mary will free us all to give extravagantly, as often as God gives us opportunity.

Amen.

[1] Luke 11:42