Extravagant Gifts

Several years ago, Bill’s brothers and sisters held an all out extravagant 70^th birthday party for their mom, Jeanie.  If you knew Jeanie, you would know that usually she would not stand still while a fuss was made over her—she was a good Mid-western humble woman—always ready to give and very uncomfortable receiving.  But ever since her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer a few years earlier, Jeanie accepted gifts of love much more readily.  Everyone showed up to the party with the beautiful and overflowing gifts of their presence and love, and Bill’s mom accepted the huge gracious gifts with humility and deep love in return.  It was a wonderful time and an important memory for the entire family.  It truly was an extravagant gift for everyone.

Unexpected extravagant gifts can change everything.  They can acknowledge a depth of feelings and gratitude that words cannot quite convey.  Extravagant gifts demonstrate love when words fail.

As we walk though Lent with Jesus, we are confronted with an extravagant gift beyond words in Jesus’ life and love for us.  And we come face-to-face with the gift of Jesus’ life and willing sacrifice on the cross, where Jesus demonstrated the extravagant gift of God’s love to us, showing us that the gift of God’s love is more powerful than death.  Now here, in our reading from the Gospel of John, we have a story about Mary showing her love to Jesus in an impossibly extravagant way.  Mary understood what was happening right before her eyes, and she demonstrated her love with an extravagant gift, never saying a word.

Let us join our hearts in prayer.  “Dear God of extravagant gifts of unconditional love and grace, you pour out your love on us like expensive perfume, you anoint us with your love like an ever-flowing river or never-ending sunrise.  And all we can say is, Thank you, God.  Amen.”

Isaiah said it so well when God declared through the prophet, “I am about to do a new thing.  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”  Sometimes even when things are becoming new all around us, we cling to the old familiar things tenaciously.  In Isaiah’s time, the nation Israel had turned away from God, even as God was bringing a new thing into their midst.  But Israel did not perceive it.  They clung to their past, not believing Isaiah’s words from God that a new thing was already on its way.  Israel missed the new thing completely, and ended up in Exile in Babylon.  What new thing is God raising up in our time that we do not perceive?[long pause]

In Jesus’ time, Jesus declared a new thing!  Then also, the Jewish leaders and the temple elite did not want this new thing—new things only threatened the way things had always been.  Just before our reading in John, Jesus had resuscitated his friend Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s brother, after having been dead four long days in the tomb.  Jesus raised up a new thing, Lazarus, and in doing so, he sealed his own death, according to John.  The Pharisees and temple scribes were terrified that Jesus would cause problems and upset their power agreement with the Romans.  And then and there, they vowed to kill Jesus.

So, a few days later, Mary and Martha hold a huge party for their resuscitated brother Lazarus.    And Mary expresses her complete gratitude to Jesus in a highly unusually way.  In the story of raising Lazarus, we had already been reminded that after four days there should have been a stench of death on Lazarus, so our noses are already on alert.  But then, Mary pulls out a pound of the most fragrant oil, nard, and anoints Jesus’ feet.

Now let me help you understand the completely impossible extravagance of what just happened.  Nard was oil that only comes from a plant root that grows only above 9000 feet in the Himalayan mountains.  The roots are crushed for their oil, and the oil is very, very fragrant.  After being transported three thousand miles in stone jars to Jerusalem, this incredibly fragrant oil was mostly used to cover the stench of rotting flesh.  Mary has a pound of this nard.  A year’s worth of wages of it.  How she got it, we do not know.  How she afforded it, we do not know.  In the other Gospel stories of this event, unnamed women anoint Jesus’ head, referring to Jesus’ kingship, but here, Mary anoints Jesus’ feet, referring to Jesus’ humanity and his coming bodily death.  Mary and all of the disciples knew Jesus had a death warrant on his head.  They knew he was not long for this world, especially since they were moving back toward Jerusalem.  Mary knew Jesus was headed toward his final days.  And Mary knew Jesus was doing this of his own free-will; he was not being forced to do this.  Mary saw that Jesus gave her brother the extravagant gift of life even as Jesus was sacrificing his own life to show the world God’s unconditional love.  Mary got it.  And Mary offered this unbelievably incredible, expensive, expansive gift to Jesus.  A gift of thanks.  A gift of praise.  A gift of love without bounds.

Now we know Mary’s gift had no bounds because she became completely uninhibited as she gave the gift to Jesus.  As a single woman, she violated many social taboos by touching Jesus that day, and certainly by letting down her hair, something that was only done in the privacy of a husband and wife.  Mary did not care, what she wanted to do was express her unconditional gratitude to and concern about Jesus by giving that extravagant gift to Jesus that day.  This must have been an amazing sight, and an amazing smell to behold.  And the guests at the party must have been completely taken aback at what they saw, the smell of the oil of death and affirmation of the abundant gift of life itself as Mary wiped Jesus feet with her flowing hair. 

While we do not know exactly what the guests thought, John tells us Judas said the nard should have been sold and the money given to the poor.  Now, let’s be honest.  Judas is right on many levels.  It could have been used for charity.  That is a lot of money—maybe $36,000 of today’s dollars.  Think of all the empty bellies that could fill.

As I was watching the news about the new Pope this week, I looked carefully at the grand palaces there in the Vatican.  Opulence and extravagance everywhere.  When I look at the plain glass here in our windows, and then think of the grand cathedrals of the world filled with ornamentation and gilt and unbelievable stained glass, I do wonder at the fine line between extravagant gifts to awesome God and giving money to the poor.  How do we define the line between extravagantly giving to God and giving to the poor?  How do we justify any extravagant gift to God in a world so full of suffering and need?  Can we justify any gift to God?

First, the gift that Mary offered to Jesus was over-the-top extravagant.  But she was over-the-top grateful for Jesus, and over-the-top concerned for what she saw coming.  When we look back into the Hebrew Scriptures and see how God commanded the Temple to be built, it was very extravagant, in order to move people into awe and wonder.  But people in the Hebrew scriptures also worshipped God at stacks of stones, or springs or wells.  More important than extravagant worship settings, our relationship with the living God depends more on our inner life, our inner gratitude, our inner extravagant gift of love.  But all of us have fallen madly and crazily in love at some time in our lives, where all we want is to shout our love out at the top of our lungs—and this is exactly what Mary was doing that day, showing her unabashed love to Jesus with an extraordinary loving uninhibited gift.  Sometimes, there are no limits to how we show our love to God.  Yes, we do need to tend to the poor, but there are times when God’s extravagant love demands extravagant gratitude.  Sometimes, swept away in complete mystery and love, only an extravagant gift will do.  Extravagant gifts, indeed.

Let us think for a moment of the extravagant gifts we offer here to God.  When the choir or bell choirs work so long and hard on a piece of music, it is offered, like perfume, as an extravagant gift.  The office is overflowing with extravagant Easter Baskets, each a small smile of God’s love in a life we do not even know.  Our caring, our sharing, our benevolences, our worship and our fellowship are all extravagant gifts offered in love to God and one another.  Every family here will share an Easter banquet of love in a few weeks.  Hours of extravagant love will culminate in a few minutes at the table, the meal vanishing like the smell of the Easter ham.  These are all gifts given without regard to cost, gifts given in love not counting the cost; extravagant gifts.  Extraordinary gifts given in extravagant love to our God and to one another.

So we return to Isaiah’s question.  Is God raising up a new thing?  Always!  Are we failing to perceive it?  Perhaps.  Sometimes we must let go of the old to allow the new in.  The church will never be what it used to be because God is always raising up a new thing.  Women’s rights and civil rights and inclusive language have changed the church and society forever because God is raising up a new thing.  But what is God raising up that we do not yet perceive?  In our comfort and our idolatry of the way things have always been, are we missing the new thing that God is always bringing into our midst?  God appears on the margins, at the limits, in the uncomfortable non-normal places.  Jesus appeared at the poorest margins of life, and as our world becomes more separated between rich and poor, I increasingly wonder where God is appearing in today’s world?  But be assured, God is always raising up a new thing.  Let us pray that we are awake to perceive it, brothers and sisters.

So, is this new thing selling everything and giving the money to the poor, as Judas suggests?  No.  God looks upon the intent of our hearts, just as God looked on the intent of Judas’ heart.  Instead, love the Lord your God with all of your head and heart and body and soul and spirit.  God loves us with extraordinary and extravagant love, a love that was poured out on Jesus on the cross, a love that shows us that life extends beyond the horizon of death, a love that never abandons us, no matter how difficult the journey.  All that is left for us to do is return God’s love back to God.  We were made to love God like Mary models her love for Jesus in our story today, completely, extravagantly, fragrantly, wholly and with our entire being.  God has given us the extravagant gift of unconditional unceasing love.  God is about to do a new thing in all of our lives—let us open our hearts to perceive and receive God’s always-new extravagant gift of love.   Amen.