Extravagant love

Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 6, 2025: Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8; Psalm 126

Today’s gospel recounts a story that is told in all four gospels, a sign that it was very important to the early church. In all of them, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He is with his disciples having dinner. A woman anoints his feet with nard, a costly perfume used in burials. One of the disciples asks why this valuable perfume was not sold and its value used for the poor. And Jesus points to his death, and reminds his followers that the poor will be there, but he will not be.

The account in John bookends the story with death and resurrection. John places this event at the house of Lazarus, who Jesus had raised from the dead. Martha serves dinner. It is his sister Mary in this case who takes a pound of perfume and places it on Jesus’ feet. She wipes his feet with her hair. John tells us that the perfume was worth 300 denarii, a year’s wages. It’s an extravagant act, a loving and caring act, and an intimate one as well.

In John’s version, it is Judas who is upset by this: not by the kindness or caring for Jesus, but because of the value of the perfume. John tells us that Judas did not care about the poor, but was stealing from the common purse for himself. It is Jesus that rebukes him: Mary had purchased the perfume for his burial. And then the line that has been used for centuries to avoid dealing with poverty: “You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” So we start with the resurrected Lazarus, and end with Jesus alluding to his own burial, and what we know will be a resurrection.

What are we to do with this? Mary’s act is one of extravagance, of generosity and love. She is ready for his burial with the best perfume! Just as last week the father welcomes the prodigal son with extravagant generosity, (“the best robe”) so Mary spends lots of money on perfume. She is caring for Jesus: did she sense his need for care? But what she did was also transgressive: she is not at the table with the men, and her intimate gesture from an unmarried woman to an unmarried man was shocking.

Here we can listen to Jesus. His first response to Judas is “Leave her alone”. What she did was good: a gesture of extravagant love, presaging his death. Extravagant love is okay, even desirable. The 300 denarii would not have saved the poor: that is not enough to solve the problem. But it was a kindness to Jesus, who will not be there long. Jesus has not hidden his death from his followers, but it seems that only Mary understood that it would happen, and that he was afraid.

This is not a message to forget about the poor. Nor is it an instruction to buy expensive perfume. But it is a reminder that sometimes an act of extravagant generosity is what is needed. It is also a reminder that we have received just such an act what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “Christ’s greatness of heart”, the extravagant love in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

In Isaiah, we hear the promise from the Lord:

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness.

Living in the San Joaquin valley, we understand the extraordinary gift of rivers in the desert. The Lord will do a miraculous thing, he has Isaiah tell us. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are a new thing, water in the desert. What Mary does is an extraordinary gift, what is needed by Jesus as he travels to his death.

As we continue our journey through Lent, let us remember that in the desert, the Lord will give us water. And that the extravagant love that Mary showed Jesus is also the love he shows us.