John 12:1-8

I met Lynn when I was a young pastor. She organized the acolytes at church. She lived with MS and managed her home, the family finances, and her husband. They both had to retire early and made ends meet on their disability checks.

There was no quick conversation with Lynn. Somehow drama followed her around, whether it was the conflicted relationship with her daughter or trying to get her husband to follow through on basic life skills or struggling to make ends meet.

I don’t like to admit it, but there was a part of me that wanted to head in the other direction when I saw Lynn. I felt I had limited resources, and I needed to preserve my time and energy for other aspects of ministry. It seemed there wasn’t quite enough of me to go around in this large parish. I met and prayed with Lynn, and I referred her to a counsellor who worked on a sliding scale.

From the outside, it was good ministry practice: I wasn’t a trained counsellor, and Lynn really benefitted from that care. But on the inside, I knew I made the referral in part because of a certain stinginess within me, a willingness to give only so much, and nothing more.

That’s where I connect with Judas in this story. I am not a thief, as he is portrayed here in John, but I am aware that stinginess and stealing come from the same place: a kind of selfishness that puts one’s own wants and needs before everyone else’s at all cost. Judas stole from their common funds to line his own pocket; I conserved my care and energy, keeping it for myself.

What is the price of such stinginess? Can love actually be rationed? Is it really love if you are counting the cost?

Years went by, and I left my role as pastor to be a full-time mom. I got word that Lynn had taken a turn for the worse; her time to live was short. I wanted to visit her, to bring her something that would brighten her day. I remembered that Lynn used to give Christmas gifts, despite her modest income. She gave little trial sized potions and lotions from Avon. I decided that I would bring Lynn some fancy-smelling lotion for her to enjoy. And because we had so often prayed together, I thought I would offer to place some of the lotion on her hands, anointing her as a part of healing prayer.

The next day both kids were in school, I headed over to Lynn’s. She was happy to see me and accepted the healing prayer and lotion. I prayed for God’s presence and thanked God for her life as I smoothed the lotion into her skin. We reminisced, laughed, and shared about our families. It wasn’t draining at all, and instead, I felt lighter as I left her house.

Driving home, I remembered Mary of Bethany – how she had anointed Jesus with fragrant oil, how she had been saving that perfume for his burial someday but in a prescient moment, had decided not to hold it back and poured the perfume all over Jesus’ feet. In a bold and intimate display, she poured out her love for Jesus. She shared all she had with him in the moment and did not wait till he was dead.

The oil that Mary used was nard, an essential plant that comes only from the Himalayas. It was worth a year’s wages. It is a symbol of extravagant love, lavishly spent. No wonder Judas complained – when Matthew tells the story, all the disciples complain at the waste.

It makes me think back to last week’s gospel lesson about the prodigal son. The younger son left home and squandered his inheritance, and yet the father forgave him without an apology. Where is the repentance?  Where is the punishment? All that forgiveness wasted on a good-for-nothing son. This scandalous parable highlights the truth that God’s forgiveness and love are not based on human actions or worthiness, but on God’s free choice. The father doesn’t count the cost when he forgives his son; there is no accounting of wrongs or talk about justice. Instead there is simply an outpouring of love – an embrace, a welcome home, and an elaborate celebration. And the stingy one? That’s the older brother who can’t see good news in his lost brother coming home. He doesn’t even join in the party.

Sometimes we withhold love not out of selfishness, but out of hurt, or righteous anger. We hold back because we don’t want to put ourselves out there one more time or to enable destructive behavior. But in the end, it is we who lose out when our hearts are a few sizes too small. The human heart longs for healing, to love and be loved, with no strings attached. Fortunately for us, this is the kind of love with which already God loves us: unmerited, undeserved, as we are. Mary is the model of what this love looks like, for in kneeling at Jesus’ feet and pouring it out she prefigures Jesus’ own kneeling when at the feet of his disciples, he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you should love one another.”

Brothers and sisters, love is not so much a feeling as it is a choice: the choice to pour ourselves out fully, without regard to propriety or prudence, without any expectation of anything in return. Today we have the opportunity to examine our motives, open our hearts to God and repent of our small hearted ways. We can’t manufacture love by our moral muscle, but we can tap into God’s limitless supply. 

We have been given a radical welcome into God’s embrace without condition. Jesus poured out his life for us, so let us pray for the grace to grow beyond our stinginess, to be more like Mary and less like Judas and pour out God’s lavish love and our lives for others.