Sermon by Su Sze Ting.
Many of us know the story of the woman and the expensive perfume. All 4 gospel writers have a version of this story. There is a common thread in these stories:
1. There is a meal.
• In the gospel of John, the account that that we heard today, the dinner is held in celebration of Lazarus’ resurrection. A man who once was dead is now alive.
• Is anyone surprised that Martha serve? Of course, Martha would be serving a lavish meal in celebration of Lazarus’ resurrection.
2. It happens in the lead up the crucifixion.
• Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem and stopped at Bethany on his way there. Bethany is close to Jerusalem, only 2 kilometres away.
• Tensions are high.
• The resurrection of Lazarus was effectively a death warrant as many believed in Jesus.
• Jesus is now on the watch list of the chief priest and from that day on, the Pharisees planned to put him to death.
3. There is a woman.
• The woman is nameless in the accounts by Matthew, Mark and Luke.
• John identified her as Mary of Bethany, who is often conflated with Mary Magdalene.
• Mary of Bethany loves Jesus. She is ardent in her devotion.
• You will likely remember the story of her sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to him.
• Even after Lazarus died, Mary did not falter in her devotion.
• When Jesus came, too late to save Lazarus, Mary knelt at his feet, weeping and said, “Lord if you have been here, my brother would not have died.”
• Jesus was moved by her tears and he, himself, wept.
• Jesus loves this family: Martha, Mary and Lazarus.
4. There is a jar of expensive perfume. It is indisputable that the perfume poured out on Jesus is expensive.
• A whole year’s wages.
• Mark described the breaking of the jar.
• Here, it is poured on Jesus’ feet and wiped with Mary’s hair.
• Mary soaked Jesus’ feet and her hair with spikenard. Spikenard is an expensive perfume mentioned in the Bible one other time. It is in the opening chapter of Song of Songs where the bride exults, “Where the king was on his throne, my nard gave forth its fragrance”.
• It is fragrance fit for a king.
• Such extravagance filled the room with the fragrance of the perfume.
• For so many of us who are so familiar with this story, it is easy to gloss over the scandalous nature of this act. What Mary did was intimate and provocative.
• I don’t know about you but I will feel deeply uncomfortable if someone decides, in the middle of a celebration, to start anointing someone’s feet.
5. There is consternation.
• Jesus’ disciples were appalled, Offended and met that gesture with disdain. “That perfume could have been sold to feed the poor.”
1. In this act of worship, Mary showed her devotion to Jesus through her body. She offered to Jesus the sacraments of her sweat, her hair, her perfume. Mary offered her body as an instrument of worship to express her gratitude.
• No words were used in the exchange, in expressing her love for him.
• Christianity is an embodied faith. We, after all, believe in the incarnated Christ.
• We believe that our Messiah, the king of kings, took on flesh, and lived amongst us and walked amongst us.
• He napped in a boat. He cried over Jerusalem. He laughed. He clearly enjoyed good food and wine and was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton.
• We believe that he appeared after his resurrection in a changed but fleshly eating and drinking body. Even now, we believe that he is in his new body.
• I grew up in a Pentecostal church where you worship with your body. You dance, you clap hands, you lift up your hands. You run up and down the aisles with banners. You use tambourines. You kneel.
• I am a very enthusiastic worshipper and I love worshipping God with my whole body: dancing, clapping hands and lifting my hands high and wide.
• I have been known to knock people over or bump into them in my enthusiasm.
• I was removed from the roster volunteering from the overhead projector as a teenager, as I forgot to change the slides as I was too busy worshipping with my hands raised and my eyes closed.
• After 18 years, I left the Pentecostal church that I grew up in to go find a husband. That will be the subject of another sermon.
• I ended up in a staid and respectful Baptist Church which believe in demure worship. I still worshipped like I was in a Pentecostal church.
• Shanon was in the worship team, playing the drums and saw me worshipping at the front.
• Before we met, Shanon knew me as the crazy Asian lady worshipping in the front.
• As Tish Harrison Warren said, in her book, “Liturgy of the Ordinary”, the body is not incidental to our faith but integral to our worship. We are made to be embodied – to experience life, pleasure and limits in our body.
• It is not enough for me to engage with worshipping God with just my mind, as an intellectual exercise, fascinating as the Bible is.
• The Bible talks about offering our whole bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. What does it mean to believe in the gospel, not just in my brain, but also with my body? What does it mean to offer our body as a living sacrifice?
• We learn how our bodies are sites of worship through the practice of worshipping with our bodies.
• When Shanon and I first arrived in Alice Springs, we started looking for a church. At that time, I was going through a faith deconstruction journey, where I question so much of the foundations underlying my faith.
• From a Pentecostal church to a Baptist church and now, a Uniting Church. Being here in Alice Springs Uniting Church is the first time that I have engaged in liturgical worship in a corporate context.
• Reading out loud. Singling. Confessing together. Kids’ action song. Eating bread and drinking wine, well, grape juice. Praying the Lord’s prayer. Ending with the blessing song.
Matthew Lee Anderson says, in his book, Earthen Vessels: “Practising the presentation of our bodies as living sacrifices in a corporate context through raising hands, lifting our eyes to the heavens, kneeling and reciting prayers simply trains us in our whole person, body and soul to be oriented towards the throne of grace.”
• The liturgical worship that we practice every Sunday, this form of embodied worship, played an important role in the reconstruction of my faith.
• When I couldn’t come up with my own words to pray or worship, or when I do not feel like I believe, the practice of confessing out loud using the words of our forefathers, some used for centuries, praying the psalms, and the practice of partaking in the bread and wine when I do not feel particularly faithful, allow my body to take the lead until all of me, my heart and my mind, believe.
2. Jesus did not minimise Mary’s extravagance and worship.
• He received her gift with grace and tenderness and accorded it with honour.
• There was no shame in Mary’s gesture.
• In a society where I have been continually told that my body needs to be shrunk, tamed and made flawless, can I see my body as one that is created in God’s image and declared very good and one
that could be used to practice acts of worship, gratitude, grace and hospitality?
• The way we use our bodies teaches us what our bodies are for.
• If I don’t embrace my body as a temple of the holy spirit, as being
delightful to the creator, can I truly embrace the bodies of others
3. Mary’s action was priestly and prophetic.
• In the upside down kingdom of Jesus, a woman was a priest and a prophet.
• As a priest anoints a king, Mary anoints Jesus with spikenard as the king of kings. She discerned the path that he would take and prepared his body for what lies ahead. More than his disciples did.
• As Mary breaks the jar and pours out the expensive ointment, Jesus would break bread, “This is my body, given to you” and pour wine, “This is my blood poured out to you”.
• As Mary wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.
• And of course, there is the ultimate breaking and pouring: Jesus’ body being broken and crucified on the cross and his blood, and his life, poured out for us.
During this Lenten season, as we prepare for Good Friday, may we lavish our affection on Jesus like Mary did. May give our lives as fully as Christ gave his life for us, our whole selves, bodies, minds, souls and spirit. May we regard everything that we have as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, our Lord and may we gain Christ in all his fullness.
