John 12:1-8
April 1, 2001
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
At our church in Pennsylvania, we would take brochures that describe the new ministries of our church and a handful of pledge cards to call on the members, seeking financial pledges for the coming year. Here at CBC, pledges are received mainly from the efforts of mailings and phone calls. And I am happy to say that although we were a bit under on our stated goal for pledges, we reached 96% of our goal with 55 first time pledges. This is pretty good news! You would remember that with such an enthusiastic response, we approved the proposed budget in December as our spending budget for this year.
Some years ago, a church leader was making such calls to church members on Pledge Sunday and found that it was a fascinating and eye-opening experience. The act of being asked for money evoked from people their true feelings about the church and their faith. This church leader discovered that the joyful rejoiced, the self-centered resisted, and the unhappy complained.
There were two back to back visits he would never forget. One was to a man who served as the chief development officer for a major charity. “This will be a piece of cake,” he remembered thinking. “This guy knows the meaning of charitable giving, and he will respond with the same generosity he counts on in his own work.” To this church leader’s astonishment, he would not even let him in the house. He opened the front door an inch, begrudgingly took the pledge card through the crack, scribbled a little amount on it as the church leader stood and waited, and shoved it back, pulling the door closed.
The next visit for this leader was to an elderly widow on a fixed income. She and her striped cat lived in a modestly furnished apartment. When the church leader told her that he was there from the church, she said she was pleased to see him, and invited him in for a chat, during which she indicated her appreciation for all the church had meant to her. When the time came to give her the pledge card, she took it from the church leader’s hand with joy and increased her pledge. The church leader knew this would mean sacrifice for her.
How do we account for generosity and devotion? Why wouldn’t a chief development officer or a Bill Gates or a Larry Ellison of Oracle wealth who’s building a $100 million Woodside estate not want to be generous?
Recently, I was told of a minister who, one Sunday at the time of the offering, received the plates from the ushers, held them up to the heavens, and offered this prayer of dedication: “O Lord, despite what we say, this is what we really think of you.”
What makes one become so generous and devoted to God and another not? How is it possible for this widow to have such devotion?
Mary’s Perfume
From our Gospel lesson for today, we see that Martha and Mary gave a dinner for Jesus and his disciples. The dinner was probably given as an appreciation for Jesus raising their brother, Lazarus, from the dead. In the middle of the meal, Mary spreads a bottle of costly perfume on Jesus’ feet and washes his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
This was a dramatic and profound act of devotion. Just like the church leader who was visiting his members for their pledges, it came from an unexpected source.
It didn’t come from Peter, or James, or John. They were the ones who heard Jesus say that he was the “Bread of life, the Light of the world, the Good Shepherd, the resurrection and the life.” And certainly it did not come from Judas, who loudly protested its extravagance when it happened.
And you would think that it should have come from Lazarus, whose presence at the dinner party was only made possible because Jesus had raised him from the dead. From all of the possible candidates to express devotion to Jesus, you would expect that from Lazarus. You see, he was the only one in all of Bethany who was once dead and was now alive.
But this dramatic and profound act of devotion came from Mary who took a bottle of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet, then wiping his feet with her hair. How do we account for such generosity and devotion?
Discerning the Holy
Part of the secret to generosity and devotion is our ability for discernment. Those who pour out adoration toward God are those who have a discerning sense of what is truly at stake. It’s the people who really know God’s holy presence is happening in their lives.
One of the things I do a lot of these days is to go to hospitals. Have you ever been in the lobby of any hospital in the morning? You will hear voices of the patients being discharged. Some cry out in rage, “I’m going to be on crutches for a blankety-blank month, and I have to take six of these stupid pills.”
Others are full of gratitude and praise, “Thank God for the blessings of health. I even like the meals!” All of these patients are going home, but only some of them have the discernment to be thankful.
In our story from John, the room was full of people, but only Mary discerned the presence of Jesus in a way that prompted her gratitude and devotion. Mary took costly ointment to anoint Jesus for death.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus said in defense of her, “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.” Mary’s costly gift of gratitude grew out of her awareness of the cost of Jesus’ gift of sacrificing his own life. Mary was able to see how Jesus was about to boldly give of himself in love so Mary gives boldly of herself in holy devotion. Mary discerned God’s holy presence in Jesus that day.
Too Costly
But there’s another person in this story from John, Judas Iscariot who is introduced as with ulterior motives. Judas questioned Mary’s act of devotion and wondered why 300 denarii, the equivalence of a year’s wages would not have been better spent on the poor.
Giving a lavish gift for someone’s birthday is one thing, but washing feet with costly perfume? Wouldn’t a year’s wages spent on food and groceries for the poor been what Jesus wanted too?
Most of us can probably identify with Judas here. So much money could have been given to the poor. So when Mary broke the bottle of precious perfume and spread it over Jesus’ feet, we found it wasteful, expensive, and declared her out of order.
During Jesus’ ministry, he called on his disciples many times to take up his cross and follow him, but they never really paid attention. They asked Jesus was it really necessary to carry his cross. Why was redemption so costly and so sad? They were more consumed by wondering who was going to be the greatest then to discern that something very holy was about to happen. Like us, the disciples were preoccupied with balancing the budget and jockeying for position.
But we see in Mary, a woman who Jesus loved along with her sister, Martha and brother Lazarus making no claim to positions of power and prestige. They were good friends whom Jesus would drop by now and then to visit. Maybe this is the answer to how we account for generosity and devotion.
Those who recognize the cost of kindness and redemption are those who love most freely and most generously. It should come as no surprise, then, that self-sufficient executives shove pledge cards through doorjambs while widows who can barely afford to feed themselves joyously pour out their costly perfume.
When we can discern how God has blessed us with the love of redemption in our lives will we be able to express and account for the generosity and devotion that we see in Mary’s dramatic act. Mary wasn’t wasting the expensive perfume. She bought the perfume because she was listening carefully to what Jesus was teaching them. She knew that Jesus was about to do the will of his Father by sacrificing his life so that we may have life. Jesus will need this perfume so that his body will rise again.
When we believe that a bold and holy act of God is about to happen, we find within ourselves boldness too and lavishly and extravagantly give back. Like Mary, we take out a bottle of fragrant perfume, worth a year of wages and anoint the Master’s feet.
No Claim
*There’s a story of a minister who lived in a parsonage near her church. Periodically, there’s a knock on the parsonage door on Thursday night. A local chapter of AA—Alcoholics Anonymous meets at the church on Thursdays and they pay a small monthly rental for the use of the room. When the rent is due, one of the members will come over to the house on the meeting night carrying an envelope with the rental money collected from the group. Many of the AA members have had very difficult lives. Some have lost jobs, some have lost their families, all have struggled with addiction. None of the members are wealthy, and they pass the hat for the rent, tossing in ones and fives and change until they scrape up enough.
On Thursday night, a week before Thanksgiving, there was the usual knock, and when the minister went to the door, indeed, there was a member of AA holding an envelope. The man said, “There’s a little extra in there this time.” Sure enough, the envelope was crammed with wrinkled bills and an assortment of coins, almost double the usual amount. A note was found with the money, “With thanksgiving to God and to the church for all the blessings we have received.”
These AA members had no claim for any privileges or rights from this church, but the church’s willingness to give even modestly like letting them use their building gave these people a generous and grateful heart. Some said the envelope was fragrant with costly perfume.
*Every day and every night, our church facilities are used extensively for teaching new immigrants English and citizenship. There are young adults with promising futures ahead of them and grandparents walking with canes who want to be able to communicate with their American born grandchildren. They come faithfully and enjoy your hospitality of providing a clean and safe environment to learn and grow.
The students have no claim for any privileges or rights from our church, but our willingness to let them use our building will only create in these students generous and grateful hearts. Perhaps their lives will grow to love the church and God. Maybe their lives will become in time fragrant with costly perfume of God’s holiness.
*When I was here in the late 70s, our church sponsored a Vietnamese family to America when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam. I can remember Butch Chan and I meeting Foster and Jean Ng and their little girl, Lisa at the airport and driving them to their new apartment. We saw how confused and devastated they were, having to escape with little in their pockets and to start a new life here. You probably donated household goods and food when they arrived.
As you know they are doing well today. Their daughter, Lisa who is now a young adult recently sent a check to the church as her gift to God’s work.
Foster, Jean, and Lisa have no claim for any privileges or rights from our church, but our decision over 25 years ago to give safe haven and a new beginning created in this family generous and grateful hearts. I think the envelope with the check was fragrant with costly perfume.
*It is no surprise that our church is a leading giver toward American Baptist missions. In January of this year, I received a letter from Robert Crandall who is the Associate General Secretary for World Mission Support. Out of almost 6000 churches, we are one of 2,238 churches that have given to the America for Christ Offering every year for the past ten years! There’s a certificate in the vestibule that makes this recognition. My guess is that if we went farther back in our records, we probably have given consistently for all fifty years of the history of this offering to support missions in our community and around the country.
We have a generous and grateful heart in giving because we have received so much from our Lord. American Baptists sent missionaries and workers to work with us and for us. They lived in our community and became our neighbors. Their life-long service in the name of Christ is like pouring a bottle of costly perfume on our lives. So when we send in our mission receipts, we send a check fragrant with costly perfume. God has blessed us so much that we have come face to face with the holy. And the only response that we have is a generous heart and holy devotion.
Death to Life
On the surface, what Mary did for Jesus was well meaning but an overly expensive act of worship. But under the surface, Jesus tells us that Mary was preparing for his burial, “She bought this perfume so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”
If we are to be changed, like Lazarus, from death to life, then it will require another death. Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem for the last time and to offer himself so that the world might have life and have it abundantly. Only Mary can see this clearly, and she breaks out the costly perfume to mark this moment.
Take a deep breath to smell the fragrant sacrifice of God’s love for us. I can smell costly perfume in this very room. May the fragrant perfume on Jesus’ feet waft toward us and remind us of how great God’s love is for you and me.
Let us pray.
We are amazed, O Lord, to discover yet again how you made your way to your holy and sacrificial death while we were distracted with our daily lives. Enable us to realize how much we have been blessed by your wonderful love for us in Christ. We pray that our redemption in the Lord will lead us to be like Mary; taking our costly and fragrant resources and humbly placing them at the feet of Jesus to seek forgiveness. With a grateful heart, we pray. Amen.