Death, smells and extravagant love

As we read this gospel today it’s important to realise that it is a few verses of a much bigger story and so, gathering the stories around it there are a bunch of words swirling around in my head - smell, death, anointing, feasts, service, extravagance, generosity and love. We have just read, in the previous chapter of John, about the raising of Lazarus from the dead (and here we are in Lazarus’ house). When they were going to open the tomb, Martha was worried about the stench of death, the smells begin back there

in the story. 

I’m guessing that most if not all of you by this time in your lives have at some stage had a reason to go to the undertakers, perhaps to view the body of a loved one or to discuss funeral arrangements for someone. There is an unmistakable smell there - its a combination of the embalming fluids, cleaning products and flowers. It’s unmistakable and I find it somewhat unpleasant, but its not the same as the “stench of death” Martha had mentioned. Back then they didn’t use embalming fluids but a mix of spices and oils to cover the smell of death when preparing a body. 

In today’s story Mary anoints Jesus feet with “perfume”. I like perfume, I say it is one of my “vices”. I don’t feel quite dressed to leave the house without a spray of perfume and some earrings. I’ve brought a bottle with me today. Perfume is expensive and a little goes a long way. So I spray a little on one wrist and rub my wrists together to spread it to the other one. A little spray behind each ear. I certainly don’t go breaking the bottle and pouring it over myself. These spray-on perfumes tend to be alcohol based - made to evaporate on one’s skin. This was not the kind of “perfume” Mary used. And Mary’s was a lot more expensive than mine. Judas suggested it was worth 300 denarii - commentators have suggested that was the equivalent of a year’s wages - so in today’s terms, Mary’s jar was worth about $70,000! 

In fact the word translated “perfume” is the Greek word “myron” from which we get the word “myrrh” that’s a word we know from other gospel stories isn’t it? In John’s gospel we find Myrrh mentioned again near the end of the gospel - after Jesus’ death Nicodemus asked permission to take away Jesus’ body and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes.

Mary doesn’t anoint Jesus’ head which is what we would usually expect for an anointing but focuses on his feet. And this is no “dabbing” - she pours the whole darned lot over him. And it is myrrh - the perfumed oil associated with dead bodies. So once again the smell of death hangs over the occasion and Jesus himself links this with his impending death. This Mary, by her actions preaches the crucifixion,  at the end of John’s gospel, another Mary - Mary Magdalene preaches the resurrection. 

Luke’s gospel is full of feasts and meals but in John’s gospel there are just two feasts - this one and John’s account of the Last Supper which is in the next chapter. The way these 2 stories are told and their closeness in the narrative invites comparisons. Judas is common to both stories and in this first one we are invited to compare Mary and Judas. Mary, it appears, has insight the other disciples were lacking, even though Jesus had tried to prepare them for his death they didn’t want to know it. Was it that Mary had heard Jesus or did she look at the signs of the times - the threats of death hanging over them from the authorities? Either way, Mary was wise. 

Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as ‘a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.’ This seems particularly à propos when we consider Judas - the keeper of the money purse, the bean counter. Mary intuitively knew the value of Jesus’ life and this upcoming sacrifice and performed the most extravagant gesture of love. 

During the Last Supper, Jesus modelled love and service for the disciples as he washed, then wiped their feet - his actions showed them what true discipleship and true community looked like. Mary’s actions showed that she understood this even before Jesus’ teaching, thus showing her to be a true and wise disciple.  Mary anointed then wiped Jesus’ feet - an act of loving service. Here we see Jesus receiving Mary’s loving and generous gift and act and honouring her. At the Last Supper, Judas accepted Jesus’ act of loving service and shared a meal with Jesus and the others, but instead of honouring the community, he was stealing from them; instead of honouring Jesus’ love, Judas went out to betray him. 

“The poor will always be with you”, said Jesus and unfortunately this saying has been used to justify meanness in responding to the poor. But that is misunderstanding what Jesus is doing here. He is quoting from Deut 15 - go home and read it. Deuteronomy is emphasising the importance of open-handed generosity to the poor, not suggesting we should hold back “because they are always with you”. God’s intention in Deuteronomy is that Israel becomes such a generous community that none is in need. 

 In John’s story, Mary embodies both open-handedness and discerning wisdom, lavishing Jesus with precious perfume, effectively anointing his body, as Jesus puts it, “for the day of my burial”. In contrast, Judas embodies the tight-fisted stance rebuked in Deuteronomy. Not only does he fail to recognise Mary’s wisdom, he accuses her of immoral excess: You should have used that money to help the poor, as Moses commands!  

But Jesus will have none of it: Leave her alone!  She sees our situation better than you do: I am about to leave you; my death draws near.  Will you not honour my body here in the shadow of death, as Mary has done?  Even worse, will you dishonour her for doing so?  And as for helping the poor, as Moses has indeed said, you can and should continually be generous — so why don’t you go ahead and do that yourself, Judas, rather than judging and demeaning Mary?  You hypocrite: you make a show of being “open-handed,” but in truth your fist is closed. For John, Judas embodies the perfect opposite of Mary’s open-handed, caring generosity: tight-fisted, judgmental greed.

Remember this anointing by Mary was no “dabbing” - she pours the whole darned lot over him, she withholds nothing. Indeed, there is so much ointment that she needs to soak some of it up with her hair. Mary has to remove some of the very expensive ointment that she had just poured out. She does not put it back into the bottle but will now carry her act of discipleship with her on her own body, in her hair. 

The smell of the perfume would have clung to Jesus for days. Even as Jesus was dying on the cross was it possible that he could have continued to smell that anointing Nard? A reminder of Mary’s extravagant, generous love. 

As we too are present at the cross, and we too can still smell this perfume, it is for us also a reminder of God’s extravagant, generous, abundant and, yes, inclusive love poured out for us and over us.  

The theologian Matthew Myer Boulton put this so beautifully I want to use his words. God calls us toward this personal and communal vision of a generous, wisely structured world — and at the same time blesses each of us with the wisdom and discernment to follow Mary’s example, opening our hands in ways that honour one another in love and grace. We stand on the verge of Holy Week. The house is filled with the fragrance of perfume. The hosannas will come, the lamentations will follow, and the promise of Easter morning — that radiant new world, dawning even now, where crying and pain and poverty will be no more —  that beckons from the other side of the tomb.