The Rich and the Dead

Propers: The Fifth Sunday in Lent, AD 2022 C 

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Bringing someone to life is what gets Jesus killed. John is pretty clear about that.

Jesus’ public ministry began around age 30—which, interestingly enough, is when priests would enter into Temple service according to the book of Numbers. We gather, from the collected witness of the Gospel accounts, that He went around preaching, teaching, and healing the sick, for about three-and-a-half years of public ministry, thus creating something of a stir.

This was, after all, a messianic age, one in which people expected the prophecies of Daniel to be fulfilled, and indeed saw them being fulfilled before their very eyes. Everyone was looking for the promised Christ, that cosmic priest and king, sent by God from Heaven to claim the throne of David and reëstablish the Kingdom of Israel. Any day now, yessiree. Any day now, would Daniel be fulfilled and the Christ revealed.

The Romans knew it too. They read the same books the Israelites did, and had more than a few messianic prophecies of their own. They knew that, sooner or later, there’d be trouble in Jerusalem; probably at the Passover, when the city would be filled to bursting with pilgrims and penitents, their religious passions high. Rome proved ever watchful for would-be messiahs. You’ve got to nip that sort of thing in the bud.

Now, as far as we can tell, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem multiple times a year throughout His entire life. He came to celebrate the holidays, the festivals, that could only be properly observed at the great Temple, the House of God on earth. And when He would come to Jerusalem, it seems He would typically stay with His friends: a trio of siblings—Mary, Martha, and Lazarus—who had a home in Bethany, two miles east of the city. He would spend the night there; cross over the Mount of Olives; come to the Temple. They were Jesus’ bed-and-breakfast.

Anyway, as good churchgoers such as yourselves surely know, there were rumors that Jesus could raise up the dead; spooky stories of Him resuscitating the recently deceased. But these were largely private matters in smallish towns. Everything changed when Lazarus died. Four days in the tomb, he lingered, rotting. Four days in the punishing Middle Eastern heat. Four days until Jesus arrived.

We don’t know a great deal about Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. We know that they were fairly well-off and fairly well-known. They had both friends and money. So that by the time Jesus arrives, there’s a large crowd, from the city, from Jerusalem, gathered to mourn at Lazarus’ tomb. And when Jesus then raises Lazarus from the dead—good Lord, they all go nuts.

This isn’t some piddly healing in some Podunk town. This isn’t someone’s little girl who might “just have been sleeping.” No, Jesus raises Lazarus, who’d been dead for four long days, in front of the crowd, in front of Jerusalem. It’s the equivalent of a miracle broadcast live on television from Times Square. The resultant furor is such that He has to flee—Jesus must run to a town in the wilderness for a little bit to let things cool down—but not for very long.

Because Passover is right around the corner. And Jesus will be there for it.

All of which brings us to today’s Gospel reading. Just imagine the setting: Saturday night at the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, with Lazarus freshly raised up from the dead. What on earth did they talk about over dinner? What on earth could he tell them about what he’d seen, or not seen? Ah, to be a fly on that wall. And Jesus is there, preparing to ride into Jerusalem the next day, Palm Sunday, knowing the frenzy this surely will cause, knowing the tensions just begging to burst.

His disciples had been afraid to go into Jerusalem even before all this happened, afraid that they might get stoned for the turbulence Jesus had caused. But now, after Lazarus? They barely know what to expect. The end of the world, perhaps! And it’s at this point that Mary brings out a jar of ridiculously expensive oil—spikenard, from India—and cracks it open to anoint Jesus’ feet, like a servant. 300 denarii, mind you, is almost a year’s wages for a common laborer at this time.

Why do they have this in the house? Is it her dowry? Or are they really just that rich? Anyway, it causes a stir, as she sits here, pouring out this nard, then wiping His feet not with a cloth but outrageously with her own locks and tresses. Now there’s a wild juxtaposition for you: the most expensive ointment you can think of, mopped up with the humble hair of her head: superabundance joined to self-effacement. Imagine the scent of it suffusing the room, a powerful, heady aroma.

And Judas, for one, is scandalized. Oh, let me clutch my pearls. What an absolute wasting of wealth! What foolish, profligate behavior! Get up off your knees, you silly girl, and put that sort of munificence to good and practical use! Go give it to the poor! But that’s not really his issue, according to John. Judas’ motivation isn’t selflessness, but jealousy. He envies her wealth, and how she flings it away.

You’re missing the point, Jesus tells him. The poor you will always have with you, so open your hand to the needy. That’s a verse from Deuteronomy. But what she has done here, what Mary has done for Jesus, has been to anoint Him for His burial. That powerful, pungent perfume is the pricey odor of death, of embalming. It’s what you use to cover a corpse, so you don’t have to suffer the stink. Mary knows better than anyone, save perhaps Lazarus there at the table, that Christ has come to die.

What an odd, ethereal space we have entered, where the dead live and the living are dead. Jesus conquered death for Lazarus. Can He conquer it now for Himself, for us all?

This isn’t the first time that Mary has been criticized for prioritizing worship over worldly worry, prayer over productivity. Remember an earlier tale, told by Luke, about how Martha busied herself with the household tasks, while Mary sat in rapt attention before Jesus; something, it should be noted, that women generally did not do in those days. Women took care of the household, while men were instructed by rabbis.

Then, as now, Mary refuses the false dichotomy that would claim that she must either be constructive or she’s wasting time. To the contrary, Mary understands what the sabbath is for: she understands that we are most fully human when we find our rest in God. She is foolish, prodigal, extravagant in her devotion to her Rabbi. And in this, Jesus tells us, she has picked the better part. Mary has put the first things first in life, so that everything else falls properly into its place. Would that we had her wisdom.

It is long since time that we remember—as Christians, as a society—that there is more to life than merely work or pleasure, production or consumption. The deepest and most meaningful things in our world will neither line our pockets nor mindlessly entertain. And these are the things we don’t know what to do with. These are the things we no longer understand: voluntary associations, service organizations; education, religion, the news. What are they for? What are they worth? If I can’t put a price on it, is it even real?

Human beings need a life beyond mere consumption. We need a connection to transcendence that defies commodification. And Mary gets that! Mary finds that, knows that, here in Jesus. Here she is at this table; a powerful, haunting fragrance saturating the air; her dead brother alive and her Lord a dead man walking. Here in this time, this place, this ineffable space, all things are suddenly possible, all barriers broken down, and she is freed—to give without limit, to pour out the best that she has, and to mop it all up with her hair.

This is a woman who holds nothing back, not anymore, not from this Man. And Judas wants to talk about money? Money, when life and death are sharing our table, here at the cusp of Crucixion? He who cannot stomach 300 denarii worth of wanton generosity will soon sell off a life for the relative bargain of 30 pieces of silver. For everything has its price.

Let us all be as Mary, my brothers and sisters. Let us love with abandon in fierceness of hope. Let us be fools in generosity, fools for Jesus Christ. Let us welcome Him as King of Kings and lay palm fronds before Him. Let us weep with the women who walk to His Tomb and find it impossibly empty. Let us live as those who have seen the grave opened, the stone rolled aside, and hell itself broken in two.

Let us, in short, live as Mary—whose love could know no limits when she focused her eyes upon Christ.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.