Becoming Fragrant - A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent 2025

GOSPEL: John 12:1-8

The holy gospel according to John.

Glory to you, O Lord.

Judas willfully misinterprets as waste Mary’s extravagant act of anointing Jesus’ feet with costly perfume. Jesus recognizes that her lavish gift is both an expression of love and an anticipation of his burial.

1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

What a difference one comment can make.

Especially in election season.

The US President, apparently just trying to be funny,

called our Prime Minister “Governor Trudeau”

and has repeated comments

of Canada becoming the 51st state,

and many in our nation are infuriated,

even people who weren’t fans

of the Prime Minister being mocked.

Now some Canadians

are booing the American national anthem at sporting events.

Some Americans are booing our anthem.

It’s a hostile environment,

and you could say it is all because of comments

made by one person in power.

Not long ago,

you might have seen pickup trucks

with a Canadian flag in the back:

as a sign of freedom

for people who struggled with pandemic precautions

and perceived government overreach,

and now, just a couple years later,

the flags are back on the pick up trucks:

arguably a pro-Canada comment,

but also it feels like an anti-American hostility.

Now we prepare for a federal election this month.

The person of faith is called

to allow faith to steer our whole lives;

faith is the hub of the wheel.

Our faith needs to inform our politics,

not the other way around.

I don’t want to oversimplify,

but doesn’t it feel like now,

this election is not so much “what is best for Canada”

but “who can best deal with the one 

who is making the comments?”

What a difference one comment can make.

It is changing the focus of this whole election,

and dominating the focus in media.

It’s like there’s an aroma of perfume in the air,

but this perfume doesn’t smell like

cooperation and innovation,

it smells like revenge, hostility

animosity, confusion, fear,

pent-up anger with a new focus.

Sometimes one comment causes us to lose focus

on what really matters.

Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anointed Jesus’s feet

with a pound of costly perfume of pure nard,

an extravagant amount worth one year’s wages;

300 denarii,

or in today’s terms, about $60,000.

That’s a lot of denarii,

But this is also Jesus of Nazareth we are talking about.

This is the One who raised Lazarus from the dead,

who fed 5000 plus,

who turned water into wine.

Mary has a unique understanding of who Jesus is.

This is Jesus’ anointing

Mary anoints Jesus as the King who will enter Jerusalem

in a grand parade

to the crowds shouting Hosanna!

It is also a preparation for Jesus’ burial;

Mary seems to know what awaits Jesus in Jerusalem.

In the simplest sense,

this is an intimate act of love from Mary to her Rabbi,

her Healer,

her Lord,

her God.

Jesus had just found her brother, Lazarus,

dead,

the stench of death was strong after 4 days,

Mary’s offering and anointing

replaces the fragrance of death

with the fragrance of costly perfume.

And Judas got angry and complains;

Judas mansplains to Mary

what that costly perfume should have been used for.

Mary’s fragrance filled the house,

but with that one comment,

that room stunk of the stench of hostility,

jealousy and greed.

This kind of thing makes me angry:

hearing people get angry and complain

over the way someone else is trying to show love.

First of all, it was Mary’s perfume.

She’s the one who bought it,

and Judas thinks he can mansplain

what she should do with her own property?

It’s like pointing out the speck in your neighbour’s eye

but missing the log in your own.

I find it hard to understand that kind of anger.

Although John’s gospel isn’t kind to Judas here,

maybe we need some understanding of his motives.

Judas kept the common purse for the group,

he was the treasurer,

the accountant,

in charge of the money.

It was likely that Judas would be responsible

for giving some of that money away to the poor

that the disciples might meet on their travels.

This was Judas’ ministry.

Even with mixed motives,

Mary’s extravagant and expensive

display of love for Jesus

challenged Judas’ identity.

Something to understand about God’s love and God’s work:

God shows love in essential ways

and in eclectic ways.

When it comes to joining in Christ’s ministry,

sharing God’s love,

loving our neighbours,

we find ourselves navigating between

the essential and the eclectic:

Between meeting basic needs

and extravagance in love.

For example, when Jesus fed the 5000 plus,

blessing 5 loaves and 2 fish,

it was an essential kind of love:

these people were hungry,

and they got that essential need met,

with an abundance of leftovers.

But when Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding feast,

the people weren’t hungry.

There was no essential kind of need present,

but Jesus showed an eclectic love

with saving the best wine for last:

6 giant stone jars full;

6000 glasses of finest wine!

Now that is extravagantly eclectic.

This is God’s love for us;

the abundant essential and the extravagantly eclectic.

Mary anointed Jesus in an eclectic love,

she is prodigal;

lavishly and recklessly blessing Jesus,

and Jesus does not decline.

Not long after this anointing of Jesus’ feet,

Jesus will wash the disciples’ feet.

It might have been essential;

their feet were dirty,

but it was not essential for Jesus to clean them:

rather it was an eclectic display of love.

No master would wash the feet of a slave,

except in an act of utter devotion.

Jesus washed the disciple’s feet,

not because they were dirty,

but as an act of eclectic love

in utter devotion to them.

I wonder if Mary’s eclectic love in anointing Jesus’ feet

helped inspire Jesus washing feet,

his own eclectic display of love?

I hear Judas’ one comment,

fuelled by anger,

and I get angry.

It makes me want to join the hostility.

But Jesus doesn’t give into this kind of anger;

Jesus responds to Judas, and to Mary,

with compassion, love and understanding:

“Leave her alone.

She bought it so that she might

keep it for the day of my burial.

You always have the poor with you,

but you do not always have me.”

Jesus stood up for Mary,

and Jesus teaches Judas - and us all -

about our call to love.

When Jesus says “you always have the poor with you…”

I believe it is a reference to Deuteronomy 15:11—

“Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth,

I therefore command you,

‘Open your hand to the poor

and needy neighbour in your land”

Jesus is not saying

“you don’t need to worry about the poor”;

much the opposite.

Jesus affirms Judas

- yes, provide for the poor -

and also opens minds to a deeper understanding

of what sharing God’s love might look like.

As the election comes near,

I pray that we allow faith to be the hub of the wheel

that our vote is steered by Christ,

not simply reacting to the comments,

and with mindfulness for the poor and the outcast.

The reality of politics

is that we don’t just cast our vote once every couple years.

We vote every day -

with how we live our lives,

with how we spend our time and our money.

We don’t just live our faith on election day,

we don’t just live our faith for an hour on Sundays.

Faith is the hub of the wheel for our whole lives.

A little faithful tangent:

when we talk about faith,

we often consider it our faith in Jesus.

Like our second lesson,

the apostle Paul writes of righteousness,

not of his own through the law,

but righteousness that comes through faith in Christ,

the righteousness from God based on faith.

But, there’s another way to translate it.

the word “in” can also mean “of”,

so it is not just faith in Christ that makes us righteous,

but it is the faith of Christ that makes us righteous.

The faith we have is not our own,

it is Christ’s faith,

given to you through God’s Word

by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Christ’s faith is in you,

Christ has faith in you, too.

The faith we believe is the faith of Jesus in us.

We participate in faith with Jesus.

This faith feeds 5000 and turns water into wine.

This faith is going to be met with criticism,

with comments,

with hostility,

for the people we choose to love,

or the way we love them,

and sometimes the hostility and comments will come

from people in the inner circle.

One comment can change everything,

but so can one act of self-giving love.

For us, I hear an affirmation and encouragement

since it is the faith of Jesus we proclaim and participate in,

to love our neighbour in both essential and eclectic ways:

Sponsor the refugee family,

send the youth on a trip to the national gathering,

throw a party to celebrate our anniversary,

make the banner,

play the offertory,

and also head down to the Shepherd of the Hills

on a Wednesday to feed people,

give away blessing bags,

give money to the poor.

Babysit for your neighbour

so mom can go to work,

and babysit so mom can go out with friends.

Provide clothing for the needy,

and buy an official orange shirt

and respect people’s pronouns.

Bring the casserole,

and maybe a bottle of wine too.

Shovel their sidewalk,

mow their lawn,

knit the prayer shall,

put together the 36 page scrapbook,

give the thank-you card,

write the cheque;

love your neighbour like God loves you:

with love that is essential

and love that is eclectic.

Put another way,

get out and vote,

every day, with the ballot of love and compassion.

I hear an invitation from Jesus:

I hear the call to become fragrant in faith like Mary;

to allow our prayers to rise like incense to God,

to join Jesus’ work 

of filling the air with the aroma of grace 

that overcomes the stink of anger,

like a bottle of baptismal Febreeze

sprayed into the fraying fabric of fear.

May the faith of Jesus in us

fill the air with the fragrant aroma of grace.

May we find our faith in loving service,

in essential ways,

and in the extravagantly eclectic.

May the faith of Jesus

be the hub of the wheel for us,

and as we vote every day,

with love and compassion.

Thanks be to God. Amen.