Department Of God's Extravagance

 

John 12: 1-8
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 6, 2025

Photo of a person with almond color skin, wearing multiple green and gold metallic bracelets and henna tattoos on their hands placing flower petals on the feet of another person wearing off-white harem pants trimmed in gold. They are standing on large square stone tiles that appear to be wet from rain.

On Ash Wednesday those who were gathered for the ecumenical worship service read together what was called “A Sort of Statement of Faith”. We’ll be using it as part of communion today. When we got to the line “some anoint with costly perfume, some complain about the waste”, I grabbed a pen out of my purse and scribbled these words in the bulletin: “lavish compassion and service – I hope our nation’s budget is ‘bloated’ with service and compassion”.



Which is precisely what some people in our country do not want, a federal budget that cares for the most vulnerable of the polis—which means people, the root of the word political—and yet they too want to be taken care of. There’s a word for when people are more concerned about waste than compassion and service. Self-interest. Which is the root of every evil running loose in this country.



It is also where we find Judas in the last week of Jesus’ life. In contrast to the fragrance of the ointment and Mary’s love for Jesus, Judas’ attitude reeks of a depraved self-interest masquerading as moral bookkeeping. With an economy of words, the gospel of John tells a story of opposing forces: greed vs. extravagant love, grief vs. self-righteous hubris.



Imagine the scene. Jesus, his disciples, and his friends Martha, Mary, their brother Lazarus whom Jesus raised from death, all know that his days are numbered. Mary, overcome with love and grief, offers her whole heart in an intimate act of anointing Jesus’ feet, the smell of impending death combined with the smell of the perfume. Everyone would have recognized what she was doing. There shouldn’t have been a dry eye in the room.



So, for Judas to see a price tag on a gift that is priceless and extravagant is no different than politicians on both sides of the aisle who claim to care about the poor and working-class and yet have done nothing to effectively change that reality. In the name of efficiency to eliminate government waste, a billionaire has been put in charge of the common purse only to crucify those who are already suffering and benefit himself. And a six-time bankrupted businessman is tanking our economy. We want things to change but we want to keep what we have. The poor are always with us because the rich can never be satisfied and because the rest of us fear becoming poor. It is only when resources are hoarded that people go without and so much is wasted. We have monetized everything in this world, even down to our love and mercy.



Tenderness of heart does indeed hit us right in the purse. It will cost us something to treat our homeless and unhoused neighbors with compassion, dignity, and respect. It will cost us something to repair what was done to those forcibly brought to this country as enslaved labor. It will cost us something to return land back to the peoples from which it was stolen. It will cost us something to not lift up a weapon against another nation, to not learn war anymore. It will cost us something to right our wrongdoing. But it appears we are willing to pay the price for not doing these things.



Judas didn’t just betray Jesus by turning him in, he betrayed the very faith he was raised in, the same as Jesus. When Jesus said the poor will always be with us, he was quoting a text that begins with canceling debt. The rest of it reads, “If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. …Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 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 neighbor in your land.’”



At this Table, where the poor are given pride of place, Jesus presides over the Department of God’s Extravagance. Judas was rich in things but poor in soul and so even a thief was welcome at Jesus’ table of grace. But at the Table in the gospel of John, Jesus mirrors what Mary did by washing the feet of the disciples. He breaks open his ego as well as his body and pours out his unconditional, unmerited, unlimited love on good people who often made a mess of how to follow him and still do.



We’re witnessing in real time what withholding, greed, and self-interest can do when taken to their conclusion: destruction. The opposite of that is creation. It’s not about what is deserved or earned. It’s about what we believe. It shouldn’t be radical to want good things for everyone or naïve to actually live what we say we believe. Daring, yes. Risky, yes. Our actions are our only true belongings. Everything else is dust and ashes. Amen.

(During Communion, our accompanist played "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas and it nearly undid me.)

Benediction - with words borrowed from poet Wendell Berry


So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Be extravagant with those who cannot repay you.
Be lavish with your love, not counting the cost.
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Practice resurrection.