Sermon for the 5th Sunday in Lent
Rev. Enzo Pellini
John 12:1-8
It was six days before the Passover Feast. Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived. Lazarus was the one Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 A dinner was given at Bethany to honor Jesus. Martha served the food. Lazarus was among the people at the table with Jesus. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard. It was an expensive perfume. She poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the sweet smell of the perfume.

4 But Judas Iscariot didn’t like what Mary did. He was one of Jesus’ disciples. Later he was going to hand Jesus over to his enemies. Judas said, 5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold? Why wasn’t the money given to poor people? It was worth a year’s pay.” 6 He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor. He said it because he was a thief. Judas was in charge of the money bag. He used to help himself to what was in it.

7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “The perfume was meant for the day I am buried. 8 You will always have the poor among you. But you won’t always have me.”

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Today’s Gospel shows us how important it is to be able to imitate a model way of gratitude and love for Christ such as that shown by Mary of Bethany.

Our tradition invites us to remember the passion and resurrection of Jesus in this season that we call Lent with Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday. Today we are invited to understand and appreciate the work done by Christ on the cross. Many of us are not fully aware of the greatness of this event. Only the Holy Spirit can give us a true understanding of what it means that Jesus died on the cross for us. Although if we may not fully understand it, don’t worry, the most important thing is that we can say: – “Thank you Lord for your redeeming work on the cross and thank you for allowing me to believe in you as the risen Son of God, present and alive in my life. I adore you and praise you for it.” That is what it is all about every time we want to celebrate the season of Lent, we want to value the redemptive work of Christ on the cross and be willing to teach others what he did through the good news and our testimony of faith, and invite them to believe in Him to may they too attain salvation.

Mary of Bethany, if you remember, she was the one who sat close to Jesus and she wanted to hear his word every time he came home. You may remember the story of Mary and Martha. Martha was the industrious sister who wanted to serve Jesus with her food and Mary with her attentiveness. Mary was the sister of Lazarus, the man that Jesus had resurrected. And the twelve disciples were probably also there in the house of the three siblings because it is mentioned that Judas was there, who would later betray Jesus.

When we quickly read this story, it may not touch us too much, a woman who poured expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus, what a beautiful gesture, we may not feel the dimension of this. That is why I would like to give some more data. The plant of nard grows between 3,000 and 5,000 meters in the Himalayas of Nepal, as well as in northern India and China. 70 plants are needed to extract a small amount of perfume from the roots. The Hindus used it as medicinal oil and for perfume. Owning pure perfumes like nard was a form of investment in those days. Let us remember that at that time there were no banks like today, nor sophisticated safes and a way to invest or save money was through other goods such as fabrics, perfumes and for the richest silver and gold coins. It is certain that this perfume will have come from Mary’s savings. It says in the Bible that the amount that she poured was worth 300 denarii. The denarius was a Roman coin. They used the currency of use in those days, as today we might use US dollars, for example, it was a common exchange currency. A denarius was equivalent to one day’s pay for a day labourer. A day labourer worked throughout the Roman day, which went from sunup to sundown from 6 in the morning to 6 in the evening. If we could convert the worth of a denarius to today’s value in Canada, we could say that it is the equivalent of $120 CAD, if we only calculate an 8-hour labour day. This tells us that 300 denarii are $36,000 CAD. That was the value of the perfume that Mary poured.
Mary poured these three hundred grams (or millilitre) of perfume on the feet of Jesus as an offering or reverence.

Why perfume? Why do we perfume ourselves both men and women? What is the meaning of this? Or why do we use fragrances, air fresheners or incense burners to give our homes a pleasant smell? Because smell, like the other five senses, is also an important aspect of our lives. We want what others smell of us to be pleasant. Good smell or fragrance denotes beauty, cleanliness and therefore appeal. In the same way, pleasant smells denote purity, beauty and a feeling of pleasure, peace and happiness. These feelings are also reflected through our sense of smell. The pleasant smells that perfumes and essences give off are appreciated and valued because they make us feel good and give us happiness.
That is why the more durable, strong and pleasant to smell the perfumes are, the more appreciated and expensive they are. There are perfumes so expensive today that a bottle may cost upwards of $5,000 CAD.

The bottle of perfume that Mary poured represented not only her savings or money, but part of her life, her total surrender to God. To show true worship and praise that jar had to be poured or donated to God. This woman who pours out all her values in an instant wants to show her devotion and total trust in Jesus. We do not know if she was aware that in some way this anointing prepared Jesus for his funeral, as when the Hebrews prepared a corpse for the grave. But without knowing it, she also fulfilled this purpose and Jesus made it clear.

Jesus does not deny the possibility of giving generously, be it money or goods for his work, for the mission, for his church, to honour him, as long as it comes from a loving, grateful and genuine heart. It is very likely that the person who gives a lot for God is also generous in every way, and is also giving to people in need. That is what Jesus meant when he replied to the dishonest Judas: “You will always have the poor among you. But you won’t always have me”. We can always help those in need, and we are challenged to do so, but Jesus also wants to see what kind of surrender and adoration we are showing him. He wants to see what our hearts are like. Every time Jesus looks at us, he is looking at the genuineness of our heart, our interior and how honest we are before him even if no one is looking at us. That is the most important.

From Mary of Bethany, we can draw a lesson for us today. Jesus is most interested in whether we have really given ourselves to him. That is the most important thing he tells us today from this story. People who can have a genuine and open heart to Jesus will be able to love him and give everything to him and his church. Jesus is not interested in what we are showing others about how we are, but what we show him from within what we are.

This Lent, God invites us to be honest with him. To take stock if we are really devoted to him as he would like. The values of Christ often go beyond the values of society and what society considers logical, rational and sensible. The history of the day shows us. How can we genuinely love God by imitating Mary’s testimony? The season of Lent can well be a time for a reunion with Jesus and a challenge to leave those things that are not necessarily what Jesus seeks from us. He is waiting for a change in us. In the same way that the apostle Paul tells us in Phil 3:7 “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ”.
God is expecting our offering, but not only of material things but the complete and living surrender of our whole being to him and to be able to follow him genuinely. Therein lies the challenge of being able to be grateful to Christ for his work on the cross and thus loving God.
The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen