Costly worship
Readings: John 12. 1-8
Our Gospel reading today goes to the heart of worship. Are we caught up in wonder and love, or are we cold and calculating when it comes to how our hearts relate to Jesus?
We’re on the verge of the final act in John’s Gospel. The cross is rapidly coming into view. We’re 6 days from Passover, immediately after this Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and then, in John’s Gospel at least, he disappears from public view, speaking from then on only with the twelve. So what does Jesus do with this final week, what does he do before he heads into Jerusalem? He has one last visit to Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
You’ll remember Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead, and here he is, alive and well, eating at the table with Jesus. And you’ll also perhaps remember his sisters, Mary and Martha, who, on another occasion, fell out over their differing approaches to Jesus, Martha busy with the tasks of hospitality, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening. Once again here we see this same divide, Martha busy with the tasks at hand, Mary filled once more with devotion.
And as Jesus and the others are eating, Mary enters. Before we go on it’s worth noting that in this culture, for important meals, banquets and the like, you don’t eat sat on chairs, or even sat crossed legged at the table. You’d lie on your side, hence that word reclining, usually on your left arm, with legs stuck out behind you, often leaning against the next person along. It’s why at the last supper the beloved disciple is able to ask Jesus questions on behalf of the group, he’s led against Jesus’ chest so can just turn his head slightly. Eating together is quite an intimate thing.
And so as they’re eating Mary enters, and she approaches Jesus’ feet and empties onto them a pint of expensive perfume. This is an extravagant act, the whole house is immediately filled with the fragrance, everyone there is hit with the wonderful smell, and there’s so much flowing over Jesus’ feet she’s having to wipe it away with her hair, it’s not just drying on its own. It’s this extravagant, costly act of love and devotion. This is worship.
Her love and her joy in Jesus overflow in this extravagant, costly show of devotion. This is the man who has taken her as a disciple, women were never taken as disciples in those days, and yet he has her sit at his feet as he teaches. This is the man who has raised her brother back to life again. Here is the man who has completely changed her life forever by his words and his actions, and as he lies there eating, she goes off and takes this jar of perfume from where it’s been safely kept, probably the most valuable thing in her home, and she empties it all upon his feet in worship. This is a love that doesn’t count the cost.
And yet someone is counting. Jesus no doubt knows its value, rejoices in her love and devotion, but I’m not thinking of him. Judas is counting, calculating. And he is outraged. He doesn’t recognise the worship, all he sees in the waste. And immediately he’s challenging Mary on this, challenging Jesus on this. All that value, gone in a moment, a years wages poured all over the floor. She should have sold this and used it to help the poor. It all sounds very noble on the outside doesn’t it. But here John gives us an insight into his heart. Judas is a thief, he’s the group treasurer and his hand is always skimming some off the top. He doesn’t care about the poor, he cares about money, riches. Interestingly John doesn’t use the usual term for purse or moneybag here, he uses a word which can mean this, but is more commonly used to mean coffin. His greed has become the death of him, a yawning grave ready to swallow him up. And it will, in a few short days he’ll sell Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver, the cost of a slave.
Here in the room with Jesus, as the scent of the perfume drifts on the breeze, are two people who couldn’t be more different. Mary who thinks nothing of the cost, only of her love and devotion to Jesus, and Judas, who sees only the cost, cannot see why anyone would do this.
Mary only see’s worship, Judas only sees waste.
And there’s a challenge for us here. How do we worship? Is our worship free and uncalculating, or are we expecting a return on our investment?
Let’s take a Sunday morning as the obvious. When we sing together, are we using those words to rejoice in God, or are we preoccupied with whether we like this hymn or not. ‘Oooh, one of my favourites’, ‘ah, I didn’t really like any of the hymns today’. Is it about giving praise to God, or about whether we’re having a good time? Or later, when you leave, do we go away thinking about what we ‘got’ from the service, whether something to think about, or we’re feeling better than when we arrived, or we had a nice time with our friends? Because whilst, yes we pray we’ll encounter God week by week as we gather, yes it’s certainly my prayer that something in my sermon might be of encouragement or comfort, or a challenge to move us forwards, yes it’s good to have fellowship together, but is that all it is? What we get, the return on our investment. Or is coming here about praising the one who not only created us, but has ransomed and redeemed us, and who is working in us until at last we see him face to face. Is it about surrendering this time to God, whatever he might do with it, freely pouring out hours of our life week by week out of love for God? Out of love and devotion to Jesus because of all he has done for us? Do we come with hearts ready for worship, or fearful of waste?
I’m not so much talking about doctrinal issues here, where the preacher doesn’t teach what Scripture does, or the hymns are giving us a theology which is wide of the mark, it’s important to be discerning with those things. But I’m talking about our heart posture as we come, as we gather, coming to give, or to get?
Because if we’re sliding solely towards the latter, that’s a problem. And the solution isn’t to find a more engaging church, you’ll get bored there too, Judas was front row with Jesus himself and it didn’t change him. Nor is the solution more knowledge, we just need to know more stuff then we’ll be more ready for worship, Judas knew as much as Mary, likely more, it didn’t change him. What’s needed is heart knowledge, the realisation of how much we are loved, how Jesus pours himself out not just for humanity, but for you personally.
When I was a teenager I used to watch the Big Bang Theory quite a bit. If you don’t know it it’s an American sitcom following two genius, slightly awkward, rather nerdy, roommates, their two friends and colleagues who work at the same university, and their neighbour Penny, an aspiring actress, working at the cheesecake factory until her big break, along with various others as the series goes on.
And in the first Christmas episode Penny tells one of these guys, Sheldon, she’s got him a gift. Queue panic from Sheldon. For him it’s not a gift, it’s an obligation, now he has to get her something in return, but it also needs to be of the same value, he doesn’t want to get her something worth more, a waste, but he also needs to meet the level of gift she’s giving. As I say, panic. So he comes up with a solution. He buys multiple separate gift baskets, all of varying values, when she gives the gift, he can slip off, and bring the one closest in value to give, and return the rest. The perfect solution.
When Christmas arrives she give him the gift, it’s in a small box, seemingly of little value. But when he opens it he discovers a napkin, signed by Leonard Nimoy, his favourite actor of all time, who portrayed his favourite character of all time in Star Trek, Spok. And he is completely overwhelmed at this gift. He then discovers Nimoy had wiped his mouth with it, he has the DNA of Leonard Nimoy, he can clone his own he declares, and now it really is too much. Off he goes, rushes to grab the gift to give in return. In he comes again, arms laden with all of the baskets. And even then he declares ‘it’s not enough is it’. And so he hugs her, the first time he’s hugged her, or as far as I can remember, anyone in the series. Sheldon is so floored by the immense value of the gift, not just in monetary terms, but in what it means to him, he can’t help but give everything in return to the giver.
When we get a clear view of all that God has done for us, the immense value of the gift he has given us in Jesus, we cannot help but worship. Which means our worship isn’t so much a thoughts issue, a calculation, it’s a heart issue, where does value truly lie, where is my heart truly set.
When we find ourselves getting stale in worship, calculating, wondering what the point is, what we need is not more knowledge, not a better church. What we need is a fresh encounter with Jesus. A fresh coming back to all that he has done for us.
His leaving the majesty of heaven to be born amongst us. His life with the teaching and preaching, the love and the healing, the gathering in and the building up for you. His crucifixion and death, his agony and suffering for your sake, to set you free from sin and death forever. His resurrection to bring you with him into everlasting life, life in him, life without end in a perfected universe, in perfected relationship with God. His ascension to the right hand of the Father, where he speaks over you his death and resurrection for you in the courts of heaven, where he is constantly witnessing on your behalf, calling you onwards, continually interceding for you, praying on your behalf.
If you’re getting stale in worship I have good news, now is the moment to re-engage our hearts with God. Much like for Jesus in Bethany, the cross is right there on the horizon. We’re preparing to walk with Jesus through the gates of Jerusalem to cheering crowds, to upper room, to garden agony, to cross and then tomb. And from there to resurrection glory, ascension and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.
If you’re feeling cold, if your faith feels more like embers than roaring fire, come to the one who won’t extinguish even the smouldering wick, and pray that you would discover afresh his love for you this Holy Week. Prepare your heart, prepare your soul, prepare yourself, and then enter in to encounter him anew. Not because then it will all have been worth it, not because of what you’ll gain, but because of what he has already given.
Because when we are truly caught up in worship to the one who has given us everything, even unto death we become like Mary. We’re not counting the cost, we’ll give everything, unthinkingly, uncalculatingly. If Jesus is our richest treasure, our greatest love, nothing else really matters. It stops being about what we can get, but about what we’ll give. Our time, our resources, our money, our energy and skills. We’ll pour out our most precious possessions out of love and devotion to him because he is worth more. Once we’re caught up in worship we’ll happily use them all to witness to him, to give him the glory, to show our love and devotion. Our gaze will simply be fixed on Jesus, and all he has done for us.
My brothers and sisters, as we prepare for Holy Week, let us prepare our hearts, that we may encounter afresh the God who gives all for us, and lose ourselves in wonder, in love and in praise.
Amen.