Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (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.) Jesus said, ‘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.’ (John 12.1-8 NRSV)

Mary was worried. She was afraid this might be the last time she saw Jesus. There were so many forces arrayed against him. It was a dangerous time. So when she learned that he was coming to their home for dinner, she made a plan. She needed to show Jesus how much he meant to her. It wasn’t only that he raised her brother Lazarus to life. It was all the things Jesus did and said. He was a provocative man. He caused division. Some thought he was crazy or possessed. But Mary was among those who believed he was the Savior of the world. She needed to show her devotion to him in an unmistakable way.

So Mary took all her savings. She sold jewelry that had been in her family a long time. She pulled together all the money she could find. Then she went to the market. She walked past the weavers and woodcarvers over to the perfume seller. The merchant at the booth sized her up quickly. He suggested she buy a little vial with an ounce of perfume. Mary shook her head no. She pointed to a large flask, 12 ounces, filled with pure nard imported from India. The merchant’s eyes got bigger. He said, “That one is 500 denarii.” Mary offered him 150. They eventually settled on 300 denarii, or a year’s wages. They were both pleased with the purchase. Mary went home and waited.

The day for the meal came. Mary was quiet during dinner. She listed to Jesus and watched the others at the table. When the time was right, she took out her bottle of perfume and put her plan into action. She broke off the top of the bottle. Jesus was reclining at the table. Mary went to him and poured perfume on his feet, and then on his head, and then on his body. She poured perfume all over him. Conversation at the table stopped. But Mary didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. Her actions were speaking for her. Then she uncovered her head and let her hair down. With her hair she wiped the excess perfume on Jesus’ feet and body. It was a holy moment. The house was filled with the scent of the perfume, the fragrance of Mary’s faith.

+++++

There is a book called The Heart of Christianity, written by scholar Marcus Borg. In it he speaks about ‘thin places.’ Ordinarily, he says, in daily living the barrier between us and the sacred is thick. But there are times and places where the barrier gets thinner and more porous, where the sacred seeps in to us or even overwhelms us. These are thin places, a term Borg borrows from Celtic Christianity. The common denominator of thin places is this: a thin place is wherever your heart opens and expands. The heart in the Bible is the center of personality.

For many people, nature is a thin place, a place where the glory of God seeps into our consciousness. For others, a sanctuary like this is a thin place. For me, this sanctuary becomes a thin place in two ways. First, when it is filled with music, with voices singing or instruments playing. Then the heart opens and expands. Second, when this room is filled with silence – as it will be during the Holy Week Vigil soon. There is something sacred and transforming when you sit for an hour in silence here in the sanctuary, and you let the silence envelop you and seep into you. At the end of your time at the vigil, you come forward to the altar and take the bread and cup of communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus.

Jesus himself is the preeminent thin place. Marcus Borg says, “Jesus must have been a remarkable thin place. The devotion of his followers flowed out of them when they experienced him in that way.” This is what happens to Mary in our scripture. Her heart breaks open in the presence of Jesus. Her devotion flows out, just as the perfume flowed out of the bottle. She showed Jesus how much he meant to her, in actions without words.

+++++

Not everyone was happy with Mary’s actions. What she did created controversy, as Jesus himself often did. Judas in particular was upset and uncomfortable, and he probably wasn’t alone in that feeling. It wasn’t simply that her gesture was so extravagant, many thousands of dollars. That was probably only a surface reason. The deeper reason was that Mary’s action was so sensual. Think about it – perfume, a body, hair flowing down. In that culture especially, for Mary to uncover her head and let her hair down in public was scandalous. Many at the table would have been deeply uncomfortable about it. But for Mary it was fitting and natural, a perfect way for her to express her devotion.

Mary in the scripture symbolizes such devotion. She personifies a deep, passionate devotion that flows out of the heart. By contrast, Judas symbolizes the opposite. He represents discomfort with devotion, a visceral discomfort with lavish, extreme forms of devotion. His is an attitude you come across today, even in churches. You hear it in the voices of people who say, “It’s okay to be religious, but don’t get carried away with it. Be sensible. Be realistic. Don’t make a scene. Don’t risk. Moderation in all things.”

Ordinarily, moderation is a good thing. But not always, and this is one of those times. Jesus praises Mary, who is not moderate at all. He appreciates her lavish devotion. He even believes, in this context, that such devotion to his person is more important that good things like care for the poor. A startling thing, when you think about it. He also sees in Mary’s act a significance she herself may not see. He says she has anointed his body for burial, which in this Gospel’s timeline will happen within a week.

+++++

You can visit the tomb of Jesus today. It’s at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. It’s difficult to know for certain if it’s the exact place, but it may well be. It’s hard to imagine the early Christians would not remember the place Jesus was buried. They built a church over it – actually a succession of them – to mark the place and to give travelers a place to stay when they visited the tomb.

You walk into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and you see a domed ceiling high above your head. To the left you see a smaller chapel made of brown stone. This is where the tomb itself is, in a chapel within the church. You stand in line on the stone floor, waiting your turn. Only two or three can go in at a time – it’s a very small space inside. You must bend down low to go in because the doorway is low, but once inside you can stand up straight again. You see two gray slabs of stone where the body of Jesus once laid. They are very smooth – you can touch them. There might be someone praying or crying next to you. The room is lit by candles all around. And the room is filled with the smell of fresh flowers, cut flowers in vases on a ledge all around the room. I presume the flowers are changed regularly. The room is so small, the smell of the flowers is very strong. It’s the fragrance of faith.

Devotion motivated the builders to make the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Devotion brings fresh flowers each day into the tomb of Jesus. Devotion moved Mary to anoint Jesus body for burial. Scripture tells us devotion is pleasing to God, no matter what form it takes. It might be a bottle of perfume or a great cathedral. What counts is that the devotion flows out from the deep places of the heart, whether it is a big thing or small.

Pastor Stu Weber tells a story about his sons. His older two sons grew up as high achievers. They distinguished themselves in school and sports. Stu worried about his youngest son Ryan. Ryan was the sensitive one. He knew every day that he was third, following in the footsteps of his brothers. Stu spent extra time with Ryan, who enjoyed being outdoors camping or fishing. His prize possession was pocket knife. He always kept it with him, and he was proud when his brothers asked to borrow it. One day Stu was going to celebrate his birthday, and his family was having a party for him in the evening. That afternoon Ryan came by Stu’s office. Ryan was about 10. He wanted to give his Dad his card and gift ahead of time and privately. Stu opened the card and read it. He smiled. Then he took the box with the gift. Inside he found Ryan’s pocket knife. He had given his Dad the thing he valued most. He gave the gift out of devotion and gratitude.

I believe God appreciates our gifts and the devotion that prompts them. God is pleased when we give our best. Ryan gave his best. Mary gave her best. Don’t be afraid to give God your best. And don’t worry what other people think of you. Their discomfort is not your concern. They will say what they will. Your devotion is between you and God. And remember… we open our hearts and give our best because God is worthy, and because God has already given us his best in Jesus. Amen.

I preached this sermon last night with stuff hanging out of my nose — another Great Moment In Preaching.  Hopefully it wasn’t visible from too far away.

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’  Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’  Luke 13.1-9 NRSV

Kae Evensen is a Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis. She grew up in a church that talked a lot about an angry God. God was always angry with us and our sins. As a teen she rebelled against this negative imagery and left the church. She said, “If I was going to go to hell, I was going to do it on my one terms.  I knew I could never be good enough to go to heaven anyway.”  It took her many years to return to church. Along the way she discovered the grace of the gospel, the great Yes behind the No. Her experiences are mirrored in the lives of many people. Maybe some of you here today grew up in churches that emphasized an angry God. So for you, Jesus’ words today may be hard to hear. “Repent or Perish” sounds so negative.

News was spreading quickly through the city of Jerusalem. Pilate, the Roman governor, had done a terrible thing. Some people from Galilee had been worshiping at the Temple. Pilate had them killed – for reasons we don’t know – and then mixed their blood in with the blood of animals in the Temple sacrifices. An awful atrocity. The news made it to Jesus, and they wanted to know his opinion on it. As I imagine the scene, Jesus is sitting near the marketplace then, and the afternoon sun is casting long shadows on the stone pavement. People around him are wondering how he will respond.

Jesus thinks for a minute, then speaks. He doesn’t condemn Pilate or the Romans. He doesn’t seem outraged at all. He uses the incident to make a theological point. “Do you think those people were worse sinners than anyone else?” he asks. (This was a common assumption of the day. Those people were punished for their sins.) “No,” he says. “But unless you repent, you will perish too.” Then Jesus mentions another recent tragedy, when the Siloam Tower fell and killed 18 people. It was part of the water system of the city. Jesus said the same thing. Those people weren’t worse than anyone else. “Unless you repent and turn to God, you too will die, just like them.” Then to anchor things, he tells a little story about an unproductive fruit tree. It takes up valuable space in the garden, but it produces no fruit year after year. Management decides to give the tree one more year before they pull it up and plant another. It’s the same message. The tree must repent – bear fruit – or it will die. Repent or perish… a stern warning from Jesus.

This message runs against the current of how we imagine Jesus, if that image is kind and never harsh. Philip Yancey is a Christian journalist. He grew up imagining Jesus was always kind and gentle, like Mr Rogers, only with a beard. Only as an adult did Yancey realize that Mr Rogers would never have gotten himself crucified. You have to offend people to do that. Now Fred Rogers was a wonderful Christian man, but he was also not the kind of man who would say, “Repent or perish.” Jesus was. So how do we hear this warning from Jesus?

A couple of things. First, “change your ways or suffer the consequences” is not an uncommon message. It’s something your physician might say, for instance. Or for someone who has just gotten out of jail, it’s something a parole officer might say. We hear “repent or perish” more than we know. Second, we can invert the negative language to positive. If you’ve ever developed film the old fashioned way in a dark room, you are familiar with the negative of a photo, where all the lights are dark. “Repent or perish” is a negative. The positive image is “repent and live.” Choose life so that you may live. Jesus is giving an invitation to live here. He is offering abundant life. But the gateway, the doorway, is repentance. The question for us now is, What does repentance look like?

In the 18th century a Prussian king was visiting inmates in a Berlin prison. They crowded around the king and protested their innocence. They had all been unjustly condemned and put in prison. There was one man, though, would sat quietly by himself and said nothing. The king was curious about him and called him over. “Why are you here?” the king asked. “Armed robbery, your Majesty,” the man replied. “Were you guilty?” “Yes, I deserve my punishment.” Then the king said to the guards, “Release this man. I don’t want him corrupting all these other innocent people.” The man was set free that day.

This is an image of repentance. It means to rethink things. It begins with admitting our guilt. We are all guilty sinners, stuck in the prison of our own sin. But we resist the idea that we are guilty, like all those prisoners did in Berlin. The guilty are all those we hear about in the news, people who have committed crimes. “I’ve broken no laws,” we say. “I’m an exemplary citizen. I volunteer at the soup kitchen. And above all, I’m nice.” It’s good to be nice, of course, but it’s not the same as being holy. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, we can compare ourselves to God. God of absolute holiness, infinite purity and boundless love. That’s the standard. If we compare ourselves to that standard, we realize how far short we fall. God expects us to be like him – holy, pure and loving.

Out at a desert monastery, an old monk was found weeping one day. A young brother asked him, “Father, why are you weeping.” “I am weeping for my sins,” the old man said. “But Father, you lead a pure and blameless life.” The old man was indeed known for his holiness. “If I were allowed to see my sins,” he said, “There would not be enough men to weep for them.” Perhaps God in his mercy shields our eyes from our own sins. But then the day comes when the crack appears and widens. Something happens, and we see our sins… maybe for the first time. That’s when repentance begins, and we set out on the new life Jesus offers us.

But the key thing to know is that we don’t repent to avoid hell. Kae Evenson, the Lutheran pastor, had to learn this. We don’t repent to avoid hell. We repent to seek health and healing. Sin is a sickness deep within us. We have a Great Physician, Jesus, who wants to heal us. But for that to happen, we must GO TO THE DOCTOR. We admit our infection, our disease, and we acknowledge we cannot cure ourselves. Our doctor has the right medicine, the right treatment, to make us well and set us on the road to health. The road begins with repentance.

Dear friends, it’s Lent. This is what we do in Lent. Lent begins with ashes, a sign of our mortality. Ashes remind us to repent while there is still time. We turn from our sins. We turn to God for healing. Amen.