August 4 – John 12:1-8

Main Focus: Jesus is worthy of our money.

We’re closing out Jesus & Money by looking at an intimate moment of devotion: Mary’s anointing of Jesus at Bethany. There we’ll see how devotion to Jesus may very well lead us to make decisions that, from the outside, seem nonsensical. And yet this practice as a part of our worship of Jesus, and the practice of radical generosity more generally, does significant good for our relationship with Jesus.

In John 12:1-8, Jesus is headed towards Jerusalem, stopping in Bethany to have a meal with his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, the latter of whom was surely living his best life (part 2?) after Jesus resurrected him the chapter prior. Immediately after this encounter Jesus will enter Jerusalem, setting off the cascade of events culminating in his death on the cross; the reference Jesus makes in 12:7 to his burial reveals his awareness of what was ahead.

While sitting down at dinner, Mary, herself one of Jesus’s disciples, entered the room and mid-meal poured an exorbitant amount of expensive perfume on Jesus’s feet. Note, parallel accounts of Jesus’s anointing at Bethany are found in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13, both of which elaborate that Mary also anointed Jesus’s head and several of the disciples fussed at her about all this (and FYI, the story told in Luke 7:36-50 of a similar occurrence is a separate event).

John gives us the transparent version of Judas’s comments, exposing the greed at work behind his moralizing about how she should have sold the perfume to give money to the poor, rather than wasting it on Jesus’s feet. In discussion we’ll imagine the various reactions to what Mary did before contemplating whether or not we think it was warranted. Based on the story we know we should think what she did was right. But sitting in the story for a moment and trying on the awkward, overly-intimate feeling, we might wonder whether or not she should’ve gone with Judas’s plan.

But we should also imagine this from Mary’s perspective. Here she was, pouring out a year’s wages on Jesus’s head and feet, worshiping him with her generosity and honoring him with her possessions. John uses the word “anointed” purposefully here. In the Old Testament, anointing was a way to specially set someone apart for the work of God; kings were anointed for taking the throne, priests were anointed for fulfilling their priestly work for the people. Mary anoints Jesus prior to his work of atonement on the cross as an act of worship, anticipating how in less than a week he would pour out his life for her sake and for ours.

All of that will help us work through what effect radical generosity like this has on our relationship with Jesus. If we can imagine something comparable to Mary’s devotion, what would it be? If it earned us the same sort of criticism as Mary, if it seemed every bit as wasteful and even awkward, would we do it? And yet we should also consider, how might the exercise of such generosity change us? How might pouring out our possessions and finances and even our very lives help realize the proposal that Jesus is in fact worthy of such devotion?

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