Fill Me Up and Pour Me Out
I’m going to start out in a non conventional way today. Instead of
reading the scripture today I am going to tell you one story that comes from three scriptures. The scripture story is about The Anointing of Christ at Bethany. It comes from the gospel of Mark 14: 1-7, the gospel of John 12:1-9 and the gospel of Matthew:26:6-13. Here is the story along with a little detail that I imagine must have happened too.
Come with me to the land of Israel in the time of Jesus our Savior. It was spring and the days were warming up and the shrubs were beginning to bud. By day you could wear your light robes and open sandals but the nights were still cold and the people were still eating and sleeping indoors. Jesus was always traveling in those days and six days before the Feast of the Passover Jesus came to stay in the town of Bethany. Bethany was a little suburb about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. Jesus had been there many times and it was a place where he could relax and get away from the drama that sometimes followed him in Jerusalem. He had a lot of friends there. He had a friend named Lazarus whom he had recently raised from the dead and he had a friend named Simon whom he had healed of leprosy. Needless to say many people in Bethany opened their doors to him when he was in town. One of his friends was a woman called Mary. You may remember her. She was the sister of Lazarus. And she was also the sister of Martha who got mad at her one day for not helping with a dinner party they were throwing for Jesus. We all know that story. Mary was made of pretty strong stuff and we know from that tiff with her sister that she was not afraid stand up and follow the voice of God within her.
Now Mary had heard something very disturbing about her friend Jesus. She had heard that he was in danger. We don’t know how she knew. Maybe she was there when Jesus said that he had a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of him. Maybe she was close at hand in Jerusalem when he said that the people where trying to kill him. Maybe she heard people talking at the Market saying that they heard Jesus say that he would only be around a little longer and that where he was going no one would be able to find him. But once she heard that Jesus was in danger she had a nagging feeling that she had to do something for him. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to protect him. Anyway she had heard that a couple of his disciples had taken to carrying swords to defend him. He didn’t need another body guard. Mary knew that she could give him a gift and she knew she had one thing of great value. She went to her room and found a beautiful jar. It was a jar made of alabaster. It was the color of sweet cream and it was made from a rare stone that came out of Egypt. It was filled with a very expensive and equally rare perfume from India called Essence of Nard. She was being driven by a force within her to give this precious gift to Jesus. She had felt that force before and she knew it was God leading her to where she must go.
If she had talked to anyone and said she was going to give this gift to Jesus many, maybe even most people, would have told her she was crazy. “Who is this Jesus anyway?” they would say. “Nobody even knows where he comes from. And people are saying that he is demon possessed. Mary, don’t be giving HIM your special perfume!” And some might have told her to save this perfume for her father or her mother. In those days this perfume was kept for anointing the dead before funerals. There clearly was no funeral for Jesus and anyway, she should keep it for someone special in her family. They would remind her to not be impulsive and break it open because there is no way to close it back up once it was open. The most expensive perfume in the world would be ruined. No, Mary didn’t have to talk to anyone to know that she would be severely judged for giving Jesus this perfume. But judged or not she felt driven to give him this gift and she would do it.
But how was she going to get it to him? She knew that he was going to be having dinner with friends. She didn’t want to barge in uninvited but she had to give this gift before he left town. Jesus had been behaving strangely and moving around a lot. It was almost like he was hiding from someone. He would be somewhere one day and then be gone the next. So uninvited or not she took her alabaster jar and she went to the house where he was having dinner. She walked into the dining room and the table was filled. His friends had all come and his disciples were all there too. She came in and stood before Jesus. With everyone staring at her, she took out her alabaster jar and she broke it open. The smell of the perfume filled the whole room. Then what she did next shocked everyone. She poured the perfume on his head. Jesus did not move. It was as if he had been waiting for her to come. She poured all of the perfume on his head and then she was done. She had given her most valued possession to Jesus.
Then the judgment that she feared would come, did come. Some of those at the table were indignant. “Why waste such expensive perfume?” they asked. “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!” They scolded her harshly. It was the custom in those days to give money to the poor before the Passover Feast. They thought she was being wasteful because of this. The disciple, Judas Iscariot, was especially verbal about this point because he had already decided to betray Jesus and he was doing anything he could to keep looking innocent to the crowd.
But Jesus replied in her defense, “Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth, whenever the Good News is preached through out the world; this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”
Mary left the house where the dinner was held and she went to her own home and she cried. She had not thought at all that she was preparing her friend, her teacher and the man she believed to be the Son of God, for his burial. He was in more danger than she had thought. She was sad and more than a little confused. Jesus was not ill. Indeed he was very much alive but he had clearly just talked about his own burial as if it was coming soon. Mary knew the traditions around burial and knew that even if the worst happened and he was murdered by his enemies he would be anointed with perfume again. That was the custom and custom was everything. No one would forget to do this. She found some comfort in knowing that what she had done, she did because God had spoken to her and led her. With this knowledge, peace came over her and her confusion left her.
What we know and what Mary could not have known, was that Jesus would die by crucifixion. He would be put to death as a criminal. In those days the only people who were not anointed before their burial were people who died as criminals. That night, she had done what no one else would be able to do later on. And all of this happened because she listened to God.
What is God saying to us in this story? Clearly Mary is a model for a righteous and devote person. We admire her for her willingness to listen to God, her unwavering belief in Jesus and her devotion to him. We admire her for her courage to follow her beliefs, to go out of her comfort zone and to face certain criticism because of what she did. We like Mary and as we listen to her story, we cheer her on: “You go girl! Don’t back down! Keep going! You can do it! Stand tall and don’t let them push you down!” We need her kind of strength and her unfailing belief today more than at any time. Because these are hard times and we are being pushed and stressed everywhere we turn. We want her backbone and strong mind but most of all we want to walk with God the way that she did.
This story nudges us to be like Mary and we couldn’t do better in our Christian journey than to strive for that. But like so many things we read in the Bible, there is a story behind the story. We know that a mustard seed is more than a mustard seed, that a vineyard is more than a vineyard, and that a gate is more than a gate. The mustard seed is faith. The vineyard is the Lord’s chosen people and the gate is Jesus Christ. I think if Jesus had had more time he would have turned to his disciples, as he so often did, and said, “What do you think this really means?” But in the town of Bethany, six days before the Feast of Passover he was almost out of time. So it is up to us to find the story within the story. Is the jar just a jar? Is the perfume just perfume? And are the critics just critics?
We already see that Mary was an extraordinary woman because she let herself be a vessel to carry an enormous amount of love to Jesus who needed it at that moment. She was the alabaster jar; that special container that opened her heart and soul up to carry a priceless gift. That priceless gift was within her and it was God’s love. It was given to her in excess by God so that she could give it away. The only way she could give her love to Jesus was to open up her heart. Her heart was not like a corked bottle. She couldn’t open a little and give a little and close up again. She broke herself open and poured out her love to Jesus. In this way the great commandment to Love One Another was put into action for us to understand.
We see that her critics where indignant. They admonished her. They scolded her for opening up her heart and pouring out its’ contents. Her critics were the jar closers. We all know jar closers. They are people who ask us why we get up at the crack of dawn to go to church when we could be getting some rest or reading the Tribune. They tear us up for going to Bible study instead of going to watch a game at the Sports Bar. They encourage us to get behind office gossip and do some tearing down instead of some building up. In little and big ways they encourage us to close up our hearts and shut down our love. That is the way it is with jar closers.
But let’s be honest. It is not always someone else that shuts us down. We can just as easily do it ourselves. We get caught up in our physical or emotional pain. We can get shut down and we can let our fear close us up. We withdraw and feel low. Our smile is only skin deep. We hope no one notices. This can happen in hard times like these. We have more trials than we are used to and more hard news than we can bear. I know about this because I am not just Sister Maggie. I am also Main Street USA. I am one of the self employed Americans who is worried that my part of Main Street is going to be closed. After writing this sermon, I put a note in front of my desk that says: Keep Your Jar Open, Somebody Needs Your Love. I can close my jar and close up my love because I am anxious but there is a price. I start to feel less alive. The strange thing about this love inside me is that it only feels good when I take the cork out. I think that is because God gets happy when his love can be poured out. Somebody I don’t know needs my real smile and the love that flows so naturally with it. God needs me to pull them away from their despair. I’m not all of that but God’s love Is ALL of THAT.
You are the precious and rare vessel that carries the most valuable thing on earth. You are God’s love carrier. He has filled you up so that you can pour yourself out to someone in this church, to someone in your family, to someone you know or to someone you haven’t met yet. Mary had her time and her place. Now you are just right and this is the right time for you. There is no one more prepared and ready to carry his love. God has filled you with his love for this time and for this place. He needs you to be his alabaster jar because there are so many that need his love. Let’s all throw out our corks and pour everything we have out. It makes God happy and we will get more love because his is the love that never ends.
Turn to your neighbor and say:
Keep your jar open-Somebody Needs your love.
Turn to your neighbor on your other side and say:
Keep your jar open-I need your love.
I’m going to start out in a non conventional way today. Instead of
reading the scripture today I am going to tell you one story that comes from three scriptures. The scripture story is about The Anointing of Christ at Bethany. It comes from the gospel of Mark 14: 1-7, the gospel of John 12:1-9 and the gospel of Matthew:26:6-13. Here is the story along with a little detail that I imagine must have happened too.
Come with me to the land of Israel in the time of Jesus our Savior. It was spring and the days were warming up and the shrubs were beginning to bud. By day you could wear your light robes and open sandals but the nights were still cold and the people were still eating and sleeping indoors. Jesus was always traveling in those days and six days before the Feast of the Passover Jesus came to stay in the town of Bethany. Bethany was a little suburb about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. Jesus had been there many times and it was a place where he could relax and get away from the drama that sometimes followed him in Jerusalem. He had a lot of friends there. He had a friend named Lazarus whom he had recently raised from the dead and he had a friend named Simon whom he had healed of leprosy. Needless to say many people in Bethany opened their doors to him when he was in town. One of his friends was a woman called Mary. You may remember her. She was the sister of Lazarus. And she was also the sister of Martha who got mad at her one day for not helping with a dinner party they were throwing for Jesus. We all know that story. Mary was made of pretty strong stuff and we know from that tiff with her sister that she was not afraid stand up and follow the voice of God within her.
Now Mary had heard something very disturbing about her friend Jesus. She had heard that he was in danger. We don’t know how she knew. Maybe she was there when Jesus said that he had a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of him. Maybe she was close at hand in Jerusalem when he said that the people where trying to kill him. Maybe she heard people talking at the Market saying that they heard Jesus say that he would only be around a little longer and that where he was going no one would be able to find him. But once she heard that Jesus was in danger she had a nagging feeling that she had to do something for him. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to protect him. Anyway she had heard that a couple of his disciples had taken to carrying swords to defend him. He didn’t need another body guard. Mary knew that she could give him a gift and she knew she had one thing of great value. She went to her room and found a beautiful jar. It was a jar made of alabaster. It was the color of sweet cream and it was made from a rare stone that came out of Egypt. It was filled with a very expensive and equally rare perfume from India called Essence of Nard. She was being driven by a force within her to give this precious gift to Jesus. She had felt that force before and she knew it was God leading her to where she must go.
If she had talked to anyone and said she was going to give this gift to Jesus many, maybe even most people, would have told her she was crazy. “Who is this Jesus anyway?” they would say. “Nobody even knows where he comes from. And people are saying that he is demon possessed. Mary, don’t be giving HIM your special perfume!” And some might have told her to save this perfume for her father or her mother. In those days this perfume was kept for anointing the dead before funerals. There clearly was no funeral for Jesus and anyway, she should keep it for someone special in her family. They would remind her to not be impulsive and break it open because there is no way to close it back up once it was open. The most expensive perfume in the world would be ruined. No, Mary didn’t have to talk to anyone to know that she would be severely judged for giving Jesus this perfume. But judged or not she felt driven to give him this gift and she would do it.
But how was she going to get it to him? She knew that he was going to be having dinner with friends. She didn’t want to barge in uninvited but she had to give this gift before he left town. Jesus had been behaving strangely and moving around a lot. It was almost like he was hiding from someone. He would be somewhere one day and then be gone the next. So uninvited or not she took her alabaster jar and she went to the house where he was having dinner. She walked into the dining room and the table was filled. His friends had all come and his disciples were all there too. She came in and stood before Jesus. With everyone staring at her, she took out her alabaster jar and she broke it open. The smell of the perfume filled the whole room. Then what she did next shocked everyone. She poured the perfume on his head. Jesus did not move. It was as if he had been waiting for her to come. She poured all of the perfume on his head and then she was done. She had given her most valued possession to Jesus.
Then the judgment that she feared would come, did come. Some of those at the table were indignant. “Why waste such expensive perfume?” they asked. “It could have been sold for a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!” They scolded her harshly. It was the custom in those days to give money to the poor before the Passover Feast. They thought she was being wasteful because of this. The disciple, Judas Iscariot, was especially verbal about this point because he had already decided to betray Jesus and he was doing anything he could to keep looking innocent to the crowd.
But Jesus replied in her defense, “Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth, whenever the Good News is preached through out the world; this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”
Mary left the house where the dinner was held and she went to her own home and she cried. She had not thought at all that she was preparing her friend, her teacher and the man she believed to be the Son of God, for his burial. He was in more danger than she had thought. She was sad and more than a little confused. Jesus was not ill. Indeed he was very much alive but he had clearly just talked about his own burial as if it was coming soon. Mary knew the traditions around burial and knew that even if the worst happened and he was murdered by his enemies he would be anointed with perfume again. That was the custom and custom was everything. No one would forget to do this. She found some comfort in knowing that what she had done, she did because God had spoken to her and led her. With this knowledge, peace came over her and her confusion left her.
What we know and what Mary could not have known, was that Jesus would die by crucifixion. He would be put to death as a criminal. In those days the only people who were not anointed before their burial were people who died as criminals. That night, she had done what no one else would be able to do later on. And all of this happened because she listened to God.
What is God saying to us in this story? Clearly Mary is a model for a righteous and devote person. We admire her for her willingness to listen to God, her unwavering belief in Jesus and her devotion to him. We admire her for her courage to follow her beliefs, to go out of her comfort zone and to face certain criticism because of what she did. We like Mary and as we listen to her story, we cheer her on: “You go girl! Don’t back down! Keep going! You can do it! Stand tall and don’t let them push you down!” We need her kind of strength and her unfailing belief today more than at any time. Because these are hard times and we are being pushed and stressed everywhere we turn. We want her backbone and strong mind but most of all we want to walk with God the way that she did.
This story nudges us to be like Mary and we couldn’t do better in our Christian journey than to strive for that. But like so many things we read in the Bible, there is a story behind the story. We know that a mustard seed is more than a mustard seed, that a vineyard is more than a vineyard, and that a gate is more than a gate. The mustard seed is faith. The vineyard is the Lord’s chosen people and the gate is Jesus Christ. I think if Jesus had had more time he would have turned to his disciples, as he so often did, and said, “What do you think this really means?” But in the town of Bethany, six days before the Feast of Passover he was almost out of time. So it is up to us to find the story within the story. Is the jar just a jar? Is the perfume just perfume? And are the critics just critics?
We already see that Mary was an extraordinary woman because she let herself be a vessel to carry an enormous amount of love to Jesus who needed it at that moment. She was the alabaster jar; that special container that opened her heart and soul up to carry a priceless gift. That priceless gift was within her and it was God’s love. It was given to her in excess by God so that she could give it away. The only way she could give her love to Jesus was to open up her heart. Her heart was not like a corked bottle. She couldn’t open a little and give a little and close up again. She broke herself open and poured out her love to Jesus. In this way the great commandment to Love One Another was put into action for us to understand.
We see that her critics where indignant. They admonished her. They scolded her for opening up her heart and pouring out its’ contents. Her critics were the jar closers. We all know jar closers. They are people who ask us why we get up at the crack of dawn to go to church when we could be getting some rest or reading the Tribune. They tear us up for going to Bible study instead of going to watch a game at the Sports Bar. They encourage us to get behind office gossip and do some tearing down instead of some building up. In little and big ways they encourage us to close up our hearts and shut down our love. That is the way it is with jar closers.
But let’s be honest. It is not always someone else that shuts us down. We can just as easily do it ourselves. We get caught up in our physical or emotional pain. We can get shut down and we can let our fear close us up. We withdraw and feel low. Our smile is only skin deep. We hope no one notices. This can happen in hard times like these. We have more trials than we are used to and more hard news than we can bear. I know about this because I am not just Sister Maggie. I am also Main Street USA. I am one of the self employed Americans who is worried that my part of Main Street is going to be closed. After writing this sermon, I put a note in front of my desk that says: Keep Your Jar Open, Somebody Needs Your Love. I can close my jar and close up my love because I am anxious but there is a price. I start to feel less alive. The strange thing about this love inside me is that it only feels good when I take the cork out. I think that is because God gets happy when his love can be poured out. Somebody I don’t know needs my real smile and the love that flows so naturally with it. God needs me to pull them away from their despair. I’m not all of that but God’s love Is ALL of THAT.
You are the precious and rare vessel that carries the most valuable thing on earth. You are God’s love carrier. He has filled you up so that you can pour yourself out to someone in this church, to someone in your family, to someone you know or to someone you haven’t met yet. Mary had her time and her place. Now you are just right and this is the right time for you. There is no one more prepared and ready to carry his love. God has filled you with his love for this time and for this place. He needs you to be his alabaster jar because there are so many that need his love. Let’s all throw out our corks and pour everything we have out. It makes God happy and we will get more love because his is the love that never ends.
Turn to your neighbor and say:
Keep your jar open-Somebody Needs your love.
Turn to your neighbor on your other side and say:
Keep your jar open-I need your love.
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