Church of the Holy City

And the House Was Filled with the Fragrance

And the House Was Filled with the Fragrance
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
March 21, 2010

Isaiah 43:16-21 John 12:1-8 Psalm 126

Today we heard about Mary anointing Jesus with expensive perfume. This happens at the home of Mary and Martha. Judas protests that anointing Jesus was a waste of money. He says that they could have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor. The Bible tells us that the value of the perfume was a whole year’s wages. This was a very costly display of love, indeed. Jesus replies, “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” These are the basic elements of the story.
This story is found in all the Gospels, but the characters are different in the different Gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is not at the home of Mary and Martha; He is at the home of a certain Simon the Leper. In Matthew, we are not told that it is Mary anointing Jesus, but an unknown woman. The Gospel of Mark agrees with Matthew. Jesus is at the home of Simon the Leper, and an unknown woman anoints Jesus with expensive perfume. Mark tells us that the perfume was nard, as it is in the Gospel of John. In the Gospels of John, Matthew, and Mark, we find the same saying of Jesus, “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” The Gospel of Luke is quite different from any of the other accounts. In Luke, Jesus is at the home of an unnamed Pharisee. And in this account, it is a sinful woman who anoints Jesus. The whole story is about forgiving the sins of this woman, and Jesus does not say anything about the poor.
It is interesting that in John’s Gospel, Jesus is at the home of Mary and Martha. John is the only Gospel that has Jesus there. There is some history between Jesus and this household. In the chapter just preceding this one, Jesus had raised their brother Lazarus from the dead. So we can understand why Mary was so grateful to Jesus, and why she might have wanted to show her love by anointing him with perfume. There is another account of Jesus’ relationship with Mary and Martha. This account comes from Luke. In this story, Jesus is invited to dine at their home. Martha is busy running around preparing the dinner while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to him teach. Martha complains that Mary is not helping, but Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better way by listening to Jesus. This may be a dim recollection of the time when Mary anoints Jesus, or it may be the other way around. Perhaps John recalls Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet and thus makes her the one who anoints Jesus in his story.
As our reading is from John this morning, I will focus on the story elements from that account. We have Mary showing her devotion to Jesus by anointing him with a kind of perfume called nard. This is the same Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet listening to Him teach in the Luke story. And in John’s account, We have Judas complaining that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. This agrees with the story in Matthew and Mark. And in all three accounts we have Jesus saying, “The poor you always have with you, you will not always have me.” John’s account is the only one who states that Judas is a thief and wants to purloin the money for himself. I will pass over this aspect of the story.
I think that this story tells us a great deal about the life of charity. In Mark and Matthew, the disciples are genuinely concerned about helping the poor. They are trying to get a handle on Jesus’ teachings about love for the neighbor. It must have confused them to hear Jesus telling them that pouring perfume on his feet was a beautiful gesture, and that they would always have the poor with them.
I take this to be a refinement of what the life of charity means. Swedenborg’s understanding of charity is very different than that of traditional Christians. Many traditional Christians think that the primary act of charity is just as the disciples saw it–giving money to the poor, and like causes. Swedenborg’s view is so different that modern translations don’t even use the term charity. Instead they use the term “goodwill.” So we find Swedenborg saying,
It is a common belief that goodwill consists solely of giving to the poor, helping the needy, caring for widows and orphans, and making contributions to build, enhance, and endow hospices, hospitals, hostels, orphanages, and especially church buildings. Many of these actions, however, are not integral to the exercise of good will; they are extraneous to it (TCR 425).
I think the disciple of Jesus, hearing him talk so often about just these things, must have thought that that was how to express their love for the neighbor.
But Jesus showed them another way. Devotion to Himself is inseparable from the life of goodwill. This is because all love for the neighbor comes from God. It isn’t as if Jesus needed to be honored. Rather, what He was pointing out is that turning to God is the first and primary activity of goodwill. This is what Mary was doing when she showed her love for Jesus by anointing Him with expensive perfume. Here, I think we can consider the cost of the perfume. The perfume cost a whole year’s wages. It is as if Mary is showing total devotion to Jesus. This teaches us that turning to God first is the way to find love to the neighbor. And turning to God means a total devotion to God. Our heavenly loves come to us from God. We need to turn to God as the source for all the holy loves that we experience. Swedenborg explains how love for God is the source of our love for the neighbor.
I will briefly explain how loving God and loving our neighbor are connected. With all of us, God flows into our concepts of him and brings us true acknowledgement of him. He also flows into us and brings us his love for people. . . . If we accept both types of inflow . . . we receive the inflow with our will and then our intellect–that is, with our whole mind. We then develop an inner acknowledgement of God that brings our concepts of God to life. Our state is then like a garden in the spring.
Goodwill makes the connection, because God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love, just as he inspires parents with love for their children. If we receive this love, we become connected to God and we love our neighbor our of love for God. Then we have love for God inside our love for our neighbor. Our love for God make us willing and able to love our neighbor (TCR 457).
So it is only by turning to God and opening our whole consciousness to God that we can truly love our neighbor. The work of regeneration is a process of bringing God more and more into all areas of our life. God is with everyone in the highest regions of our soul. But we need to bring that love and life down into our very behavior. We have several layers to our personality. We have a higher and a lower aspect to our soul. In our higher aspect, or what Swedenborg calls the internal person, we have all our higher aspirations about being good and showing others love and kindness. But having good feelings and good thoughts are not enough. We need to ask God into our lives so that we show and practice the love we aspire to. Bringing God down from the highest regions of our soul right down into the practices of our lives is the first, and primary work of charity, or goodwill.
God’s life is present in all its fullness not only in people who are good and religious but also in people who are evil and ungodly. . . . The difference is that evil people block the road and shut the door to prevent God from coming down into the lower areas of their mind. Good people, on the other hand, smooth the road and open the door. They invite God to enter the lower areas of their mind since he is already in the highest areas of it. They change the state of their will so that love and goodwill may flow in–they open themselves to God (TCR 366).
This, I think, is why Jesus praises Mary for anointing Him with costly perfume. It is to show that devotion and love for God is the first and primary aspect of charity, or goodwill. Then, and only then, are we truly able to love our neighbor. And the love we show is not just giving money to the poor, or endowing hospitals, or caring for orphans and widows. Rather, according to Swedenborg, “Goodwill is all the forms of good that we do for our neighbor combined” (TCR 392). Or again, “Fundamentally speaking, goodwill is wanting what is best for others” (TCR 408). “Goodwill is wishing our neighbors well and therefore treating them well” (TCR 444).
With love for God at the center of our life, then all our loves fall into a blessed heavenly order. Then all our actions are like the fragrance that filled the house. Everything we touch will turn to gold. God will be in us, and we will be in God. That is why Jesus praised Mary for sitting at His feet listening to Him teach. And that is why Jesus praised Mary for anointing Him with expensive perfume. Then, as Swedenborg puts it, “we have love for God inside our love for our neighbor (TCR 457).