Priceless & Imperfect: A Community of Grace

Brad Sullivan

5 Lent, Year C

March 13, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Philippians 3:4b-14

John 12:1-8

Priceless & Imperfect:  A Community of Grace

As Mary was anointing Jesus with costly perfume, Judas was complaining that she was wasting the perfume, that instead it should have been sold, and the money given to the poor.  Ok, he’s got a fair point, one which would have been better taken if he hadn’t been lying and stealing money from the common purse.  The perfume cost 300 denarii, that’s almost a year’s worth of wages.  In modern terms, let’s call it $50,000 worth of perfume that Mary poured onto Jesus’ feet.  That certainly does seem extravagant.  $50,000 could have gone a long way to helping out those in need.  In the three other Gospels, Jesus even teaches to do just that.

In Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18, there was a young man who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life, and as the man had many possessions, Jesus said, “Go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, then come, and follow me.”  Here, Judas is saying that Mary should have done exactly what Jesus taught this young man in the other three gospels, and Jesus says – “No, leave her alone.  You will always have the poor with you; you will not always have me.  Mary has done right, being with me here now, using this perfume for my burial.”

Savor this time you’ve got with me, Jesus was saying, because I’m going to be crucified pretty soon.  “Slow down little sheep,” Jesus was saying.  You should indeed serve those in need.  Of course you should.  If you’re not serving those in need, you’re missing out on a big part of what it is to be the church, but don’t become so consumed with serving others that you neglect the love of those with whom you are serving.”

The need and the desire to serve those in need has been something I’ve talked about a lot at St. Mark’s.  I’ve focused a lot of my thought, study, and prayer to ways we can serve.  So, as I hear today’s Gospel, I hear Jesus speaking to me saying, “Slow down little sheep.  You should indeed serve those in need, but don’t become so consumed with serving others that you neglect the love of those with whom you are serving.”

Look around you.  I know you know who is there, but take a look again anyway.  We’ve got a great church here, a church of wonderful people.  We do indeed have a mission to serve others.  We also have a mission to love each other deeply.  We have a mission to appreciate one another. 

We always have people whom we can and should serve, and we should serve them.  Our service is made greater, however, when it comes not just from ourselves, not only from a compassionate desire to serve others, but when our service also comes from people who love each other and love spending time together. 

In the Gospel story today, Jesus and his friends were having a meal together.  Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, a family who loved Jesus, invited him over for dinner.  They took them time to spend time with those they loved.  As the church, at St. Mark’s, we’re called to give each other our time as well, to spend time together with those whom we love, and those whom we have a hard time loving, because both are part of our beloved family.  We always have people whom we can serve.  We don’t always have each other. 

Right now, our vestry is working on maintenance and restoration of our church building.  Last Wednesday, we met with Bob Schorr, the diocesan Manager of Church Plants and Strategic Development.  We walked through our campus seeing what needed to be done, and dreaming about what could be done to restore and improve our church campus for us and for the next many generations.  Our vestry is going to be working hard over the coming months to develop a plan for this work, and I encourage us all to pray for our vestry and the work they have been given for this church and for our campus.

During this same time, in these next two weeks of Lent and in the Easter season that follows, I invite us also to work on restoration and improvement of our relationships.  I’ve heard it said over and over that St. Mark’s is a place where the people obviously love each other.  That’s true.  There are of course conflicts and strained relationships.  We’re a family, that’s going to happen.  We are above all, though, a family that loves each other and that cares for each other. 

We’re a family who really understands what Mary did in our Gospel passage.  We may not wipe each others’ feet with our hair, but we understand the time and the cost that Mary took to care for Jesus.  We get that because we’re a family that cares for each other.  So I encourage us to keep nurturing that love we have for each other, because here, and in our relationships here, we find more than service.  We find Jesus, and having this community where we can love each other and encounter Jesus in each other is far more precious than $50,000 of costly perfume. This week, I got to remember how precious this community is.  This week, we all get to remember. 

This week, we hear Jesus saying to us, “Slow down little sheep.  You should indeed serve those in need, but don’t become so consumed with serving others, that you neglect the love of those with whom you are serving.”  Spend your money and your time with each other and on each other.  When we are here and with each other, we encounter Jesus.  When we are here and with each other, we experience grace.  We love each other imperfectly and letting each other down sometimes too, but then, that’s what grace is all about, isn’t it. 

$50,000 worth of perfume?  That’s a lot of money that could have been spend on those in need.  A community of grace, where we love one another imperfectly and encounter Jesus with and among each other?  You can’t put a price tag on that.  Amen.