race and peace to you from God, our Creator and Sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that abides in each of us.

For those of you who were here on Ash Wednesday, you might remember that I shared with you that I was excited about that day because it was also the first day of MLB Spring Training.  I even put on my Cubs hat and compared this Lenten Season to Spring Training and said both are a time for practicing and getting in shape for the real work to come.  After the service that night, one person said to me, “That was a different Ash Wednesday service.  This was fun!  Usually Ash Wednesday is so somber.”  And, you know, that person was right, don’t we usually associate the season of Lent with being serious and somber?  But, I would like to submit to you that, from a biblical perspective, we should also view Lent as a time of extravagance, pleasure, excessiveness, and exuberance.  Now, I know these aren’t the ideas that we usually associate with Lent, but as we focus on how to live our lives as those who imitate Jesus, I believe we need to see Lent as a time of preparing ourselves to be exuberant disciples that lavishly and excessively let our Christianity shine in this world.
 
As we look at our story today, it offers a great deal of meaning when we read it in the context of the entire Gospel of John.  Just prior to the beginning of our story we have been told that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  We are told that Jesus did this for God’s glory, so that others would come to believe, and many did.  But the religious leadership didn’t like what was happening, so they called a meeting.  Wow, things haven’t changed much in 2000 years, have they?  In this meeting, they issued a death warrant for his life.  But Jesus didn’t allow this to stop him.  He escaped and continued his ministry.  And now, just six days before Passover and his “hour,” that is, the time of his death, Jesus decided it was time for Him and his disciples to visit with Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha.

Wow!  Talk about a time of excessiveness and extravagance.  Jesus raised someone from the dead, the leadership decides to kill Him, and now in the midst of all this he decides that He should go back to where they want to kill him and eat with his friends.  Is this guy a glutton for punishment?  While having a meal with Lazarus, Lazarus’ sister, Mary, comes to Jesus to wash and anoint his feet.  Now, washing other people’s feet is not something most of us care to think about, let alone do.  It’s filthy, isn’t it?  I even read something recently that said that touching another person’s feet is one of the grossest acts most people can think of.  Would you agree with that?  I mean, if I told I had been wearing this sock for the past week or so, how many of you would want to touch it let alone touch my feet after I took off the sock?

I would contend most of us wash our feet every day when we take a shower or bath.  But in Jesus’ day, because most people wore sandals, it was proper to wash one’s feet before entering anyone’s home.  In general, most people washed their own feet, but a slave could be expected to wash and anoint the feet of another person.  In fact, washing or anointing the feet of another person remained identified with slavery, and those who voluntarily washed someone else's feet showed they were devoted enough to act as that person's slave.  We will see Jesus do this for His disciples on Maundy Thursday.

In this case, the act of Mary washing and anointing Jesus’ feet shows her absolute devotion to Jesus and then, to top it off, Mary brings a pound of expensive perfume that we are told was worth a year’s wages, which would have been about 300 denari.  By today’s standards, at a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, that would be $15,080 for a 40-hour work week.  Talk about excessive!  Mary's gift exceeds extravagance.

Now, remember Jesus is there with all his disciples, and as everyone observed what Mary was doing this extravagance proved to be too much for one of them.  Judas argued that that money could have been given to the poor and, quite frankly, I think he was right.  The world around them was filled with extreme poverty, and Jesus allowed this woman to wastefully dump this expensive perfume on him.  What a foolish act!  Why would Jesus allow such waste?

Well, I think the answer lies not only in the actions of these two disciples, Mary and Judas, but also in Jesus’ response.  Mary came and took action.  She lavishly showed her love for Jesus.  She excessively gave everything she had to Him so that He might continue His work, which she realized was God’s work.  Judas, on the other hand, gave lip service to his devotion to Jesus.  He wanted to do things his way and, as we will see later, when things did not go his way he jumped ship.  Judas’ pious comment evoked Jesus’ often misunderstood response, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me" (12:8).  Jesus was not diminishing the seriousness of poverty.  In fact, he was paraphrasing the Torah, “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’" (Deuteronomy 15:11).  Yes, we are commanded to give generously to the poor, but we are also expected to lavishly give thanks and praise to the One who will raise us from death so that we may serve in His kingdom.  In fact, I would argue the two are one and the same.  When we give generously to the poor, we are extravagantly expressing our love for God.  Just because Mary gave lavishly to Jesus did not mean she stopped serving others.  In fact, every time we hear of Mary and Martha in all four Gospels they are serving others.  Mary was giving thanks to the One who raised her brother from the dead, and she wanted Jesus to know that there was nothing that would stop her from being a servant of the Lord.  Mary’s act is one of true discipleship.
 
For the past four weeks, we have been talking about imitating Jesus, but today we are given a new example to imitate, Mary.  Mary showed us that in thanksgiving we are called to honor and love Jesus extravagantly.  Mary embraced the notion that, as true disciples, we are to offer our devotion to Jesus in nothing less than a costly way.  Caring for the poor is one way we can lavishly and extravagantly share our love for Jesus.  You know, yesterday morning I witnessed an incredible act of love and caring when I arrived at Luther Hall at about 9:00.  When Jill and I pulled up with our ten pounds of mashed potatoes for the Children’s Memorial Soup Kitchen I wondered what else was going on here because there were so many cars here.  As I walked into the kitchen, I discovered it was filled with many of you, gathering together all of the food that many more of you prepared or purchased for yesterday’s meal.  It was an incredible and extravagant sight!
 
As we come to the end of this Lenten Season, we have a decision to make.  Will we be like Judas and give lip service to our Lord and continue to seek to do things our way or will be become extravagant disciples who willingly and lavishly shower Jesus with our love by opening our hands and hearts to the poor and needy of our land?  The decision is ours to make.  Amen.