Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Extravagant Love” Mark 11:1-11, 14:3-9

There are many ways to express love. In Japan, where public displays of affection are frowned upon, you might show your love for your husband by preparing an elaborate lunch and carefully packing it into a bento box to be unpacked later in the break room at work. In Fiji, if you are looking to make a special connection with your father-in-law or seek the forgiveness of someone whom you have wronged, then you would present them with the gift of a tabua—the ivory tooth of a sperm whale. In India, your love for someone and your hope that they might have good health and longevity is expressed in fasting on their behalf. In Alaska, the Tlingit people say that you know someone really loves you when they bring you dried fish.

We have our own ways of expressing love. When someone takes the time to learn our best-loved recipes and cook our favorite meal, we know we are loved. When a doting grandma plies her knitting needles or handpieces a quilt for us, we know we are loved. When a devoted dad spends hours teaching us how to play catch, build models, or tackle quadratic equations, we know we are loved. When someone proposes to us on the jumbotron at Yankee stadium in front of all those baseball fans, we know we are loved.

I suspect each of us has warm memories of feeling specially loved. Those loving moments can bring a smile to our worst day or feel like a lighthouse, guiding us through a storm. Love expressed at the right time, in the right way, may be just what we need to persevere and prevail over the hardship and sorrow that touch every life.

Our reading from Mark’s gospel describes a remarkable and timely act of love.

Jesus and his friends came to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. The week began with a parade. On Palm Sunday, Jesus, humble and riding on a donkey like the long-promised Prince of Peace (Zech 9:9), traveled up to the Holy City. The pilgrims that surrounded Jesus celebrated, rejoicing with psalms of praise and waving palm branches as if Jesus were one of the Maccabees, newly returned from vanquishing their enemies. They spread their cloaks upon the road, like Israel’s old-time generals pledging allegiance to the new king.

But that week, Jesus would be plagued by the challenge and critique of powerful enemies. Scribes and Pharisees, chief priests and elders, all did their best to discredit and shame Jesus in front of the crowds that seemed to love him so. Soon the city’s mood would turn murderous. Soon his opponents would plot his death. As the week drew to a close, there would be another parade. Jesus, broken and bloodied, would drag a crossbeam through the streets of Jerusalem to his execution. The fans who had welcomed him with pleas of “Hosanna! Save us!” would utterly reject him, shouting “Crucify him!”

Between the Palm Sunday and Good Friday parades, a beautiful thing happened. As Jesus and his friends dined at the house of Simon the Leper in Bethany, their dinner party was interrupted by an uninvited guest: an unnamed woman. She broke open an alabaster jar and poured anointing oil on Jesus. The spikenard was pressed from plants that grew in the foothills of the Himalayas. It had been transported 4,000 miles overland by caravan to Israel. So valuable was this oil that a laborer would need to work 300 days to cover the expense. In today’s economy, where a day laborer might earn $15 an hour, the oil would cost $36,000. Poured out in a single, wildly generous stream, the oil flowed down upon Jesus’ head and over the collar of his robe. The conversation fell silent as the room filled with the sweet fragrance of unimaginable love and generosity.

In first-century Israel, anointing with oil was a gesture of love. In welcoming a guest, a host would offer water for the washing of hands and feet and a few drops of oil to bless the head. In the history of Israel, anointing with oil was a sign of God’s love and blessing for a chosen ruler. When the Prophet Samuel laid eyes on David, he broke out the anointing oil and poured it out on the boy who would one day be king. And, as Jesus indicated, oil was used to anoint the body of a beloved one, purifying and preparing the dead for the grave.

Mark tells us that the men who broke bread with Jesus were outraged by the woman’s action. Indeed, they scolded and shamed her like a bad child or a simpleton. But I suspect that their anger flared less from any genuine concern for the poor and more from the realization that she had done without a single word what they had not. She acted as host, extending a courtesy that Simon the Leper failed to practice. She took on the historically male role of prophet and proclaimed Jesus the Messiah. And she named the elephant in the room: the week would end in death. In the verses leading up to this story, Jesus’ enemies plotted his arrest and execution. In the verses following this story, Judas would accept a bribe to bring about betrayal. In three days, in the time of crisis, not one of the men reclining around the dinner table would come to Jesus’ defense.

Jesus came to the woman’s defense. He spends four verses praising the appropriateness and the timeliness of what she did. Jesus knew the dark truth that he’d soon be hanging from a cross. As the precious oil flowed down, I imagine that Jesus felt extravagantly loved. Like a Japanese husband opening his carefully packed lunchbox. Like a Tlingit person, feasting on the gift of dried fish. Like a child wrapped in Grammy’s homemade quilt. In the darkness of that night, Jesus might have felt as if the sun were shining on him.  Perhaps it was the last time in his earthly life that Jesus felt truly loved—special, safe, treasured, appreciated, and understood.

We instinctively know that there is nothing better than extravagant love.  We seize it in the moment and wrap it around us like a fiery mantle of glory.  We hold it in our hearts as a remedy for the days when we are bullied at school or our best friend decides they’re not going to talk to us anymore or the boss is expecting the impossible or the nightly news leaves us shaking in our boots. Extravagant love is our lifeline in a world where folks want to set limits and attach strings, like the dinner guests buzzing like a nest of angry hornets about the foolishness and waste of what the woman did for Jesus.

Our world tends to limit love, to mete it out in tablespoons, to reserve it for those who “earn” it or “deserve” it, to lavish it upon the successful and the popular and the beautiful. But the unnamed woman with her alabaster jar of costly nard reminds us that God doesn’t work that way. Jesus didn’t work that way.  Jesus lavished his love upon six-year-olds and sinners.  He poured out his love upon unnamed women and Judas.  He lavished his love upon the blind and lame, the deaf and demented, the paralyzed and possessed.  Jesus poured out his life in extravagant love for you and for me.  Jesus taught us that our highest and only calling in life is to love God and neighbor and self with all that we have and all that we are. 

When we get right down to it, the woman with the alabaster jar knew, Jesus knew, we know that our essential calling is to love extravagantly.  It’s only our brokenness that makes us want to turn away from the invitation to love.  It’s only our sinfulness that prompts us to attach the strings, break out the tape measure, turn a harsh eye of judgment to the world around us, and debate who is really worthy of our generous and loving intent. But we, my friends, are called to love without counting the cost.

The woman with the alabaster jar disappears from the pages of scripture. We never see or hear from her again. Although all four gospels report that a woman anointed Jesus, they don’t agree upon who she was or why she did it or even what part of his body got anointed. Was it the head or was it the feet? But we remember her and the rightness and timeliness of her love. I like to imagine that after she left the home of Simon the Leper, with cheeks flushed by the shame heaped upon her by the men, she shook off the criticism. She held in her heart the words of Jesus. She knew that she had done a beautiful thing. Later, she imagined that as Jesus hung upon the cross, he held onto her love, that it guided him like a lighthouse through the storm, like a lifeline amid the pain and unfathomable sorrow. She continued to love with body, mind, spirit, and every last denarii, despite what the critics had to say.

Let us love extravagantly.

Resources:

Jouette Basler. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 14:3-9” in Feasting on the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Paul S. Berge, “Commentary on Mark 11:1-11, 14:3-9” in Preaching This Week: Narrative Lectionary, April 1, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 11:1-10, Mark 14:3-11  – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

C. Clifton Black. “Commentary on Mark 11:1-11, 14:3-9” in Preaching This Week: Narrative Lectionary, March 20, 2016. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 11:1-11 or Mark 14:3-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Thomas Currie. “Theological Perspective on Mark 14:3-9” in Feasting on the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Carmen Nanko-Fernandez. “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 14:3-9” in Feasting on the Gospels: Mark. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.

Editorial Team. “Exploring Affection: How Different Cultures Show Love” in Better Help, March 21, 2024.

Mark 11:1-11, 14:3-9

11When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples ²and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. ³If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” ⁴They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, ⁵some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. ⁷Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. ⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

“Hosanna!Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
¹⁰Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

¹¹Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

³While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. ⁴But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? ⁵For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ⁶But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. ⁷For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. ⁸She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. ⁹Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”