Extravagant Revolution

by Pastor Chad Hyatt

"Mary took a pound
of costly perfume
made of pure nard,
anointed Jesus's feet,
and wiped them with her hair.
The house was filled
with the fragrance
of the perfume.."

JOHN 12.3

Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, washed the feet of Jesus, anointing them with expensive perfume.

Later in the Gospel, Jesus will wash the feet of his disciples. 

I believe Jesus draws inspiration for his own act of foot washing from Mary’s extravagant and radical act of hospitality. 

Authentic hospitality, such as Mary embodies for us in this story, is always lavish and gratuitous. 

It’s not quality-controlled or studied for efficiency. 

It’s not up for vote by committee. 

It’s simply a boundless overflowing of love for another, particularly for the stranger and those far from home. 

And wouldn’t you know it, of course Mary is judged and publicly shamed for her gracious generosity toward Jesus. 

Radical welcome and profligate hospitality offends those who don’t want to join in the abundance of this kind of open table for themselves. 

Even when lavished on the feet of Jesus, such hospitality is too much for some.

Better spent on the poor, they say but do not mean.

Even though Jesus himself is poor and about to face the extreme poverty of a sham trial and torture by the authorities and is on his way to execution by the empire.

In fact, there is a hint of the cross already here. But not just in Jesus’ sense that Mary is already preparing him for burial. 

The cross also looms in the way that those with power in the little group of disciples deem her free act of love and caring as inappropriate and wasteful. 

One of the details I love most in this story is that Jesus defends Maryagainst Judas’ resentment and greed. 

He took her side before he took her place as one who washes feet. 

When Jesus washes his disciples’ feet later at the last supper, he is clearly trying to help his community imagine a different, more subversive way of being human together. 

Such open welcome and compassionate leadership is more than perhaps their—or our—world wants to allow. 

And just to be clear, ‘the poor you will have with you always’ is an invitation to do mercy and act justly—not an excuse not to. 

Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, which commands us to open our hands in generosity to our sisters and brothers who are caught in the grip of crushing poverty. 

Mary of Bethany is open-handed. She sees something that no one else sees. 

She discerns for us a way that enters into the heart of Jesus, into the heart of love.

This is a way that all those who hold power or status around her fail to see, even among the disciples. 

But Jesus sees.

A lavish hospitality that embraces caring for human beings bodily, including our tired and weary feet, is the only real way for us to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

It is the only way to a new world.

This reflection is an edited version of one that originally appeared in our 2022 Lenten Devotional.