Giving our Best - Fifth Sunday in Lent
Author: Pastor Scott Schul
April 06, 2025
Today’s Gospel and the tender story of Mary anointing Jesus is bookended by two murder conspiracies. To set the scene, it was six days before Passover. Jerusalem would be overflowing with pious pilgrims and revolutionary rabblerousers. The chief priests and the Pharisees needed to maintain order, both to preserve their own power and authority, and to keep their Roman military occupiers from overreacting with a violent crackdown.
For those chief priests and Pharisees, there was one person above all others who had proven himself to be unpredictable and uncontrollable: the upstart carpenter’s son from Nazareth, Jesus. Of all the forces and movements that were creating chaos and instability, Jesus was the one they most feared. And so as they met together in the temple, they formulated a plan. Jesus must be arrested. Jesus must die.
Up to that point in the story, finding an opportunity to apprehend Jesus had proven difficult. He always seemed to be surrounded by an adoring crowd. They would have to wait for the right time, when he was alone, vulnerable, and isolated. But in the meantime, those leaders hatched a second conspiratorial plot. Let’s murder Lazarus.
Lazarus? What had he done? Well, nothing at all. But when Jesus brought him back to life, Lazarus became the biggest, brightest sign of Jesus’s power. Every day Lazarus lived was another day that people would be reminded of Jesus’s supernatural power, a power the chief priests and Pharisees did not possess. And so in the verses immediately following today’s Gospel lesson, they all agreed that they must also murder Lazarus.
So how did all those plans and conspiracies play out? In the case of Lazarus, tradition tells us that he caught wind of the price on his head, was safely smuggled out of the country, and made a new life on the island of Cyprus, where he eventually served as a bishop and several decades later died for a second and final time, of natural causes.
And what about Jesus? We all know what happened there. Jesus would be arrested less than a week after the events of today’s Gospel lesson, and after a sham trial he would be executed by crucifixion. That conspiracy would succeed. They would indeed kill Jesus. But in doing so, could they kill the movement he started? We know the answer to that question too. Jesus would overcome death itself and inspire his followers to new feats of bravery, devotion, and commitment. A worldwide movement would gradually, relentlessly, form and build. And so, quite predictably, its opponents would trot out the same old playbook. Kill the disciples. Kill the succeeding generations of Christians. Kill them all, until everyone was too terrified or too dead to believe in Jesus.
But that also didn’t work. Tertullian, an important early Christian writer and theologian, explains why in a letter he wrote in 197 to the governors of the Roman Empire: “We are not a new philosophy but a divine revelation. That's why you can't just exterminate us; the more you kill the more we are. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” 1
And yet there’s no question that by many measures, Christianity is in decline throughout much of world, and particularly here in the West. Why is that? It’s because the forces that oppose Jesus finally learned that you can’t kill his movement by killing him or his followers. It only makes the Church stronger and more resilient. Instead, they found a more subtle and far more effective strategy to weaken Christians and Christianity. Take Christianity and tame it. Domesticate it. Refashion it from a cosmic force of
salvation, transformation, and spiritual healing into a mere philosophy, or a tool of politicians. Turn it into just another consumer preference, like your favorite brand of clothes, your preferred peanut butter, or your favorite style of music. Make it just one of a thousand choices people make every day, something that demands nothing of them and calls for no sacrifice at all, something one can easily choose or set aside as the mood strikes.
How do you respond to a strategy as devastatingly effective as that? The answer is in today’s Gospel lesson, in Mary, the sister of Lazarus. She was the one who anointed Jesus with the costly ointment of pure nard, an expensive, luxurious, richly fragrant oil from India. A pound cost as much as a laborer made in an entire year. And there she was, just pouring it out on Jesus’s feet and wiping it with her own hair.
Many today would criticize her just as Judas did. “Mary, why are you doing this? It’s the best and most valuable thing you had to give and now it’s gone. You could’ve sold it and given the money to the poor.” I’m sure you could easily find a few people in town here today who would similarly criticize our expenditures on this church or our communion ware. “Sell it all and give it to the poor,” they’d argue. Or maybe they’d say that anyone who devotes their life and career to proclaiming the teachings of a dead man from 2,000 years ago must be delusional. “You pastors should be doing something more productive with your time and talents.” And maybe they’d see you and the hours of service you provide to your church and the offerings you generously give so we can do ministry, and they’d look you in the eye and say, “You’re wasting your time and money.”
Of course, we know Judas didn’t really care about the poor; he was already embezzling from the common purse. And many nowadays who critique the Christian Church are not doing so because of their commitment to loving and serving their neighbors. They just can’t understand why anyone would give their absolute best to Jesus. It doesn’t seem logical. Maybe there are times when you’ve struggled with the very same question.
Certainly if we give our best to exalt ourselves, stoke our egos, or attract attention, we’re no better than Judas. But Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 2 That means we don’t play it safe. We don’t hold back. We don’t hedge our bets or treat Jesus as just another choice or preference. In response to his astonishing grace and mercy, he calls us to honor and worship him by giving him our
very best, just like Mary did. Only when we empty ourselves in love and commitment to our Lord can we then, with equal commitment, embrace the second great commandment by loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Let me be clear: this sermon isn’t some sly way to get you to donate more money. The money we give to support the Church’s ministries is just a tiny portion of what it means to give Jesus our best. A far more critical question is whether we are giving Jesus the best of our time, our talents, our attention, our devotion, and our heart. As Mary demonstrated, that can open you up to criticism. It demands vulnerability, trust, and courage to forego the praise of the world and keep your eyes on Jesus alone.
But aren’t we saved by grace and not our works? Sure. But this isn’t about earning God’s love or avoiding divine punishment. God loved us from the beginning of time and that’ll never end. You see, this isn’t for God’s benefit; it’s for ours. Of all the people in today’s Gospel, who had the life most full of meaning, spiritual joy, and true freedom? Mary. Because she gave Jesus the best she had to offer. If you want a life overflowing with meaning, purpose, spiritual joy, and true freedom, Mary shows the
way. Don’t give God your leftovers. Don’t hold back or play it safe. Lavishly, extravagantly, without any fear, give God your very best. Amen.
Citations:
1 Tertullian, Apologeticum, available online at www.tertullian.org/works/apologeticum.htm
2 See Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-28.
© 2025 Rev. Scott E. Schul, all rights reserved
Gospel Text: John 12:1-8
1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the
common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
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