Heaven Scent- Rev. Wallace W. Bubar- April 6,2025
The Rev. Wallace W. Bubar
First Presbyterian Church
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year C
April 6, 2025
Heaven Scent
So you walk into Macy’s, over at Easton. You come into the fragrances department. And they’ve got all these people behind the counter spraying those testers around, right? Chanel. Dior. Lancome. Waving those little cardboard things back and forth.
I don’t know how in the world they can stand it, working there all day. I mean, they’re nice scents—in small doses, mind you. But in that quantity, it’s just overwhelming.
I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect that’s kind of like how it would have smelled that evening in Bethany, when Mary poured out her perfume all over Jesus’ feet. And the fragrance filled up the whole house, the Gospel tells us.
* * *
It was a dinner party at the home of Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus. Of course, dinner parties with Jesus were always unusual affairs. You never knew what might happen. This one was especially unusual. Because Lazarus was the one in the chapter just before this one, that Jesus had brought back from the grave. And now here he is, sitting at the table.
Can you imagine the introductions among the guests that night? “Oh, and you remember our brother, Lazarus? He was dead just last week. And boy, does he have some stories to tell about that!”
But tonight, Mary upstages her brother with a dramatic act that puts her at the center of attention. At some point during the dinner, she excuses herself from the table. Disappears for a few moments. Comes back with a jar of perfume. And—without saying a word, mind you—she gets down on the floor, pours it out all over Jesus’ feet. And then proceeds to wipe his feet with her hair.
Now, in case you’re wondering: No, this was not something typically done when the rabbi comes over for supper. In fact, I’m pretty sure it raised a few eyebrows. But it’s not just the impropriety of the thing. It’s the waste of it. The excess. The Gospel tells us that it was something called “nard” that Mary used. A costly fragrance imported all the way from the Himalayas. Sixteen ounces of the stuff would have cost a full year’s salary. And that’s how much she poured out—a full pound of it. The whole thing. Didn’t spare a single drop.
What on earth are we to make of this gesture?
* * *
I knew of a church down in Monroe, Louisiana: Northminster Church, it’s called. And they used to have on the staff there an associate minister named Don Nixon, whose main area of responsibility was flowers.
In his life outside of church, Don was a floral designer. That’s what he did for a living—he arranged flowers professionally.
And so for every Sunday of the year, he designed these arrangements for the worship space. And now I’m not talking about a little vase of daffodils, or even a big vase of daffodils. I’m talking these monumental floral sculptures. Looked like something you’d see coming down Pasadena Boulevard in the Rose Bowl parade. I mean: they were tasteful—don’t get me wrong—they were elegant, and lovely. But they were just a little bit over the top.
And this was his job at the church. Keep in mind, now: it was a small church, with a small staff. They had a pastor, a part-time music director, and a floral designer. That was the staff. And of course, the flowers weren’t cheap, as you can imagine.
I remember asking him one time. I said: “Don, the flowers at Northminster are lovely. They really are. But don’t you think there might be other needs in the community more pressing than that?” I said it tactfully. I didn’t want to offend him. But I was really curious as to how he would respond.
He smiled, and said, “Yeah, we get that question a lot.” He said, “Let me ask you something: When you love somebody—I mean really, truly love somebody—and you really want to show her that love on her birthday, or an anniversary, or some special occasion, what do you get her?”
I said: “A pair of socks?” I don’t know. I’m terrible with gifts.
No, I said: “Well, flowers. Sure. I get her flowers.”
And then he said—and he said this so sincerely—he said, “Well, at Northminster, we are just so completely, head-over-heels in love with Jesus, and just so grateful to him for all he’s done for us, we feel this is really the least we can do for him.”
I remember, I said, “Oh, well, I guess that makes sense, when you put it like that.” But what I was thinking to myself was: “This guy is crazy! I mean, come on! These gigantic displays every week?! Like Jesus really cares about all these flowers?!”
I mean, Judas has a point, doesn’t he? A pound of perfume?! A year’s salary?! Good grief! He may have been a thief and a betrayer, but Judas was a reasonable man, and he did keep the books balanced. Give yourself to Jesus, sure. Show your love for him, by all means. But for heaven’s sake, be sensible about it!
* * *
But, you know, Jesus seems to have a different view. He says, “Judas, shut up! You leave her alone. Mary’s doing this because she knows I won’t be with you much longer.”
Jesus understands—unlike Judas—the true nature of Mary’s action. See, Mary seems to have grasped better than almost anyone—better than any of the male disciples, certainly—who Jesus really is. She’d heard in his words something that was transformative. When he brought her brother back from the dead, she saw the power that was at work in him.
So Mary had experienced first-hand the grace of God in her life. And once that happens to a person, they’ll sometimes find themselves responding in surprising, extravagant ways. So Mary took the most valuable treasure she had—a jar of expensive perfume—and poured it out at Jesus’ feet. A lavish offering of love and devotion. A sacrifice, is what it was.
And I guess Jesus knew a thing or two about sacrifice. He would make his own, the very next week. Offering himself on behalf of the world. And the thing about sacrifice is: it’s always a costly thing. Paul writes in Philippians about Jesus, that in becoming human, in going to the cross, he “emptied himself.” Jesus emptied himself. He poured himself out, like a jar of costly perfume. And didn’t spare a single drop.
* * *
I’ll be honest with you: There is a part of me that wants to be like Mary. That wants to show that kind of devotion. And there is a part of me that resists that sort of reckless, total giving of oneself.
There was an old hymn we used to sing in church growing up: “All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give…” Any of you sing that one? I’ve often wondered, “Does it really have to be all, though? I mean, can’t I hang on to something?” I’ll gladly give Jesus an ounce of perfume—I mean that’s a lot, isn’t it?—but just keep the other fifteen for myself. Wouldn’t that be okay?
Do any of us really have the capacity to give ourselves fully? How can we possibly live up to Mary’s model of faithfulness and discipleship? What do we have to offer God in that same way? And what would it look like, to do that?
* * *
I knew a woman back in Iowa named Mary Woolridge. I used to go over to an assisted living place—kind of like Otterbein—and lead a Sunday evening vesper service from time to time. And Mary Woolridge would be the one to play the piano, and lead the singing. She was up in her late eighties, had one of those motorized carts to get around. But still a very vivacious woman. And I was visiting with her one time about how it was that she came to take up music.
She told me a story. She said that she’d had polio as a child, a bad case of it. And wound up losing some of the use of her legs as a result. She used a wheelchair after that. But she survived polio—so many children didn’t survive—but she survived. And she told me she couldn’t explain the fact that she lived, when so many others didn’t. She said only the Good Lord knows why.
But as far as she was concerned, it was just a matter of pure grace that she couldn’t account for. And she said as a result of that experience, she came to think of her life in a new way. And these are the words she used: “I came to see my life,” she told me, “as a gift.”
And so she said: one day, when she was a teenager, she was praying. And she said, “God, you have done so much for me. What can I do for you?” And she said God answered her, and told her— (And now I should say here, I don’t have conversations quite like this with God, but apparently Mary Woolridge did.) She said God told her that she had been given the gift of music, and she ought to use it for God.
She said she knew right then and there: this is what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
And so she started playing piano at First Presbyterian Church for the children’s Sunday School. She did that for years. Then they started up another church, and needed someone to play piano for their services. So she did that. Later on, she started teaching piano lessons, which she did for decades. And still—up in her late eighties, in assisted living—there was Mary Woolridge, playing the piano on Sunday nights for the weekly vesper service.
I asked Mary at one point, I said: “I bet you miss giving piano lessons, don’t you?” She said, “Miss it?! I still have thirty students! I’ve got a five year old, and an eighty-five year old, and everything in between.” She said, “I’ll be doing this, God willing, until the day I die.” She said: “This is my gift that I have to offer God.”
* * *
The way I figure it, we all have some kind of gift like that. An ear for music. A talent with flowers. A pound of costly perfume. Or a million other things. You could do a lot of different things with that gift, put it to a lot of different uses. But when you find a way to use that gift for some holy purpose, that’s the greatest feeling in the world, right there.
You don’t have to pour it out all at once, in one extravagant act, like Mary of Bethany. Maybe it just comes out drop by drop over the course of a whole lifetime, like Mary of Iowa. But either way, go ahead. Offer it up to God. Pour it out at God’s feet. And let the sweet fragrance of it just fill up the whole world. Amen.
