Temporary or permanent?

[Jn 12.1-8]

Here we have a story about what happened when Jesus went to visit his friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

Now, I have to be honest, I feel a bit sorry for Mary: she always seems to be getting in trouble, she seems a bit ‘flaky’.
    In Luke’s gospel (Lk 10.38-42), she’s in trouble with her sister Martha, who’s doing all the work , for sitting at Jesus’s feet and listening to him talk. Martha wanted Jesus to tell her off for not helping.

This time, it’s Judas who wants Mary to be told off, because she’s wasted a lot of money — and I mean a lot of money.
    She pours a bottle of oil over Jesus’s feet, and it is worth about £25,000. Judas says that poor people could’ve been helped with that money, and he’s right — a year’s worth of money would’ve helped a great number of people — but he’s also wrong.
    He’s wrong partly because he’s telling lies.  He makes it look like he cares about the poor people, but really he cares about himself (John tells us in the gospel that Judas has been stealing money from the disciples joint account).
    Judas is also wrong because he’s not seeing the big picture: he’s seeing a year’s worth of money, while Jesus is seeing what happens in the year after that, and in the year after the year after that, and in the many years after the year after the year after that…

It’s maybe easier to imagine if we think about distance instead of time.
    Picture a tape measure, and imagine that each centimetre represents one year.
    At the start of the tape measure is this visit to Lazarus’ house.
Jesus will die in just a fraction of a millimetre.
37cm — the Romans have destroyed the temple at Jerusalem (it will never be rebuilt).
57cm — John has a vision on the island of Patmos that leads to him writing the book of Revelation.
90cm — Emperor Hadrian builds a wall above Cumbria to keep the Scots out
    By now, pretty much every poor person who was alive when Judas was talking has died. But Mary’s actions are still remembered.
2m 39cm — Emperor Constantine is born (he’s the man that will make Christianity the official religion of the Romans).
7m 75cm — Charlemagne is born (he founds the Holy Roman Empire).
15m 50cm — the Protestant Reformation begins.
    The anointing of Jesus by Mary is still remembered after all this distance, and millions upon millions of poor people have lived, gone hungry and died since Judas’ remarks were made.  How many of them were helped by Bible believing Christians?

    We now stand about 20 metres away from that event that John told us about: Mary is remembered as doing something that Jesus appreciated, and Judas is remembered as a betrayer.

    As children, there are many things that we get told off for — not doing our chores, being lazy and not tidying our room, breaking something valuable or spilling something.
    Perhaps though, before we rush to tell a child off for being ‘naughty’, we should stop to remember what matters. We should perhaps consider the big picture: what is temporary and what will last?
    Jesus, the game-changer, came to tell us what would last, what was important — treasure stored up in heaven.  He told us that two things mattered: love God and love your neighbour.  These two things should be focussed on, and should be done well.
    Everything else is temporary.