I have long been intrigued by Tibetan Buddhist monks that work painstakingly to create gorgeous sand mandalas, only to destroy them after they are completed. To my western way of thinking it seems like a waste of time and energy, not to mention a huge frustration for the gifted artists. What sounds like a cruel initiation rite is actually a spiritual exercise – a form of prayer they believe brings healing and purification into the world.

Perhaps it helps to think of the sand mandalas in our own lives. I often think of the hours we put into creating the requiem service here at HMC: the choir and other musicians, more than 20 people, practicing for 10 hours over a period of weeks. That is at least 200 hours of rehearsal for 30 minutes of heartfelt music that is glorious and then gone. Yes, it gets recorded but that is not the same as being right here, in front of the singers, witnessing the concentration and commitment of the musicians, experiencing the healing music come through the body and into the air we all breathe together. The price of beauty is its impermanence.

Poet Mary Oliver writes, “We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it.”

The story of the woman who anoints Jesus with expensive perfume is one of those sand mandalas of beauty. It is a beautiful moment of healing that is quickly over. There are precious few stories that all four gospels choose to include so this one must be important. Of course there are differences in the details, otherwise why have four gospels. In Luke, a woman of ill repute pours oil on Jesus’ feet near the beginning of his ministry. Mark and Matthew tell us an unnamed woman pours perfume on Jesus’ head near the end of his life.

John is the only one who gives the woman a name. In this scene, six days before his final Passover, Jesus and his friends gather at the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. At the beginning of the Lazarus story, just prior to this scene, Lazarus and family are introduced this way – Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany – the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.

The village is identified as the village of Mary and Martha, as if Lazarus happened upon the scene later, as if Mary and Martha are the real disciples.  And Mary gets her own special mention; she is the one who anointed Jesus feet, even though that scene comes after the story of Lazarus being raised from death. Spoiler Alert – Mary is really special.

Mary and Martha plead with Jesus to bring their brother back from death, and Jesus does call Lazarus out of the tomb, back into life. In celebration, the family throws a lovely dinner party for Jesus and company, sort of a thank you for all Jesus means to them.

This meal comes at a crucial time for Jesus. Many of his disciples have already left him because his teachings are too difficult to accept (6:66). The religious leaders have been accusing Jesus of demon possession (8:48), and variously looking for opportunities to kill him (7:1-2), stone him (8:59, 10:31), and have him arrested (7:32-33, 11:57) They are actively plotting his death (11:53) and Jesus will soon go into hiding (12:36) In addition, the death (or near death) of his dear friend Lazarus brings Jesus to tears and he has an inkling that one of his closest friends will soon turn him in to the religious authorities he has so cleverly been avoiding. Not an easy time to be a religious reformer.

In the midst of such stress, Jesus must be grateful for an evening with good friends. Martha serves the meal, and Lazarus sits with Jesus; it may be all he can do after four days in the tomb.

They have barely finished eating when Mary makes a surprise entrance. She kneels at Jesus’ feet and pours expensive perfume all over them. Instead of rubbing it in with a towel, she dries his feet with her hair. There is no hiding this shameless act of love, gratitude and beauty. Even after Mary has finished, the fragrance lingers to remind everyone of this extravagant gesture.

Such devotion and unpredictability is too much for Judas. He immediately objects. As the one who holds the money for the itinerate disciples, he knows value when he sees it – or smells it. He wastes no time in telling the whole gathering that Mary has just wasted a whole years wages in one evening, on one man’s feet. This perfume could have been sold; the money could support a poor family for a whole year.

Judas is probably not the only one who objects to this blatant display. Lazarus may silently wonder why Mary didn’t use this perfume, at least some of it, for him, her beloved brother who just spent four days in the tomb. Martha may resent that Mary has once again stolen the show, putting herself in the spotlight and left her hardworking sister in the shadows of the kitchen. The gathered group may find it unnerving to smell the fragrance of death in this perfume, barely disguising the lingering odors from Lazarus’ recent experience.

The house is filled, not only with the fragrance of perfume and devotion but of judgement and criticism. Jesus shushes them all, the spoken and unspoken objections. “Leave her alone.”

Jesus says Mary’s action is a prelude to caring for him in death. He seems grateful and honored that she does not wait until he is gone to show him her love. Jesus affirms her celebration of his living presence in this extravagant act: “You will always have poor people with you but you will not always have me with you.”

Mary recognizes the need for beauty that brings healing in the midst of desperate times. Her gift of perfume and love at Jesus’ feet is an affirmation of who he is and what he means to her. The fragrance Mary shares is fleeting beauty; it saturates the air for a while and soon drifts away. Yet I wonder, does this beauty make Jesus ache? He certainly affirms Mary’s gift even as he adapts it for his own use.

A few days after the celebration in Bethany, Jesus gathers with his disciples for another meal. Before dinner ends, Jesus does as Mary did, though in a more organized fashion and without the perfume. He kneels in front of each of the disciples with a basin and washes their feet. (John is careful to say that this time a towel is involved.) Jesus passes forward what he learned from Mary.

The male disciples miss the point in both incidents. Judas thinks the point of Mary’s gift is the expensive perfume but Jesus says, no, it is about the beauty of showing love and care, of preparing for burial. Peter thinks the water and basin are about cleansing the body. He asks to have not just his feet, but his whole body washed. Jesus says, no; this is less about the water and more about the posture – of serving. And, Jesus says, just as I have done, you are to pass this on. Wash one another’s feet.

As followers of Jesus commands, we do pass this on. Some of us literally wash each others feet on Maundy Thursday. More often though it is a figurative serving of each other; not on our knees but with our hands and feet and hearts. Mary and Jesus knelt at the feet of people they knew and loved. What if we take it one step further?

Given what we hear in the news and social media – the hatred of Muslims, immigrants and people of color, the encouragement of violence towards those with whom we disagree – this is a world desperately in need of the message that Mary and Jesus model. We must find ways to bring healing, love, care, and service to others – even if it is fleeting beauty.

What would it be like to practice fleeting acts of extravagant beauty in the face of ugly curses, hate speech and ridicule? It is an absurd idea, frivolous even, not to mention dangerous, to imagine that small acts of selflessness might make any difference in the face of indifference, pain or worse, hostility. Can the air in a room really shift when the fragrance of kindness, gentle laughter, true compassion are broken open? How can simple warmth and kindness shown to a stranger bring beauty?

Deborah Greene wrote in the Washington Post this week https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/03/09/an-open-letter-to-the-whole-foods-shoppers-who-consoled-me-when-i-learned-of-my-dads-suicide/  to the strangers who literally went to their knees with her when she heard, in the Whole Foods grocery store, that her father had committed suicide. People she did not know, and never saw again, stopped to help her call her husband; one offered to pray for her. She recalls, a Christian prayer being offered up to Jesus for my Jewish father and me, and it still both brings tears to my eyes and makes me smile. She goes on: … no matter how many times my mind takes me back to that horrible life-altering moment, it is not all darkness. Your kindness, your compassion, your willingness to help a stranger in need have stayed with me until this day.

As followers of the way of Jesus, we are called to bring kindness and compassion, healing, freedom, joy and good news into the darkness. Part of the good news we bring is that there is beauty in the world, beauty that calls to all of us, not just those who already live in beauty or to those who can afford it. We all ache for beauty, we long to be worthy of it. It is like the song – “Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!” (James Oppenheim from a quote by Rose Schneiderman)

The bible gives us this rose of a story: a woman who acts unpredictably, perhaps impulsively, out of love and care. Four times the woman’s story is told, not always the same way but always with the woman who reaches out to share a beautiful gesture of love. Her extravagant gift, offered humbly, is received and given dignity.

Let us hope that our gestures of love and care and beauty will be received in the same way.