John 12:1-8

“She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”

I generally try to only buy things I know I will use and need soon, but I also have a tendency to hoard a few special things.

I have three (or maybe five? six?) unopened “perfect” notebooks – for whenever I’m ready to seriously start journaling.

Every year I save a box or two of Thin Mint cookies for “when I really need them” – usually until they go stale. (Still tasty, though!)

I also own a pair of shoes bought for one very specific occasion (on which I wound up not being able to wear them).

I know I’m not the only one who buys “for a special occasion”. The internet is full of advice not to keep the bubble bath, or the artisan candles, or the expensive treat gathering dust until an “occasion” arrives, as a friend reminded me when we read this story together. “Now is the time” say these online advisors. Celebrate how “special” this ordinary day is; recognize the specialness of ordinary family and friends.

I can’t usefully speculate what Mary of Bethany was thinking when she broke out the extravagantly expensive ointment and poured it over Jesus that one night at dinner. I don’t know if her heart was full of theological meaning, or the emotion of the moment.

But she chose to make that night, this moment, the special occasion. The ultimate occasion, in fact. The occasion she’d saved a great gift for.

And gets criticized.

“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”

Was this the best and highest use of this gift? (As soon as someone asks that, you know they’re pretty sure it wasn’t; they’re ready to tell you how you were wrong.)

And indeed, there very often is a better, higher use for our time, our talents, our treasure, than the use we happen to make of our cash, our skills, our Saturday afternoon or Wednesday morning. There’s always some need we ought to have prayed for. Some person who needed your kindness more today than the person behind you in the checkout line.

But we weren’t given God’s gifts to hoard them.

To save them, safe and untouched, until we find the most perfect use for cash we can donate, work we can do, this hour we can spend.

And sometimes, you or I can be paralyzed into inaction, waiting for the right moment to use our voice and speak – or shout. Waiting to know we’ve found the most important cause to donate to. Waiting to know if I am ready; to feel worthy of offering love. Or attempting to make peace, or claim justice.

Perhaps this Lent – any Lent – is a time to give up that wait for perfection, for occasion, for the best. So that in the wilderness (or the dinner party) around us, we can do the thing that is right in front of us; the thing that matters now.

I hope Lent is a time to do what is heartfelt, what is here with us, what is true, like Mary pouring out the perfume and the adoration she has in that moment, without waiting for what comes next. Or for what might be better.

Perhaps this Lent, or this moment, is a time to give up waiting for the right time to come, the perfect reason to act – so that for the true and holy moment in front of us now, we are free to act on hope, on grief, on joy, on awe, on love.

Meditation by the Reverend Emily Mellott
Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church, Moorestown
Diocese of New Jersey