JESUS AS PERFUME

INTRODUCTION

It’s Monday of Holy Week. Today I’d like to reflect upon the image of Jesus as Perfume.

Jesus is the one whose presence can pervade and perfume our life.

It’s the image that hit me when I read today’s gospel which tells the story of Mary and how she perfumed the feet of Jesus – and then dried them with her hair.

PERFUME

We’ve all had the experience of walking into an elevator or into an empty room and being hit by the scent of perfume. Nobody is in the empty space, but we know that someone was there by the scent of lingering perfume.  Someone was there - someone with a strong perfume was there. Sometimes we know who it was; sometimes we don’t.

Or haven’t we had the experience of shopping and we pay for something by cash. We gave the cashier a twenty and he or she gives us some coins and two singles as change. And one of the singles is a dollar bill that is heavily perfumed. It must have been out on a heavy date last night. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know its history. Michel Quoist wrote a wonderful prayer poem about the journey of a twenty dollar bill.

How many times have we sat at the doctor’s office or somewhere and we start to get the scent of perfume coming from somewhere and surprise it’s one of those pull off perfume adds in a magazine.

Well, why not see the Bible being filled with passages that are perfume. Just open the book, pull up passages, and let the perfume drift out. Let the Spirit of the Lord come upon you as it did to Jesus. Let it come on us like perfume. Be anointed in the oil of gladness. Let the Good News invade us like perfume. Catch the scent of Jesus.

Perfume lingers. Perfume invades. Perfume clings. Perfume pervades.

SMOKE & STUFF IN THE AIR

We can say the same thing about smoke that we say about perfume. People with a good sense of smell say things like, “Somebody who uses this car smokes.” They don’t even have to open the ash tray to tell us that.

I’m sure it’s the same for people who suffer from allergies. People with allergies can tell us about stuff that is in the air or must be in the air, “because my allergies are acting up.”

And in the past 25 years we have been hearing all about the danger of asbestos, toxic fumes, chemicals, all kinds of stuff that might be in the air, but we don’t see them. They can move into us because they are in the atmosphere around and surrounding us.

PERFUME – JESUS AS PERFUME

This is true especially of perfume. That’s what I’m pushing in this homily: the image of perfume pervading the air or something – and then seeing Jesus as perfume.

An old writer named Ben Amin talked about “The person whose perfume is Jesus” – so I’m borrowing his image.

The person who spends time with Jesus gets perfumed by Jesus.

This is Holy Week. It’s important to spend time with Jesus all through the year, but this week is very important to spend extra time with Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Catch his spirit, his atmosphere, his breath, his sweetness, his perfume.

Spend time letting the spirit of Jesus pervade us. Allow Jesus to wash our feet with water, and anoint us with perfume. Allow him to anoint our minds with his spirit. Anoint our heart, our attitudes with his love.

OBJECTION

Of course we can object. We can say that we are very busy. We can say things like: “Why isn’t our time spent in work? Why isn’t our time spent with the poor?”

But isn’t that the sentiment of Judas in today’s gospel?

Of course, there isn’t enough time. We’re always tied up.

But behind those words, aren’t we really saying that there are more important things to do than pray? Of course it’s important to be with and help the poor. And Jesus would respond that the poor are always with us – and he would add, “Stay with me. Could you not watch one hour? Be with me.”

And then when we go out of our inner room – or inner garden – then we can bring our Spirit to other rooms – to other gardens. The day will come when we will be called upon to rush into the world with Jesus’ Spirit – Jesus’ Breath, The Holy Spirit.

ISAIAH

Today’s first reading is from Isaiah.

Jesus seems to have read more of Isaiah than what he read that day in the synagogue in Nazareth.  He seems to have allowed the perfume, the spirit, of Isaiah pervade him. Jesus felt the need to spread Justice, to free prisoners, to lift people up.

We won’t be doing that unless we spend time in prayer. 

300 PIECES OF SILVER

And in today’s gospel, we see the opposite spirit. We see a mean spirit -  a toxic spirit. We smell that something is rotten with Judas. He has a toxic evil that kills people. In the spirit of Judas, we smell a bad spirit. We smell something’s fishy. We see that he has a selfish spirit.

The Gospel of John harps on this. He reports that Judas says, “Why isn’t this perfume sold and given to the poor?” It’s worth 300 pieces of silver - 300 days’ wages. Picture that: 300 days wages. It’s a year’s salary, if you allow for 52 Sabbaths and some holidays. Then he goes out to sell the perfume called Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

He was not a man whose perfume was Jesus.

CONCLUSION: ME AND YOU

When we walk into a room, what spirit do we bring?

Do I bring an “Oh yes” or an “Oh no?”

I asked myself that while preparing this homily. What do I emit? Do I give off a nice spirit or am I an old fart? Am I bad breath? Am I a toxic disaster? Do I give off fumes that destroy?

Am I the perfume called Jesus or the bad spirit called Judas, called Satan?

Each of us is called to be Good News. Do we bring that to each other when we walk into a room? Or am I bad news? Oh, God, not him again.

Turn to Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Let him perfume us - wash us  -  invade us. Then we’ll bring that spirit to our world. So that all the world will be filled with the atmosphere of Jesus. People will know we were in the room, long after we are gone. The perfume of Jesus lingers. It’s around. It can fill the whole world.

QUOTES

Archilochus – “Old women should not seek to be perfumed.” Fragment 27 – Early 8^th Century BC – Bartlett’s, 62-1

MACBETH: “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Shakespeare, Macbeth, Bartlett’s 239:27

PERFUME:  “Perfumes, colors and sounds echo one another.” Charles Baudelaire, Bartlett’s 580:18