There’s a dinner in Bethany to celebrate Jesus and to celebrate Lazarus and to end the Sabbath. At some point late in the meal, Mary pours perfume on Jesus’ feet, and Judas complains. John, in telling the story, explains that Judas carried the money box and stole from it. And then tells the reader that Jesus told Judas to stop complaining, said that Mary’s action was pointing toward Jesus’ burial. “Leave her alone,” is what Jesus said.

I’ve heard sermons. I’ve heard Mary’s character besmirched and redeemed. I’ve heard lessons about worship and helping the poor.

On this Saturday evening outside Jerusalem, a week before Jesus was dead in the tomb, a group of friends was having a meal to celebrate that one of them wasn’t dead in the tomb. The meal was a special version of a regular meal. There’s always supper. There’s not always Jesus. There almost wasn’t Lazarus.

Mary, for unknown reasons, had a jar of perfume. Which she poured on Jesus’ feet and wiped off with her hair.

There are layers of scandal when the story is preached: an unmarried woman, unbraided hair, touching the feet of a rabbi. How had she acquired the perfume? What would people think?

But the people in this room are the people who knew her.

Mary loved her brother. Mary loved Jesus. Mary had told Jesus that her brother wouldn’t have died if Jesus had been there on time. And then fell at Jesus’ feet, weeping. No one was surprised, I’m guessing, when Mary did what she always did around Jesus.

And people in this room knew Judas. Judas had watched the way Jesus valued Mary when Martha wanted her to work. Judas had watched Jesus weep with Mary. When Judas responds with numbers at a moment of honor, no one was surprised.

And when Jesus looked around the room at his friends, he was surprised least of all.

A week before he died.