* Isaiah 43:16-21 * Psalm 126 * Philippians 3:4b-14 * John 12:1-8

I’m wondering this morning if any of you have planned your holidays for this coming year?

Maybe you are off for a week or two to some beautiful spot here in the UK, or maybe you’ve booked a guided tour somewhere on the continent?

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to some of you that we are absolutely shocking at forward planning and its only in the last few weeks that we have started to think about possible holidays for the coming year.

Amongst the variety of options, I came across a sailing experience recommended by Leonardo De Caprio (ironically the actor most famous for his lead role in the film Titanic). Did you know that for just £306,000 a week you can hire a private yacht with all the latest amenities – but no crew – you have to sail it yourself! Very tempting but having no sailing experience, I wasn’t sure we would manage and besides it sounds like a rather expensive and extravagant amount of money for a week’s holiday. Having said that, Leonardo De Caprio’s assets are worth about £170 million, so I guess to him, it wouldn’t seem all that much.

I did consider a week at the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva. Only £62,000 a night – again, a little extravagant for us perhaps. Bill Gates (developer of Microsoft) has stayed there. But then, his net worth is more than £60 billion – so a stay at the President Wilson Geneva probably doesn’t seem all that extravagant to him.

Extravagance is in the eye of the beholder. The extravagance of what we spend might appear to be relative to what amount is coming in through our salaries or benefits or pensions.

The amount that premier league footballers spend on cars and clothes might seem ridiculously extravagant to us, but then I’m guessing that their income vastly exceeds that of most of us here this morning.

So imagine then, what the disciples and followers of Jesus, most of whom had left their jobs and homes and were living through a common purse, imagine what they thought when they saw Mary pour an expensive jar of perfume over his feet.

Not just expensive, but very expensive. A pound of Nard cost about 300 denarii at the time (nearly a year’s wages for the average worker) – estimates put that to be equivalent to about £30,000 in today’s money.

Just think, what could you do with £30,000?

‘Extravagant’ is the word that many preachers use to describe this. They talk about Mary’s “extravagant” love and her “extravagant” gift. And the word extravagant seems entirely appropriate when we are talking about pouring £30,000 worth of perfume onto someone’s feet and it’s certainly how the disciples looked at it as we heard in the gospel reading.

We also heard that Mary really pushed the accepted social boundaries in this story. It was not acceptable for a woman to let down her hair in public, let alone wipe a single man’s feet with it.

What a scandal this was! What did she think she was doing?

Well don’t forget that just before what we have read this morning, Mary had witnessed her own brother Lazarus rising from the dead at Jesus command. I think Mary must have had a pretty clear understanding of just who Jesus was and how close he was to God. Her faith in him must have been sure and certain having witnessed such a miracle involving a member of her own family.

The faith that Mary models to Judas and the rest of the disciples, to her family, and even to us this morning is a faith marked by an extravagant act. It is a faith that is always seeking “more.”

In contrast to Mary, sometimes our faith can be a part of our lives that often gets shortchanged by our own personal quests for “more”.

We want more sleep, so we hit the snooze button on a Sunday morning. We want more time for our hobbies or recreation, so we put off reading our Bibles or saying our prayers for another day when we “have more time.”

We want more money so that we can buy the latest gadget or take that holiday, so we adjust our giving just a bit. In short, if we are not careful, we can let our need for “more” take priority over our faith.

We spend more time worrying about the challenges and issues in our lives, more time trying to figure out our relationships and daily  schedules, more energy and resources on material things, and, because something has to give, we end up spending less time on our relationship with God.

But, you know, imagine if instead of letting our faith take a backseat, we somehow reframed our understanding of “more,” and, like Mary, we begain to live with extravagant faith.

As with Mary’s actions this morning, such a faith may seem quite  ridiculous to others, wasteful even. But we rest assured that our Lord encourages us to keep going at it, even in the face of adversity, for we have a Saviour who believes in extravagant, over-the-top actions. That, of course, is one of the messages of the cross, the overabundance of love that God has for the world.

Having faith that is extravagant means being willing to truly love God with all that we have: with all our mind, all our body, and with all our heart. It means making that first “more” in our lives our relationship with God. Going above and beyond into something deeper still, and trusting that there is always something more to be learned, more to be experienced, about the one who first loved us.

This “more” is not about a transaction or monetary value. And it’s not about how many events we attend, or committees on which we serve. Extravagant faith is about giving God all that we have, not just settling for the bare minimum.  When we are overwhelmed by our love for God, we are apt to do wild and radical things, the kind of things that truly label us as Christ’s disciples.

It is such love that leads us to speak out where there is injustice – to stand up to the bullies of the world and proclaim that all deserve to be treated with love and respect. It is love that helps remind us to spend a few extra minutes checking in with someone who we know is having a tough time. God’s love leads us to extravagant faith.

Some moments of extravagant faith, much like the perfume Mary poured, might seem temporary or fleeting. After all, lots of extravagant gifts are simply put out there into the ether, where they soon evaporate. A choir rehearses an intricate anthem, and three minutes later it is gone. A teacher prepares the lesson, stands to deliver, and then the school day is over. Mourners provide large arrangements of flowers to honour those whom they grieve. Individuals donate large sums of money for their congregations to spend. Why do they do this? Well, love has its reasons.

But perhaps these aren’t as short-lived as we might think, because once we break open the jars of extravagant faith, the fragrance of love’s actions is carried on the wind to places we never see. Acts of love and extravagant faith have the potential to grow into more, as generosity inspires generosity. Imagine how extravagantly-filled our lives could be if we all lived with a little more love, a little more faith.

Imagine if we were to live and to love a little more – with God the possibilities are endless. No act of faith is too small, and no act of faith is too large, when inspired by our love for him.

So let go of whatever holds you back from giving all that you have, all that you are. Let God’s love wash over you and carry you to something new. Seek to be “more” of a disciple, and prepare for the overwhelming fragrance that comes when we live with a faith that is extravagant, worshiping a God whose grace and love is indeed always “more” than we could ever dream.  Amen.