| March 28
Providence, Rhode Island - Palm Sunday March 28, 2010
The “anointing of Jesus” is told in all four gospels with variations in each version. But they all agree on the basics and no doubt came from a common source. The setting is just before his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, at a meal in the home of a leper, according to Matthew. But John has it in Bethany, where his friend Mary, earlier sat at Jesus’ feet, but now anoints them with expensive perfume, worth a year’s wages. (Mark allowed as how she poured it on his head, but you get the idea.)
When most of those present, including the disciples scold her, Jesus defends her. Judas is the one who protests it as “a waste,” ostensibly pointing out that it could’ve been “sold and given to the poor.” Jesus noted they’d have plenty of time to show kindness to the poor, but they wouldn’t always “have him.” So “She did what she could,” while she could. Jesus sensed that he had more yesterdays than tomorrows, and was touched by Mary’s devotion, and didn’t want it to ever be forgotten.
The story of Jesus’ anointing sounds more like a circus than holy scripture, full of partial truths. It’s crowded with one character after another elbowing-in to claim their take on it. Judas quickly spotted the incongruity of being in a rich man’s house, while talking about the poor, and nailed Jesus on it. Then the evangelist pauses in mid-description with a snide aside about Judas, “The keeper of the purse,” which adds to the circus-like quality of the text. Giving Judas the benefit of the doubt, Jesus did say it would be “harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle,” and disparaged all efforts to “lay up earthly treasures.” Maybe Judas was right to question Jesus’ allegiances.
Martha’s in character, serving everybody, including the rich folks. She still hasn’t learned her lesson when Jesus urged her to lighten up, choose “the better part;” learn from him, and leave her compulsive bent for details behind. But Martha is right to serve her neighbors. That too was part of Jesus’ message. Mary’s back at her place at Jesus’ feet; and not just at his feet, but all over them! Being female in a patriarchal society, she had to develop the ability to make the best of a bad situation, when faced with limited alternatives. Dramatically “breaking a jar with precious ointment and wiping his feet with her hair,” was a gesture so bizarre that Jesus had to take a stab at interpreting it: allowing as how she’s like a funeral director! Maybe they could sense the strain in his voice, as he struggles to make sense of her behavior. But wasn’t Mary just following directions, sitting at his feet?
It got more surreal when Lazarus showed up from the grave, like a sideshow. It’s unstated why, but apparently he’s still enough of an attraction to have people flocking to see him. The Ringmaster says: “Step right up, he’s baaaaack! The “man from the other side! Step right up!” Lazarus was more of a drawing card than Jesus! So the Pharisees figured they needed to take ‘em both out! But didn’t Jesus say that death wasn’t the last word?
And last-but-not-least are the Temple officials, on red-alert about folks getting worked up over a Galilean preacher and his formerly-dead buddy, who probably just fainted and came-to several days later. They’re the ones caught between a-rock-and-a-hard-place, because it was their responsibility to preserve order among the people. If there’s disorder, their heads were on the Roman chopping-block! If Jesus is not the revolutionary everybody’s hoping for, isn’t it their job to protect Israel’s interests? Yeah it’s a mish-mash, that feels a lot like the “Health Care Bill,” because everybody in the story has a piece of the truth, which they mistake for the whole.
Maybe the purest truth in the story resides with the jar, containing the perfume Mary poured on Jesus’ feet. Without it, there’d be no story. The only way to open it was to break it, and now shards of precious alabaster lay scattered on the floor. Where the original was shiny, smooth, and pungent, the pieces are sharp, jagged, and dangerous. Jesus understood her the act as “anointing his body for burial.” But even he was still in the “fragment-stage,” because there’s no mention of “the 3rd day” yet. He’s thinking Good Friday, burial, pre- Easter. It’s like all the characters in Bethany scrambling for alabaster; each containing a kernel of truth, if pressed leads to a distortion.
Martha has a lock on the service piece. And she’s been the model for “social ministry” ever since, embodying the truth of Jesus’ directive to be of service in the world. Mary symbolizes spiritual contemplation, the proper counterweight to service. Judas goes-to-bat for the poor and stood up for the truth of Jesus’ solidarity with outcasts and sinners. Lazarus shows up to point beyond himself to something much bigger. Even the Jewish leaders, who come off so poorly in John’s Gospel, stand for the truth of order in the midst of chaos, and what can happen when order get confused with control. All these folks represent some truth about Jesus, because he embodied all aspects: action and contemplation, solidarity with the poor without disparaging those of means, order out of chaos and life after death.
You could even write a subsequent history of the church out of this story: the social justice types, the organizational, administrative types, the mystics, the seekers, the money-interests. Each has a piece of the whole. The Apostle noted this when he wrote: “We see through a glass darkly, we know in part and our preaching is partial.”
What stands out to me is how Mary is the only one who gets it. John pits her against the forces of evil and hate with a mere “bottle of perfume and a sensitive heart.” But that seemed to match the weapons of him who only needed a “towel and a basin” to save the world. With these, she couldn’t stop his death. All she could do was manage herself and acknowledge it with hope. She had nothing to lose, which is the theme running throughout the story. She plopped herself down at Jesus’ feet back at the beginning of his public life, when he blew Martha off as the hostess with the most-est! Mary got it then and she still got it now.
Mary, more than any of his disciples, sensed who Jesus is. That’s why she took to heart his final words in the passage, “You always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me.” Jesus believed the poor are our responsibility, but he is our savior! It’s not our prerogative to “have” Jesus, but we are expected to believe in him. Get that straight. Mary got it. Now, Martha didn’t catch-on as quickly, but she seems to be coming around. It says she served. Only this time it’s without any snippety comments under her breath. (Mary left me to do all the dishes!) Seeing her brother’s resuscitation might’ve softened her displeasure somewhat.
The author of the Gospel of John values personal devotion over money. Of all the characters in the Fourth Gospel, Judas and Mary have the clearest priorities. Judas keeps the common purse, and it brings him down. He was chosen by Jesus as one of the original twelve, so he must’ve had some redeeming value. But now he’s defined by his relationship with money. By all accounts, he was a devoted follower, but he also had a “Plan B” that only he and Jesus knew about. And he gave it away when he questions Mary’s passionate outpouring on Jesus. Money-people can’t help themselves.
Mary had nothing to lose, and ‘wasted’ her love for Jesus when it counted. But Judas had too much to lose. He’s the anti-Mary and suffered the consequences of selling-out to the wrong buyer. But whether we’re like Mary with nothing to lose, or Judas with too much to lose -- either way, Jesus made it his business to go around collecting losers ... and sinners. Anybody trying to hold on to their alabaster jar too tightly; clutching the purse strings of the treasury too tightly.
“Get off her back!” he said. “She’s the one who gets it; connecting this with my burial.” Think of what it might be like to take your most precious resource and spill it on the floor on purpose. Far too many prefer to “hold onto what we’ve got.” And wait till life strips away all that we can’t take-with-us before giving Jesus a chance.
Mary's sacrificial act precludes his sacrificial death, which is about to make him the universal savior of mankind! She saw what Judas could not see. He got blind-sided by 30 pieces of silver! That and common sense. How practical to offer to sell the expensive perfume! That way it wouldn’t be “wasted.”
In the same room, John compares Miss Prodigal with Mr. Practical. And Jesus in the middle, being honored in his death and banking on the power of his resurrection. You can always serve the poor; ministering to people in need is something we must do. “If you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me.” That’s Martha’s activism. But no amount of “good works” can provide the confidence of redemption that comes through faith and dedication to Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one. Mary got that.
It took “the scent of a woman” to stop Jesus in his tracks! He declared, out of all of ‘em there, she’s the one to watch! She “did a beautiful thing to me.” "And wherever the gospel is preached, what she’s done will be told in memory of her." I’ve tried to fulfill that today. And my hope for us is that we too will likewise strive to do all the “beautiful things” we can for one another, in the face of our own intractable dilemmas. May we never be ashamed of our brokenness, for that’s when we’re most like Christ. And let us not hesitate to break our own vases in devotion to God. For how else can this smelly-old-world catch the scent of his fragrance?
So today, on Palm Sunday, we too look forward with the multitudes who long ago welcomed him to the city. Except we know more than they did, but not more than Mary. So we too say, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Providence Prayers: (Palm Sunday - March 28, 2010)
Like Mary of Bethany, who was faithfully committed to making God smile, even if it made others mad; inspire our church to perform Mary and Martha ministries, overcoming the barriers between rich or poor; both of which we “always have with us.” But Jesus, we won’t always have. So let us do our part to “do what we can,” while we can. Forgive us for our timidity, our protective hesitation in breaking our vases, squelching our impulses to sacrifice recklessly. Loose the “hosannas” that get stuck in our sophisticated throats. Override the pride that makes us too rigid to enjoy a good parade. Awaken the child in each of us so we might scatter our well-pressed garments in the pathway of the King on a donkey.
As we contemplate those who work at the pressure points of history, amid the swirl of inevitable controversy, help us at the beginning of this Holy Week to increase our faith, and take a fresh look at what matters and is worth our loyalty. Deliver us from mean and unworthy purposes. Illumine the path of those who are disappointed; quiet the troubled hearts; befriend the bereaved and comfort the dying. Keep expanding our horizons and we will ever praise Thee for all Thy tender mercies to us ... through Christ our Lord... Back |
