Scripture can be found here…
Some gospel stories are one of a kind: they can be found in a single gospel only, and they reveal some unique characteristics of that gospel’s approach to the Jesus event. The parable of the Prodigal Son, appearing only in Luke’s gospel, is one of them. The parable of the sheep and the goats, appearing in Matthew’s gospel alone, is another.
But there are other stories that appear in all four gospels, and these are the essential stories about Jesus, the heart of the gospel witness. They are not identical, they each come with their own slant, with their own priorities for the faithful. The story of the feeding of the multitudes is one: that moment of abundance, of care for an entire community is core to our understanding of Jesus. This story, the story of Jesus’ anointing, is another. There is something so essential to be found in this story, we find it in all four gospels. They have differences, to be sure. They are not identical in the details or even the purpose of the action. But this moment, the moment when a woman anoints Jesus before many witnesses, is a gospel essential.
This is a story surrounded by death. Immediately before this, the gospel of John details the story of Jesus standing before a tomb, calling Lazarus back from the dead. Then we read about the plotting of those who want to have Jesus killed. Immediately following this passage, we read of a plot to kill Lazarus, followed by the beginning of Holy Week, when Jesus will meet his death.
Death is all around.
But for now, we are at a party. The family of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus have thrown a dinner for Jesus in their home in Bethany. It’s a celebration, perhaps a time of thanksgiving for the miracle of Lazarus’ return to life. Lazarus and Jesus are both reclining at the table. Martha is serving.
Jesus knows this family well. They sent for Jesus when Lazarus was deathly ill and had every expectation that he would come in time to heal him. The note they sent summoning Jesus read, “Lord, the one you love is ill.” Jesus knows Lazarus, and loves him. He knows and loves these sisters. And though he arrived too late to save Lazarus from the illness that took him, Jesus raised him from death to life. He who was dead, was now alive again.
All is merriment, celebration, until Mary walks into the room, carrying a pound of the precious oil of the spikenard plant. Before anyone has an opportunity to object, Mary pours the spicy, woody perfume of this oil on Jesus’ feet. Bending low before him, as a servant would, she wipes his feet with her hair.
This is a shocking act. It’s so intimate. Mary—one of the women of this wealthy household—acts as a servant might, touching the feet of a man she is not married to, in a semi-public setting. This is simply not done. She has broken an agreed-upon code for the women of this time and place. What’s more, she has lavished this oil, costly, precious, on the feet to someone who is, to most, a humble, itinerant preacher. A rabbi, who always seems to get on the wrong side of the people in power. Mary’s action has been called a brazen act of beauty. She risks her reputation to do something most would consider a private act in front of all these people. She has casts all norms of behavior aside to show her love.
The house is filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Nard was used to anoint bodies for burial, and so it was a familiar smell to the people gathered there. It was the smell of grief. It was the smell of mourning.[i] But in this moment it is transformed into the smell of devotion and gratitude, love. Love, and prophecy.
In every version of this story, someone is mad about it. In this version, Judas Iscariot is the one who complains. What a waste, he grumbles. This could have been sold for a year’s wages. We could have given all that money to the poor. A member of our Bible Study offered a great insight about Judas. Jesus’ care for the poor is an ongoing theme in his ministry—he heals them, feeds them, casts demons out of them, tells them that they are God’s beloved in a society which, then as now, casts scorn upon the poor, and blames them for their struggles. Judas uses the appeal of caring for the poor to score points with Jesus.
But Judas is deep in the woods, and he can’t see the tree that is right in front of him. Jesus experiences this anointing as affirmation of the path he is walking, which his disciples have, for the most part, fought with him about, ignored, or tried to wave away. But this disciple, Mary, sees things clearly. She understands that Jesus is facing his death. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She has kept this for the day of my burial.” Mary’s action, in addition to being a bold act of beauty, is a prophetic act. It is an act of truth-telling. Jesus will die. Another member of our Bible Study, when we were talking about beauty, quoted Keats to us.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."[ii]
This gesture that is both beauty and truth will echo throughout Holy Week.
The next thing Jesus says has been grossly misinterpreted. “You will always have the poor with you,” he says, “but you won’t always have me.” I have heard this sentence used to dismiss the Christian’s or the government’s responsibility to help those in poverty. I have heard it used to affirm the idea that Christianity has nothing to do with our behavior, that we aren’t called to exactly the kinds of loving acts Jesus describes in that parable of the sheep and the goats, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, visiting the sick and imprisoned, welcoming foreigners.
Jesus is paraphrasing the first half of Deuteronomy 15:11: “There will never cease to be some in need on the earth.” Jesus says the first half, and knows everyone in the room can recite the second half: “I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’”
Jesus is not telling Judas that no one should help the poor. Jesus is drawing attention to the fact that it is six days before the Passover, when he knows he will be lifted up on a cross. He is stressing the urgency of the present moment. His hour is upon him. His disciples don’t have a lot of time to get this right. But Judas is evidently more interested in playing “gotcha,” in more ways than one.
Five days from this night, the night of the Last Supper, Jesus will seem to imitate the actions of Mary as he teaches his friends the meaning of loving one another. He will wash and wipe their feet, bending low before them, as a servant would. He will offer them the beauty of his care, and he will help them to understand the truth of what is coming.
And we are called to brazen acts of beauty, as well. We are called to come before God with our entire selves, bringing our beautiful offerings, showing our love. We are called to love one another, extravagantly, as God has loved us.
I’ll close with today’s prayer from our devotional.
Dear God, do not let us hold back in love. Do not let us fear looking foolish over being loving. Do not let us hold words in, keeping them to ourselves, when they are meant to be said. Do not let us keep love to ourselves in this aching world.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Rev. Ruth Hetland, Bible Study, Filled to the Brim, p. 18.
[ii] John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”