In the lectionary reading from the gospel yesterday we read again the story of a woman anointing Jesus' feet, this time from John's Gospel:
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,
"Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
John 12:1-11
The image here is by contemporary artist Yvette Rock, the picture I posted yesterday as part of my #LentArt challenge, and it actually called "Mary of Bethany". As I said last year when the same reading came up in the lectionary readings, we tend to conflate all of the stories of women anointing Jesus feet in the gospels and attribute them all to Mary Magdalene, adding to her well-founded reputation as a woman of ill-repute, even though she isn't actually mentioned in any of the accounts. Many of the pieces of art reflecting on this story also repeat that "error" in their title. Most of them also emphasise the intimacy of the act, and there is no doubt that this is implied in the text. But there are times when I find some of the artistic renditions almost voyeuristic in this, and in the wake of recent controversies about the abuse of women by men in power, I am not comfortable with that. Yvette Rock's image is devoid of that, whilst not losing the sense of humble, thankful, sacrificial service involved.
It is interesting that this account in John's Gospel is followed in the next chapter, by Jesus washing his disciple's feet. Perhaps this is a definite choice on the part of the Gospel's author to make his readers join the dots, putting this well known story in a specific context and following it shortly after by another one untold by earlier evangelists, which raises all sorts of questions of power, service and love.
But even in that this story has been misused in both quoting Jesus' "the poor you will have with you always" line as a justification for laissez-faire approaches to socio-economic inequality, or to justify frankly self-aggrandizing expenditure on church architecture, furnishings or (as in one comment I came across yesterday in social media) high-production values on "seeker sensitive" performative worship. I doubt that John, Jesus or even Mary of Bethany would have expected their words and actions to justify conservative economics, the wealth of the Vatican, or the worship style of Hillsong-wannabes.
What follows is the same monologue I posted last year having written it back in 2013 for an event at EBM in Holy Week, at the request of my late friend Glenn Jordan, during a previous sabbatical, together with a prayer used as part of that event. In it I also conflate the various accounts of women anointing Jesus’ feet, into that of "Mary of Bethany" NOT Mary Magdalene. I thought about re-writing it in the light of some of my thinking above, but maybe that should be an entirely different piece.
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I had been keeping that perfume for my wedding day… It was the most expensive thing I owned… even the jar itself was worth more than my other possessions… But the perfume sealed inside it had been brought from the far east… the mountains at the edge of the earth… Pure nard… the very best that my brother could buy for me…
That was back when he was working… before he became famous… Before he became ill and died… You’ve probably heard of him… Shimon Eleazar… or maybe you know him as Simon the Leper… or Lazarus… He had been ill for a long time, and on previous visits my sister and I had hosted Jesus ourselves… But we all knew that one day that dreadful disease would finish our beloved brother off… We had hoped that Jesus would heal him… but for some reason he didn’t… and even when the end was near we sent word to him but he didn’t come… at least not at first… He turned up 4 days too late… or so we thought… I couldn’t face him at first, I was so angry… And when I saw him I said “"If you had just gotten here on time, my brother would not have died."
I was weeping… and so did he… But then he asked where the tomb was… and… well, you know the rest… the whole country knows the rest…
And there they were… all of the men sitting down to meal… A sight I had never expected to see again this side of heaven… my brother Shimon beside the Master… Martha of course was bustling around organising everything… She never did learn to take things slower…
But I was wondering what I could do to say thank you… Then I remembered the perfume… Although I said I was keeping it for my wedding day, I had seriously thought about using it to anoint Shimon’s body before we put it in the tomb… But Martha… ever the realist… said “No!” that I needed the perfume more than ever… either to catch the right man… or to sell to stop us starving!
But we didn’t have to worry about that now… Shimon was back with us again… Risen from the dead…
So I went over to where the Master was reclining and broke open the jar… The perfume filled the room with its heady scent… And I poured it over him… first on his head massaging it into his hair and down his shoulders… then on his feet… drying them with my own hair…
His followers were scandalised… some said I was behaving like a whore… But I don’t care what people will say about me… I had to find some way of showing my love and gratitude… and it had to cost me something… Not just the price of the perfume…
But it was the money they focussed on… Especially their treasurer Judas… He knows the price of everything that one… He spluttered about it being worth 300 silver coins… And how many poor people it would feed…
Then I felt bad about what I’d done… had I been wasteful…
Then one of the other disciples joked… said that Judas was only thinking of the tithe he could skim off the top…
But the Master told them to stop, said that I had done a beautiful thing… He then said something about always having the poor with us, but that we wouldn’t always have him. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that… He clearly didn’t mean that we shouldn’t bother about the poor… that wouldn’t have been like him…
But then he said something even stranger… That when I poured the perfume on him, I did it to prepare him for burial.
Had Martha told him about me wanting to anoint Shimon’s body with it? I don’t know…
But I didn’t understand what he meant about his burial… God willing he’ll be with us for a long time yet…
PRAYER:
Lord, what can we give you in the light of all that you have given to us and for us…
All that we have has come from you, all that we are we owe to you,
All that we can be is known to you alone.
You loved us so much that you gave us your son;
He loved us so much that he gave up the riches of heaven
To live as one of us and die for all of us.
Nothing we can give, or do, or say, or sing can adequately thank you for all that you have done…
And so we give our all over to you who gave your all for us. AMEN
Selah
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