Tatian the Syrian
Being Present with Jesus
Lent 5C
13 March 2016 8:00 a.m. Said Eucharist
Lent 5C
13 March 2016 8:00 a.m. Said Eucharist
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)
God, give us grace to feel and love.
Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.
Amen.
In the second century, there was a great churchman named Tatian. He was converted to Christianity because he hated the messiness of paganism. He wanted his new faith to be clean and orderly, and in an effort to help the Church, he took the four Gospels and digested them into a single reconciled account, the Diatesseron (the 4-fold story). It was wildly popular. For over two centuries its text was read in Eucharist as the Gospel in the Eastern Church. As an older man, Tatian veered into a weird sect that hated the human body and demanded celibacy from all. When it came time in the fourth century to decide what books were accepted as the standard for faith, the Church in council decided that the Four Gospels themselves, and not Tatian’s Harmony, were to go in the Bible. They had been uniquely authoritative from the start, and this was why Tatian had used them. So the Church accepted Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John in all their messy disharmony and inconsistencies, and rejected Tatian’s consistent single Gospel.
Today’s
Gospel reading is an example of the messiness that Tatian tried to clean up. It
is a messy story, both in the scene that it describes and the various forms it
has come down to us in the Four Gospels. All four Gospels tell a story of a
woman who anoints Jesus. The story takes one form in Mark and Matthew and
very different forms in Luke and John.
In
Mark and Matthew the scene describes a prophetic act by an unnamed woman who
anoints Jesus’ head with extremely expensive perfumed oil and thus proclaims
him as the ‘Christ’ (or Anointed One).
In
Luke, an unnamed prostitute in a very different setting performs an overwrought
act of gratitude for being forgiven of her sins. She weeps, the tears
falling on Jesus’ feet. She wipes his feet dry with her unbound hair, and
anoints his feet (not his head) with the precious ointment.
In John, the woman is named. She is Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Humbly standing at Jesus’ feet, she anoints them with the precious perfume and then wipes off the excess with her hair: the act of loving devotion by a true follower of Jesus.
A little background--
The ointment at issue is worth about $30,000 U.S. by today’s standards. So the complaint about the waste of money found in Mark, Matthew, and John is not trivial.
The unbound hair has social significance—a proper woman just did not appear in public with her hair unbound. Luke clearly means it to identify the woman as a “sinner”; in John, it may just show that Mary is lost in what she is doing.
In John, the woman is named. She is Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Humbly standing at Jesus’ feet, she anoints them with the precious perfume and then wipes off the excess with her hair: the act of loving devotion by a true follower of Jesus.
A little background--
The ointment at issue is worth about $30,000 U.S. by today’s standards. So the complaint about the waste of money found in Mark, Matthew, and John is not trivial.
The unbound hair has social significance—a proper woman just did not appear in public with her hair unbound. Luke clearly means it to identify the woman as a “sinner”; in John, it may just show that Mary is lost in what she is doing.
Matthew
and Mark both have Jesus saying that wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, this
story will be told “in memory of her.” A measure of the misogyny of the
times is that neither actually preserves her name.
The Gospel of Luke doesn’t name the
prostitute, but in the verses that follow the story he mentions one “Mary of
Magdala from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons.” This is why many
people, whenever they hear any version of the story, think that the woman is
“Mary Magdalene,” even though the Mary in John is from Bethany, not
Magdala.
All these stories understand that this woman’s action is socially unacceptable, given women’s marginal status in that society. This is true especially in Luke, where she is a publicly known sinner to boot. Mark and Matthew see the woman as a prophet of the truth who sees what the so-called leading disciples (all men!) can’t yet see. Luke sees her as a model for the penitent believer. John sees her as a hero in faith. But all describe her as expressing her emotions and devotion to Jesus in a totally over-the-top, socially inappropriate, and shockingly extravagant way.
All these stories understand that this woman’s action is socially unacceptable, given women’s marginal status in that society. This is true especially in Luke, where she is a publicly known sinner to boot. Mark and Matthew see the woman as a prophet of the truth who sees what the so-called leading disciples (all men!) can’t yet see. Luke sees her as a model for the penitent believer. John sees her as a hero in faith. But all describe her as expressing her emotions and devotion to Jesus in a totally over-the-top, socially inappropriate, and shockingly extravagant way.
That’s why in all the stories someone
complains about her. The disciples in Mark and Matthew complain about the
waste of money that could have gone to the poor. The Pharisee host in
Luke complains that Jesus can’t be a prophet if he is so unaware of the woman’s
past that he lets her come in and actually touch him. And Judas in the
Gospel of John complains about the loss of money for the poor while the
narrator tells us that what he was really after was his own cut of the money.
In all four, the woman’s act is extravagant, out of proportion, embarrassing,
and questionable morally.
But in all these stories, Jesus defends the woman. He does not criticize her extravagance, but loves her for it. The woman is an example of the truth in several parables, “The kingdom of God is like the case of a laborer who having found a treasure in the field, in his joy goes and sells everything he has and buys the field; or like the merchant who having found a pearl of great price, goes and sells everything and buys the pearl” (Matthew 13:44-46). In accepting Jesus’ love, no cost is too much, no expression of thanks too extravagant.
That is the point I want us to take from the story today. We must be present, and give Jesus our whole being. Standing back and taking on a critic’s role—that woman is a sinner! Why was this money wasted and not given to the poor!—means not being able to be present for Jesus.
But in all these stories, Jesus defends the woman. He does not criticize her extravagance, but loves her for it. The woman is an example of the truth in several parables, “The kingdom of God is like the case of a laborer who having found a treasure in the field, in his joy goes and sells everything he has and buys the field; or like the merchant who having found a pearl of great price, goes and sells everything and buys the pearl” (Matthew 13:44-46). In accepting Jesus’ love, no cost is too much, no expression of thanks too extravagant.
That is the point I want us to take from the story today. We must be present, and give Jesus our whole being. Standing back and taking on a critic’s role—that woman is a sinner! Why was this money wasted and not given to the poor!—means not being able to be present for Jesus.
We human beings seem to be hard-wired
that we can either be present, active, doing something, living our life, or we
can observe, analyze, criticize, and offer our commendation or complaint. We might be able to shift back and forth
between these two modes of being—doing or observing—very quickly, but we cannot
do both at once. Despite the commonly
held view, we are not really able to multi-task. Rather, we at best are able to single task in
rapid order, switching between these modes.
That’s why texting while driving seems to make us about as able to drive
as a person with three times the legal blood-alcohol limit. That’s why one of the quickest ways to kill
the mood of romance and love-making is to start to analyze what is going on and
worry about how we are doing. You can
either do, or you can observe and analyze.
But you cannot do both at the same time.
That’s the contrast I see in today’s
Gospel between Mary and Judas. Mary is
in the moment, carried by her emotions, and acts extravagantly to show love to
Jesus, to prepare his body for burial even before his last suffering begins. Judas analyzes it, and offers his
criticism. And there is no quicker way
to kill one’s experience of faith than to begin to criticize and offer judgment
on how we or others act our their faith.
Tears and extravagance are what each of
us must give Jesus if we truly understand what he offers us. The woman
comes to Jesus and offers all she has, including her dignity. Her ego and
self-seeking are dissolved in the wash of tears and the outpouring of the
costly perfume. She comes to Jesus just as she is, with no pretense to
herself, to him, or to others. And, being human, there is plenty
for others to criticize in her "just as she is."
But Jesus sees her heart. And he loves her for honesty, her sincerity, for her desire. Her love reflects his love. If it’s a waste of money, so be it. If it’s inappropriate, embarrassing, or morally dubious, tough. If its extravagance reflects in its own little way the extravagance of God's love toward us, good. What counts for Jesus is the woman’s intentions, as flawed as she or they might be.
But Jesus sees her heart. And he loves her for honesty, her sincerity, for her desire. Her love reflects his love. If it’s a waste of money, so be it. If it’s inappropriate, embarrassing, or morally dubious, tough. If its extravagance reflects in its own little way the extravagance of God's love toward us, good. What counts for Jesus is the woman’s intentions, as flawed as she or they might be.
Jesus’ defense of Mary is no excuse to
ignore the poor, or think that Jesus did. After a ministry focused on the
poor he says, “The poor are always with you, but I am not always with
you.” Jesus is saying that caring for the poor is important, but must
never be placed in zero-sum competition with caring for the beloved before you.
The fact is, maybe we do not have to get everything just right before the Lord accepts us or looks at us with favor. He loves us so much that, like the father in the parable in last week’s Gospel, he will come out running with arms outspread if we simply turn to him.
Tears of gratitude warm Jesus’ heart and refresh our soul. The fragrance of expensive perfume, extravagantly offered by a humble heart, can fill not only a house, but the whole world. Accepting ourselves and offering our whole selves, including our disabilities and weaknesses, to God is necessary for this to happen.
Contrast this with those who look on with hard hearts and calculators, and criticize, who complain, criticize, and whine about the failings of those who wash the feet of Jesus with their tears, and anoint him with expensive oil just because it feels right to do so. Contrast it with Tatian, who preferred a clean, harmonized Gospel, to the messy ones that God saw fit to deliver to us, and who preferred an orderly world filled with ascetics rather than real human beings.
Let us all try to be a little more honest with ourselves and with God as we pray. Let us recognize our failings and not loathe ourselves for them, but love and thank God all the more for delivering us from the hopelessness of life without Jesus. Let us be a little easier on ourselves and more comfortable in the presence of a loving God. Let us be extravagant in showing our gratitude.
In the name of God, Amen.
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