Extravagant Tears (Lent 5C)

 

Extravagant Tears
Lent 5C
3 April 2022 10 a.m. Sung Eucharist

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Mission Church of The Holy Spirit, Sutherlin (Oregon)

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

 God, give us grace to feel and love.

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

Once, when I was making a presentation on ministries for the poor at a cathedral where I served as a staff chaplain, a wealthy member of the Cathedral Chapter replied to my appeal for more funding by saying, “Why bother?  Didn’t Jesus tell us that we’ll always have the poor with us?”  I was too flabbergasted to reply, but my Cathedral Dean had the presence of mind to chime in, “Fr. Tony is not proposing that we try to end poverty, a hopeless task, as you note.  He is only asking for a modest increase to help meet the immediate, urgent needs of our brothers and sisters who are at real risk. Jesus indeed says we’ll always have the poor, but that isn’t a reason to not follow his example of trying to take care of them.” 

All four Gospels tell a story of a woman who anoints Jesus.  The story takes one form in Mark and Matthew and two addition very contradictory forms in Luke and John. It is typical of the messiness of early Christian oral tradition. 

Mark (14:3-9), followed by Matthew (26:6-13), sets the story at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany near Jerusalem after Jesus has entered the city in triumph just before his death.  A woman enters a dinner where Jesus is reclined with other guests on small couches around the dinner table.  She brings a flask of perfumed ointment worth about $30,000 (!) and pours it onto Jesus’ head.  Jesus’ followers are outraged at the waste of money that could have been given to the poor.  But Jesus defends her, saying, “Let her alone.  She has done a beautiful thing for me.  You will always have the poor with you, but I am about to die.  She was just preparing my body for burial a little early. Wherever the Gospel is preached, this story will be recounted ‘in memory of her.’”   A measure of the patriarchy of the age is that the name of the woman was not preserved. 

Luke (7:36-50) tells a very different story.  Luke places his version of the story very early in Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, at the home of a Pharisee (not a leper), also named Simon.  A woman “of the city, known to be a sinner” interrupts.  She comes in behind Jesus as he reclines with his head toward the table and begins to weep.  Her tears cover Jesus’ feet, which she then wipes dry with her hair, unbound in public in the style of sex workers in that place and time advertising their availability.  She then kisses and anoints his feet with the precious ointment. The host says to himself that if Jesus were a prophet, he would know not to allow this sleazy person to touch him.  Jesus responds with the parable of the two debtors explaining that the woman had been forgiven much sin and so has greater gratitude.  He contrasts his host’s cool reception to the care the woman has lavished on Jesus, pointedly noting “you did not anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet.”  Immediately after the story, Luke tells of Jesus’ early women disciples, including one Mary of Magdala, from whom Jesus had cast seven demons.  Forever since, Christians have tended to identify the unnamed prostitute in Luke’s story with Mary Magdalene, and from there, with the woman in all four of the stories. 

In today’s Gospel reading, John (12:1-8) places the scene, like Mark, in Bethany just before Jesus’ death,.  Here the homeowner is not identified, though the main servers are Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus.  It looks like the dinner is to thank Jesus for raising Lazarus from the dead, an act that in John’s Gospel becomes the trigger for the plot to put Jesus to death.  Though this Mary is from Bethany, not from Magdala, she anoints Jesus’ feet as in Luke rather than his head as in Mark.  In John, it is Judas Iscariot who complains, caricatured by John as the embezzling treasurer of the disciples who is about to betray Jesus.  The portrayal, perhaps, is part of John’s bitter and ugly blaming of Judeans for Jesus’ death.  Jesus replies, “Let her alone, her purpose was to keep it for my burial day.  You will always have the poor, but you will not always have me with you.”  In John, the scene describes not a prophetic act by a woman proclaiming Jesus as Christ and hinting at his death (as in Mark and Matthew), nor an overwrought act of gratitude for forgiveness (as in Luke), but rather an act of thankful, loving devotion by a close friend of Jesus anticipating his death.   

 

Despite differences, all four gospels portray the woman’s act as extravagant, out of proportion, embarrassing, and perhaps questionable morally.  Yet in all these stories, Jesus defends the woman.  He does not criticize her extravagance, but loves her for it.  In all four, Jesus takes the woman’s critics to task, contrasting her loving intent and devotion with their critical carping. 

That is, I think, the main point we must take from the story.  The woman is focused, intent, and wholly caught up in the moment of expressing her gratitude and compassionate love.  But the critics stand to the side, carping: “If this clown were a prophet, he’d know enough to keep the sleazy ones away?” or “How could she have wasted all that money?  It should have gone to the poor!” 

 

Intentional presence and grateful connection is the mark of a follower of Jesus.  It opposite is turning up one’s nose at such “sentimentalism” and finding fault with how other’s express their faith.  It’s no accident that we use the word “maudlin” to poke fun at what we, in our wisdom, deem excessive shows of sentimentalism.  The word comes from “Magdalene.”    

 

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—doing or observing—very quickly, but we cannot do both at once. That’s why texting while driving impairs us about as much as having a blood alcohol level three times over the legal 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.  You can either do, or you can observe and analyze.  But you cannot do both at the same time.  It’s the real reason why Jesus taught do not judge, or you’ll be judged.   

 

 

It's at the heart of the difference between Mary of Bethany and Judas in today’s Gospel.  Mary is in the moment, carried by her emotions, and acts extravagantly to show love to Jesus, to prepare his body for burial on the off chance that something may happen to him when enters Jerusalem.  Judas stands to the side and carps.  Secretly plotting to betray Jesus to an almost certain death, he feigns ignorance of how little time Jesus has left and phrases his criticism appealing to the noblest of intentions:  helping the poor!  But, as John notes, that wasn’t really Judas’ motivation at all. 

 

There is no quicker way to kill your experience of faith than to begin to criticize and offer judgment on how others act out their faith. We usually end up lying to others and to ourselves in the process.   

   

There was an ongoing debate among rabbis as to what was the more virtuous act, giving to the living poor or burying the indigent dead. Those who gave priority to burial for the dead over alms to the poor did so because they saw burial as a pure act of compassion and almsgiving as a righting of injustice.  The dead couldn’t thank you or repay you; the living might be able to.  Jesus, who taught elsewhere to throw dinner parties for those who couldn’t repay rather than for those whose future favor we hope to curry, here opts for the position that compassion trumps justice.  He suggests that the seeming hopelessness of ending poverty is little compared to the finality and certainty of death.

 

Contrary to my cathedral vestryman’s take on the matter, Jesus was not saying don’t worry about the poor.  After a ministry focused on healing and feeding the poor Jesus says, “The poor are always with you, but I am not,” thinking of his impending death that Mary only vaguely suspected and Judas knew about all too well, yet hid.  Jesus’ death at the hands of the system of oppression and scapegoating that Judas has bought into, ironically, will be the very thing that starts the destruction of the system of power that produces the poor as a permanent fixture.   

The fragrance of expensive perfume, extravagantly offered by a thankful 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 is a beautiful act of compassion.   

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 Jesus all the more for delivering us from the hopelessness of life.  Let us be a little easier on ourselves and others.  Let us be extravagant in showing gratitude and compassion.  That’s what Jesus invites us all to do. 

In the name of God, Amen