Extravagance and Tears
Lent 5C
7 April 2019 8:00 a.m. Said, 10 a.m. Sung Eucharist
Lent 5C
7 April 2019 8:00 a.m. Said, 10 a.m. Sung Eucharist
The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
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 converted to Christianity because paganism was too messy. He wanted to bring order to and clean up his new faith: he took the four Gospels and put them into a single reconciled account, the Diatesseron (the 4-fold story). It was wildly popular, used for two centuries as the Gospel Lectionary for Eucharist in the Syriac Church. Tatian later veered into a weird sect that 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 decided to go with the Four Gospels themselves, and not Tatian’s Harmony: the fathers and mothers accepted Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John in all their messy disharmony and inconsistencies, and rejected Tatian’s sanitized Gospel.
Today’s Gospel is an example of the
messiness that Tatian tried to clean up. All four Gospels tell a story of a woman who
anoints Jesus. The story takes one form in Mark and Matthew and very
different, contradictory, forms in Luke and John.
Mark
(14:3-9), followed by Matthew (26:6-13), sets the story at the home of Simon
the Leper in Bethany near Jerusalem just days before Jesus’ death. A woman enters a dinner where Jesus is
reclined with other guests on small couches around a dinner table. She
brings a precious flask of extremely expensive perfumed ointment worth about
$30,000. She 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.’” The scene
describes a prophetic act: anointing
Jesus’ head proclaims him as the ‘Christ’ (or Anointed One).
Luke
(7:36-50), who like Matthew usually edits and adapts Mark, 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 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
prostitutes in that place and time advertising their availability. She
then kisses and anoints his feet (not his head) 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 tells 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. The scene in Luke emphasizes the woman’s interior reasons for approaching Jesus—her gratitude for Jesus’ forgiveness and welcome.
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. The scene in Luke emphasizes the woman’s interior reasons for approaching Jesus—her gratitude for Jesus’ forgiveness and welcome.
In
today’s Gospel reading, John (12:1-8) places the scene, like Mark, just before
Jesus’ death in Bethany. But 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 as hinted at in Luke, she anoints Jesus’ feet as in Luke rather
than his head as in Mark. She, a devoted
disciple, anoints the feet of Jesus with costly ointment and then wipes the
excess off with her hair, “filling the house with the fragrance of the
ointment.”
In John, it is Judas Iscariot, the treasurer of the disciples about to betray Jesus, who complains, probably as part of John’s bitter and ugly blaming of Jews 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 of a sinful woman in the presence of grace (as in Luke), but rather an act of loving devotion by follower of Jesus anticipating his death.
In John, it is Judas Iscariot, the treasurer of the disciples about to betray Jesus, who complains, probably as part of John’s bitter and ugly blaming of Jews 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 of a sinful woman in the presence of grace (as in Luke), but rather an act of loving devotion by follower of Jesus anticipating his death.
In all four gospels, the woman’s act
is extravagant, out of proportion, embarrassing, and questionable
morally. In all these stories, Jesus defends the woman. He does not
criticize her extravagance, but loves her for it. As he taught, “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.
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 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.
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 out their faith.
Tears and extravagance are what each
of us must give Jesus if we truly understand him. 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.
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.
Jesus’ defense of Mary is no excuse
to ignore the poor. After a ministry
focused on the poor he says, “The poor are always with you, but I am not always
with you.” Jesus’ death at the hands of the system of oppression and
scapegoating will start the destruction of this very system of power that
produces the poor as a permanent fixture.
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 comes 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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