There are few passages so packed with beauty and love as this anointing scene at Bethany which we have just heard. Matthew and Mark place the story in the home of Simon the leper and the woman who does the anointing is unnamed, but John places it in the home of three beloved friends, with Mary as the anointer. The story is rich in meaning and foreshadowing, so I am going to consider some of the key lines. 

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany. This is a prelude to the passion, a beautiful domestic scene: a dinner with a family, for the one who had no place to lay his head. This was the one place where Jesus had always felt a home during his ministry, his ‘safe place’ if you like, where he could rest when he was weary and discouraged, where he felt accepted and understood, where he knew he was loved. So it was natural that this was the place where he would gather with friends and disciples before his journey to Jerusalem. 

Reflecting on the Bethany story this week, I was reminded of a group of friends who gathered regularly for dinner on Sunday evenings at the home of one couple in the group. This was a group of people who knew each other well, laughed often, shared life, and journeyed together in faith. I was privileged to share in the hospitality of that group when I lived in Edmonton; I was a Sunday evening ‘regular’ and richly blessed by the experience. 

Several year later, one member of the group was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The only possible treatment was surgery that could offer only a 50/50 success rate at best. It might be successful, but there was an equal chance that he would die during the operation. The friends all gathered at their usual place for a meal with all of this man’s favourite foods. They drank wine, they told stories, they prayed together, and they helped their friends to accept the outcome, whatever it might be and to offer his life to God. 

 There they made him supper. There Martha had made her confession of faith in the previous chapter and was no doubt doing what she did best, cooking: no doubt preparing Jesus’s favourite food. There was Lazarus whom he had wept over and restored to life, and who was now trying figure out how to live his post-resurrection life. There was Mary, the ‘ideal’ disciple who sat at the feet of Jesus and learned from him. The supper is marked by the comfort and familiarity of a group of friends who know each other well and have eaten together many times. It also foreshadows Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. 

Mary’s anointing of Jesus. Mary took a costly jar of nard and anointed his feet then wiped him with her hair in an extravagant act of devotion. Evelyn Underhill writes that “Worship is summed up in sacrifice, the movement of generosity in response to God’s sacrificial act of redemption in Christ and our participation in it”. There was a sumptuousness about Mary’s sacrifice, a lavish outpouring of love that is true of all saints. The woman, not counting the cost, anointed him. In Matthew and Mark, the woman anoints his head: a prophetic act anointing him king and Messiah in the empire of Caesar. But in John, Mary is named and she anoints Jesus’ feet, another kind of prophetic act, signalling Jesus’ approaching death and anointing him for burial.  She was able to understand and accept what Peter and the other disciples could not: that their beloved Master was going to die. It was also the action of a true disciple: to wash feet, a servant ministry that Jesus modelled and to which we are all called. Jesus received from Mary what he would soon offer to his disciples: to wash their feet as a sign of servant leadership. 

And the Fragrance Filled the Room. When I was growing up, incense was more often used in church services that I attended, and I still associate the smell of incense with community worship. Other more homely smells would have filled the home at Bethany that night: the smell of dinner cooking, perhaps the yeasty smell of bread baking. There are scents that remind us of loved ones, the comforting smell of home (And yes, each home has its own special ‘scent’. To this day, the smell of Chanel #5, immediately evokes my mother’s presence for me and the smell of pipe tobacco always recalls my husband even though he gave up smoking it over forty years ago.) At our Thursday liturgy this week, someone made the observation that the scent of  the nard would have remained in Mary’s hair for a long time, perhaps permanently. 

Judas’s objection:  Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor? Again, there is a difference in the evangelists’ telling of the story. Matthew and Mark credit the objection to the disciples, but John names Judas as the accuser, portraying him as moving from light to darkness. Judas has a point though: the money could have been given to the poor. It is a challenge for us as a church as we struggle to serve those in need while also needing to balance the budget. There is a very real point of tension in this. 

Jesus’ response: “Let her alone” Here Jesus sharply defends the woman, and all those who gifts are not properly appreciated or utilized by the church.  He knew that she understood that his death was approaching, and he also understood that she would be with him until the end. This was her true act of extravagant love, that she would stay with him even as others deserted him. 

The poor you always have with you. The church has used these words both to justify and condemn indifference to the needs of the poor. Jesus was obviously not condoning neglect of the poor. His words were actually a quotation from Deuteronomy 15:11, whose message is very clear: “For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore, I command you, you shall open wide your hand to the needy and to the poor in the land”. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas puts it like this: “The poor that we always have with us is Jesus. It is to the poor that all extravagance is to be given.”  

But you do not always have me. So, we return to where we began: with a prelude to the passion. Mary’s act of abundant love took place in the midst of a world of treachery and betrayal. 

We live our lives in the shadow of the cross, but we also live our lives in the presence of the risen Christ. We are invited to daily companionship with Jesus, at our dinner tables, in our acts of compassion and generosity, and in moments of worship. We are invited to live this way in a world that seems to live with a mindset of scarcity instead of a mindset of abundance, a world whose violence and cruelty crucify people every day. We are called like Jesus, to servant ministry: to wash feet, love extravagantly, and place the poor at the forefront of our mission. 

 

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