Warren McDougall Richmond Hill United Church March 25/07 (Lent 5) Our Spendthrift Lover John 12:1-8 Each of the 4 gospels has a story of a woman anointing Jesus - but the details vary. All agree that the incident happened in Bethany, but from there on the stories diverge considerably. Luke s version, unlike the others, is set near the beginning of Jesus ministry, and is about a woman of the city, who was a sinner (implying that she may have been a prostitute). When she wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed his feet and finally anointed them with ointment, it was almost too much for Jesus host, Simon the Pharisee, who just about blew a gasket when he witnessed this brazen display of affection. Jesus used the occasion to tell a parable and teach about forgiveness and grace. Matthew s and Mark s versions are similar to each other, with an anonymous woman anointing not Jesus feet, but his head - a small detail that can be easily overlooked but which is crucial to understanding the woman s actions. Anointing the head usually signified selection for some special role or task - a king was anointed, for example, when assuming his throne. On the other hand, to anoint feet was more an act of hospitality and refreshment, a display of affection and devotion. In the anointing, there is also an allusion to anointing a dead body for burial - a detail which is not lost, given the proximity of this event to the events of Holy Week and Good Friday. Here in John, the woman is not anonymous - neither is she described as being a sinner. She has a name: Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, all of them friends and disciples of Jesus. Most of the time, we lump all 4 stories together, and come up with an image of a sinful, sensual, brazen woman weeping at Jesus feet, anointing his feet with ointment, kissing his feet, and then wiping up her tears and the excess ointment with her long, tangled hair - a disheveled, quivering, pathetic mess lying on the floor at Jesus feet - needy and subordinate, a receiver of much-needed mercy and forgiveness. Although no scriptural evidence exists to support the theory, many have concluded that the woman was Mary Magdalene, stereotyped throughout faith history as an archetype of woman s sexual sinfulness. 1
John paints a very different picture: a confident, poised, self-possessed woman who was not only known to Jesus, but loved by him as well. And she had a name - Mary. It was a difficult time. It was close to the end - six days before the Passover. Jesus disciples still didn t understand - or believe - what was going on. But Mary understood. Wrenched to the heart by the suffering that lay just ahead for her good friend Jesus, she performed a tender, generous act of loving-kindness. She had come not to receive anything from Jesus (as the popular interpretation of this story always seems to suggest), but to give, to minister to Jesus. What a welcome and healing balm it must have been to Jesus to be so lovingly anointed. His loneliest hour was approaching, his closest friends were turning away in confusion and fear, his death was in view. Mary let him know that she understood; Jesus, in turn, knew that he was not alone. In this act of anointing, Mary transforms a servile, practical task into an act which signifies her own transformation. Her courageous violation of ingrained traditional custom tells us that she has absorbed Jesus message very well. She has no doubt witnessed Jesus healing of women as well as men...she has seen Jesus touch the untouchable...she has seen Jesus heal on the Sabbath...she has seen Jesus speaking to women in public. Mary [like her mentor, Jesus] - is not concerned with what people will think or say about her. She is not constrained by the demands of a false protocol or of an oppressive society s expectations. You might say, in fact, that her behaviour is in your face. Mary has found her own unique way of showing her affection and devotion. Was Martha, her sister, shocked and amazed at Mary s brazen daring? Probably. Did Lazarus, her brother, think that Mary was getting uppity and bold? Likely. Did Mary care? Apparently not! And Jesus, what a surprising and frankly sensual gift she gives him! You know, this is an aspect of this story that hardly ever gets mentioned by commentators and writers - this sensual, erotic component to the story. Why do you think that is? It s obviously part of the church s tendency toward dualism of body and spirit - spirit being good, and body being bad! Think about it: Mary anointing Jesus feet with ointment, rubbing his feet with her hands, caressing his toes, his heels, his ankles...(luke has the woman s tears in there, too, and has the woman kissing Jesus feet as well)...and when the ointment was 2
rubbed into his feet, she used her hair (she would need to uncover and unbind her hair and let it down, of course) to dry Jesus feet, absorbing the excess ointment. Now you tell me that that is not a sensual, erotic experience. If you were watching it in a movie, or reading it in a novel it certainly would be! But this is the Bible, isn t it? And thinking in this way (in the church) seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable...uneasy. Why is that? Because we would really like to believe that Jesus was asexual, I think. We want to believe that Jesus was so divine, so heavenly, so holy that such as experience would have no affect on him. Yeah, right!! How many of you remember when Andrew Lloyd Webber s musical Jesus Christ Superstar first came out, and how scandalous it was to some that a woman - (in Jesus Christ Superstar, it was Mary Magdalene, I think) - should sing what was really a love song to Jesus: I don t know how to love him, what to do, how to move him... He s a man, he s just a man and I ve had so many men before. In very many ways, he s just one more. Whatever you believe about the humanity/divinity question about Jesus, we believe that the historical Jesus was a man. Jesus was fully human. And human beings have bodies - and feelings. We feel well, we hurt, we feel lonely or afraid, we sense delight. For us in Western Christianity - [where the body is either ignored or its needs suppressed, or is simply a vehicle for achieving more lofty spiritual ends] - and where we ve quite successfully separated spirituality and sexuality - all of this tears and feet and hair and body talk makes us uncomfortable! But if we can just undo a chunk of Christian church history and go back to the gospels and to Jesus ministry, we see a number of things. We see that the healings performed by Jesus are physical, primal and real. He mixes spit and earth and applies it to the eyes of a blind man. He puts his fingers in the ears of a deaf man, and touches his tongue. He embraces children. He trembles with anguish and fear in Gethsemane. He dies with an anguished cry. But the physical nature of this Jesus, his openness, his sorrow, his joy, his nearness to others, also provokes conflict with some around him. Every culture has its phobias about touch. These appear, above all, in taboos about sexuality and about uncleanness. Jesus pays little attention to these! He touches the lepers and heals them...he touches a dead body...he touches (or allows himself to 3
be touched) by a ritually unclean woman. And Jesus certainly seems to enjoy the sensuous touch of Mary s hands and hair on his feet. (He certainly doesn t ask her to stop!). But there is another whole aspect to this story. In 3 of the 4 gospel accounts of this event, we have the disciples (in John s case it is Judas) complaining about the wastefulness and the extravagance of the woman s actions: Why was this ointment not sold...and the money given to the poor?. [All of a sudden Judas has a social conscience!] And Jesus response: The poor you always have with you, but you will not always have me. Now we need to say right away that no one should ever even think about using these words of Jesus to justify not helping those who are in need. Justice and compassion are so central to the gospel message that no one who takes Jesus seriously could misunderstand this. What was happening here was this: Jesus was pointing a finger at the selfrighteous, the narrow, the ones who had no capacity to celebrate and appreciate beauty, who put a politically - or spiritually - correct measure up against any action. I believe that Jesus said then - [and would say today] - that being in solidarity with the poor is a constant requirement, but that it does not take the place of personal acts of love for individuals in our lives - friends, partners, children or strangers. To give money to benefit the poor but to refuse to comfort and assist the one right beside us is just as wrong as ignoring the pain of the poor in order to concentrate on only our own personal needs. In response to Judas attempt to establish an either/or love (either you love Jesus or you love the poor), Jesus affirms the kind of both/and love that Mary has shown. While lack of concern for the poor is always suspect, so is the refusal to celebrate a beautiful deed that stirs the heart. Art and music and poetry are not luxuries; they, too, are necessary to full human life. But of course, this is not a story of just one woman s generosity and extravagance. It s meant as a metaphor for God s generosity and extravagance God s unconditional love. In a way, this story is very similar in its core message to last Sunday s story of the Prodigal Son. In Linda s sermon last Sunday, she reflected on 4
our response to God s grace, and how it seems like it should be a response of gratitude and awe, but all too often is a response of jealousy and envy. She asked: Like the Scribes and Pharisees who criticize Jesus for the company he keeps, do we, in fact, find grace offensive? The father s great love for both the sons...how can love be that unconditional, that accepting, that inclusive? The father s generosity, his willingness to share everything with both his sons...where is the fairness in that? And us...we have no right to this love. There is nothing we can do to deserve this generosity. In the face of such love, forgiveness and generosity, we can only feel awe and gratitude. Oddly, however, that is not always the response. It certainly wasn t Judas response or [in the other gospel versions of this story] the response of the rest of the disciples. As I was thinking about this text this week, and what I wanted to say about it, I remembered Thomas Troeger s hymn, A Spendthrift Lover is the Lord. In this hymn, Troeger imagines God as an extravagant lover, whose love has no particular use, but just is. It s not practical or sensible or measured. It s extravagant, it s generous, it s reckless to the point of being out of control : A spendthrift lover is the Lord who never counts the cost or asks if heaven can afford to woo a world that s lost. This is the One after whom we pattern our lives this spendthrift lover whose love, grace and generosity knows no bounds. Thanks be to our Spendthrift Lover, God! 5
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