We’re in Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter. It’s a busy time for some of us I expect, with the different routine of school holidays.
It was certainly a busy week for Jesus, at least as portrayed in the gospels. As we’ve noted before, a large amount of the gospels is given to describing this one week of Jesus’ three-year ministry.
During this week, Jesus was famously anointed in a home in Bethany by Mary – Lazarus and Martha’s sister – using a jar of very expensive perfume. There are many aspects to this incident, not least the sheer extravagance of Mary’s actions in showing her love for Jesus.
This story, told in Matthew 26, seems in contrast to what Jesus has been teaching in Matthew 25. There, Jesus tells the well-known parable of the sheep and the goats which speaks of the high importance of feeding the hungry, supplying the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting those in prison. Jesus says that to do these things for other people is actually to do them for him, and that our inheriting the kingdom of God depends on these things.
So perhaps when, in Bethany, the disciples see the expensive perfume poured over Jesus, it is not surprising that objections arise – “this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.”
Given Jesus’ teaching in chapter 25 we might expect him to agree that a better use of the perfume would be selling it and using the money to feed the hungry and clothe the poor, than to waste it in just one moment of extravagant worship. But Jesus defends Mary and what she did, and gives some context to his earlier teaching by says that the poor will always be with us.
Jesus indeed teaches us to provide for the poor – this is part of the second commandment to love your neighbour as yourself. But the first command is to love God with all your heart. And I am deeply skeptical that we can in the long-term fulfil the second commandment to love your neighbour as yourself in we are not formed by the first commandment to love God with all of your heart. Justice that is not rooted in the worship of God has no coherent foundation.*
Jesus’ call is for us to do both – to worship him extravagantly, and to work for God’s justice to be seen on earth (which, ultimately, is also part of our worship).
I recommend Brian Zahnd’s book of Lenten reflections, which has helpful reflections on Jesus’ final week and what he was aiming to do.
* Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus, p.178