John 12:1-8
The
four gospels give us three versions of this event. The other two are Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50. We can also draw
on parts of a relevant passage in Matthew, the “Sermon on the Mount.” Maybe
comparing the three helps understand the message.
It
seems natural to ask what the three accounts have in common and where they
differ in order to try to understand where the emphasis is in each. Each
account occurs in a different setting. Mark’s is in an unclean leper’s house in
Bethany, Luke’s is in a Pharisee’s home, and John’s location is unknown except
to be in the city of Bethany where Lazarus (who is present at this occasion) whom
he has raised from the dead, an omen of his own resurrection lives. Only John
names the woman.
Mark’s
version presents a story of total social disruption, the language uses violent
Greek words, the woman who should not be at this dinner smashes completely the
expensive jar of Nard as an exorbitant statement about the value of the coming
sacrifice of Jesus, and Jesus upsetting of the conventional understanding of
the law, and the obligation of disciples, all of us, towards the impoverished
among us, be they spiritually or economically impoverished.
An
underlying theme in Luke is the message of the openness of the Gospel to both
Gentile (the woman sinner) and Israel (the Pharisee). Jesus forgives the woman
sinner and chastises the Pharisee, noting she has much reason for humility in
the face of the forgiveness of Jesus. We cannot avoid Luke’s continuing focus
on the negative nature of wealth. His entire gospel is about how wealth turns
us from God, the only thing of true value.
Both
Mark and John offer the reflection explicitly
about the continuing presence of the poor. Luke may be using the woman sinner
(outcast?) to implicitly and metaphorically allude to the poor.
John
uses the passage to identify Judas for the traitor he is, but both Mark and
John carry a strong message in his objection to the cost of the nard, sub rosa, about poverty that can be
understood not only as an economic but a spiritual shortcoming.
Some
“modern” pastors who are fixated on the old social gospel movement that spanned
the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century
still hold to the principal tenet that we can inaugurate the Kingdom of God
here and now on earth by implementing social justice (implying eliminating
poverty). They
struggle with a literal reading of this passage thinking it implies an unstated
judgment that “we can’t do anything about the poor, that we will always have the
poor among us.”
Such
an understanding ignores the difference between justice, mercy and compassion.
It ignores the very beginning of Mark’s gospel where Jesus tells us the Kingdom
of God is at hand. John though more ambiguous also suggests the same (see John 5:24-25 and 28-29). The Social Gospel, on
the other hand believes humans have the capacity (power) to create, and can do
a better job of creating the Kingdom than God.
Perhaps
the story of this sacrifice of wealth offers a way out of this dilemma. It may just
boil down to the question, “Is justice or compassion (and mercy) the object for
Christian living?”
Last
week we read Luke’s message
that the circumstances of life are not the measure of one’s reward for faith,
that the compassion of the Lord through Jesus has opened the path to being found to both Jew and Gentile.
(Faith is its own reward.)
Justice
on the other hand is often an ethical choice determined by values of culture.
Culture at its core is the antipode to Christianity. Culture cannot be trusted
to shape ethical Christian guidance, especially when the core of Christian
ethics is the compassion of the Shepherd, the Good Samaritan, and the Father who
had two sons, and value is loss not gain.
We
see how Judas uses the common purse in John. We see in Mark how the whole body
of disciples objected to the “waste” of the nard that could be used to help the
poor. We see in John how the “religious in-group” objects to forgiving even the
lowliest of sinners.
Do
we care about the poor? (John
12:6). The poor, that is the weak in spirit, the meek, those who hunger for
righteousness, those who mourn – all those who are spiritual and economically
impoverished, will always be with us and they shall always be a test of our
Christian ethic. They also will be the teachers of what wealth really is.
Matthew
(Matthew 5:1- 48) tells us
the merciful are blest and will receive mercy, those who are pure will see God,
the peacemakers will be called children of God, and those who are persecuted
for righteousness sake will have the Kingdom of God. Matthew suggests wealth is
an expansive thing to the Christian.
Perhaps
Mark, Luke and John understand the vocational
question posed by Jesus and described by Matthew 5 as, “How do you spend
your money?”
Grace and peace,
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