The Annointing Woman

ALL SOULS PARISH

Sermon -- March 28, 2004

Este Gardner Cantor

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, Oh Lord. Amen.

In today’s passage, Mary of Bethany anoints the feet of Jesus at the next to last supper one week before his death. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, Mary, who sat at the beloved, soon-to-be anointed feet of Jesus to be his disciple- an outrageous act for a first century Jewish woman.

The story of the anointing woman is an outrageous one as well, and it appears in all four gospels in slightly differing forms. In Matthew (26:6-13) and Mark (14:3-9) a woman who is not named anoints Jesus’ head in the house of Simon the Leper. Although this act suggests the anointing of a king, this act was traditionally the exclusive duty of a male prophet. And yet, just as he did when she studied at his feet, Jesus elaborately defends her. In Luke, (7:36-50) while Jesus is still in Galilee in the home of a Pharisee, “a local woman who was a sinner” wets Jesus feet with her tears, and, like Mary of Bethany, wipes them dry with her hair and then anoints them. The scandalized Pharisee observes that if Jesus were any kind of prophet he would know what kind of woman was touching him. Once again Jesus defends her, and forgives her her sins. And in John’s gospel, even though the anointing woman was not portrayed as a sinner, still the act is outrageous. In fact, according to Raymond Collins:

...her gesture is characterized by its utter radicalness: 1. in the Jewish world it was scandalous for a woman to let down her hair in the presence of a man who was not her husband; 2. the anointing of feet was the task of slaves [which seemed to be Jesus whole point at the last supper]; and 3. the cost of the perfume (not mere oil) was extravagant costing approximately 300 days pay for the ordinary laborer.

A year’s wages for a laborer. So if we translate this to the modern world, Mary of Bethany poured $20,000.00 worth of perfume on the feet of her teacher. I am no expert on fine perfumes, so I called Macy’s Hilltop and calculated that Mary of Bethany’s act would be comparable to pouring a gallon and a half of Chanel #5 on the feet of Jesus. What would you say if someone did that? You might remark that it would have made more sense to sell the Chanel #5 and give the money to the poor. But if you said that, you would be betraying Jesus’ message, the message that Mary had actually understood, unlike the rest of the disciples, unlike we of little faith. This act is a testimony to love given without calculating the cost- a radical notion for any age. This is the kind of love that Jesus tried to teach his disciples to show to each other, and the symbol he chose was to wash their feet, as Mary had done for him. The cost to Jesus was to do the job that only a slave- and only a Gentile slave at that- would ever have done. But never calculated that cost.
There may be a particular significance to the phrase used in John’s version “fragrance of the perfume” filling the whole house. It may be referring to the passage in Mark and Matthew which tells us that the fame of the woman would spread throughout the world. A rabbinic maxim says:

[The fragrance of] good ointment spreads from the bedroom to the dining room, but a good name spreads from one end of the world to the other.

There also may be an answer to Jesus’ puzzling and much-misused comment, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”( Jn 12:8). While alms-giving is classified as a praiseworthy “act of justice,” in rabbinic theology, care for burial is counted an “act of charity,” a higher and more important class of good works.

Several things indicate that the author of John is tying this dinner to the last supper. Even the word “dinner” (diepnon) is used in John only to refer to the supper at Bethany and the last supper. And there is the presence of Judas at both meals, identified as a betrayer in both. And Robert Kysar notes that

The story [of the anointing woman] seems to anticipate the washing of the disciples feet... the Greek word used here translated “wiped” (ekmassein) is used only in connection with these two stories in John (11:2, 12:3,13:3)

Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza points out that in the Gospel of John, Mary of Nazareth presides at the miracle that marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, the miracle at Cana. And Mary of Bethany presides at the sign (performed by her) that falls at the very end of his public ministry. At the wedding of Cana there is another expression of almost unimaginable extravagance; the astonishing quantity of wine provided (albeit reluctantly) by Jesus. His ministry is sandwiched in between two acts of great, extravagant generosity, both initiated by women. And the anointing story falls just before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and his special instructions to his disciples at the last supper. The most striking instruction is the mandate to “love one another” (John 13:34). It seems clear that Mary of bethany’s act anticipates his commandment.

There are many examples of Jesus performing miracles of unimaginable generosity:
The feeding of the multitudes (also one of the rare stories that occur in all four gospels, Mt 15:32-39, Mk 8:1-10, Lk 9: 10-17, and John 6:4-14), the massive catch of fish that Simon and his fellow fishermen harvest (Lk 5:1-11) and his instruction to forgive your brother not seven times but seventy times seven times ” (Mt 18:22). And there are also many stories of Jesus breaking taboos in the interest of compassion: healing on the Sabbath, allowing the touch of a bleeding woman, speaking with, healing and raising up women of the despised races of the Canaanites and the Samaritan, and of course dining with tax collectors and sinners. But in the story of Mary of Bethany, we have someone other than Jesus actually performing a courageous, taboo-breaking act of tremendous generosity. We are shown that one doesn’t have to be Jesus of Nazareth, one doesn’t have to have miraculous powers to emulate the kind of unconditional and almost limitless love that Jesus models. We can all find comfort in the fact that it was humble, human Mary of Bethany who anointed the Anointed One. Anyone can identify with her. She ducked out of doing the dishes so she could do something more fun. She yelled at Jesus for being late immediately prior to his miracle of raising her brother from the dead.

In Matthew (26:13) and Mark (14:9), Jesus defends the anointing woman from the scolding disciples saying, “Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” This sermon today and so many throughout the centuries have fulfilled this prophesy. Jesus’ words hold more importance than can be ascribed to a simple act of extravagance. It is the anointing of the Anointed One. It is the good news- the news that we can allow the Grace to rain from us for a change, we can give something without calculating the cost.

Ironically, in Matthew and Mark, the gospels that do honor the memory of the anointing woman, we don’t even have her name. And in Luke she is simply “a woman in the city who was a sinner.” And sadly, for the most part, it is the sinful woman of the city that has traditionally remained as a composite portrait of her. She has often been inaccurately identified as Mary Magdalene, although nowhere in the Gospels is it written that Mary of Magdalene was any kind of sinner. The original Greek word for “sinner” is hamartia, or literally, “one who misses something”. But it is we, and not the anointing woman who are missing something. We are missing the obligation implied in the ever present raining of grace down upon us. As the Christian Buddhist Thick Nhat Hahn reminds us::

The winds of grace are always blowing- we have only to put up our sails.

Jesus calls us to mirror the anointing woman and give back in some small measure, the love that has been so extravagantly poured out for us.

Amen