LENT V 2019

• Isaiah 43:16-21  • 
• Psalm 126  • 
• Philippians 3:4b-14  • 
• John 12:1-8

Mary Anoints the Feet of Jesus (anon. 16C)

“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” So says God through the mouth of Isaiah in this week's Old Testament lesson. God's work and our perception of it go hand in hand, because to see what God has done, is at the same time to see ordinary life in a different way.
 
In this week’s Epistle, Paul makes this point to the Philippians in the extravagant language characteristic of the Middle East. Compared with “the value of knowing Christ”, everything else is “rubbish”! He includes in this category his personal possessions, his health, safety and social standing – all of which he has sacrificed in his determination to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus”. We can admire Paul for his discipleship, but he was both unmarried and itinerant. Most Christians have homes, jobs, families and friends, and it would be inhuman for even the most ardent Christian to seriously regard these as “rubbish” that could just as well be thrown away.

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Picasso: Group of Poor People (1903)

Still, if Christian life is to mean anything, it must extend beyond the conventional observance of Sunday morning. The question is whether we give our discipleship of Christ priority in the daily round, and if so, what it takes priority over. The Gospel this week poses an especially telling challenge on this score. By anointing Jesus with a rare and very expensive oil made from the roots of the spikenard plant, Mary of Bethany unmistakably gives devotion to Jesus a higher priority than she gives to helping the many poor people with whom her world was filled. Judas criticizes her for this, and though John attributes unworthy motives to him, with respect to the criticism itself, lots of people would say he was right. What a waste of money in a needy world!  Yet Jesus commends Mary, and thereby creates a conflict with a widespread assumption in contemporary Christian ethics. In effect, Jesus gives the material needs of the poor a lower priority than the proper worship of God. As a result, this Gospel passage, and the episode it records, challenges us to think a lot harder than we normally do about Christian priorities.

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