CAMINANDO WITH JESUS: The Posture of Service

Fifth Sunday in Lent | April 7, 2019

By the Rev. Elizabeth Marie Melchionna

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

- John 12:1-8 

 
He lived without secure housing, going from a friend’s couch to shared dive motel rooms on cold nights. Every week, week by week, Will was at the parish for Sunday worship and Wednesday community supper and formation. His parents had died, and he longed to save enough money to take a bus from Colorado to Virginia to visit his mother’s grave. One Wednesday evening, as he shuffled with his diabetic neuropathy into the fellowship gathering and supper, the sole of his shoe kept dragging on the ground, flopping open and snapping shut like the hungry lips of some reptile that devoured dirty socks. As Will sat down to supper, a fellow parishioner, Karen, who had noticed his the sole of his shoe, knelt down, brushed off the slush with her hands, dried the shoe with a towel and bound the sole back to the upper, wrapping the shoe in duct tape. It was a temporary fix until new shoes could be procured. Karen was a trained nurse with an eye for detail and offering interventions as she could to ease suffering. She seemed to me, as she knelt, to be reminiscent of Mary kneeling at Jesus’ feet, cracking open the jar of nard and anointing his feet. 

John’s gospel in chapter 12 offers us unexpected abundance and extravagance that could easily seem incongruous in our spare, penitential Lenten season. As the Passover nears, so, too, is Jesus’ “hour” approaching. Jesus spends time with his friends, Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Lazarus, revived in the preceding chapter, perhaps suggests that death does not have the final word in Jesus’ life or our lives. Mary, in anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume purchased for his burial, announces the nearness of his death. The sweet smell of the perfumed oil contrasts with the stench of death the friends encountered as Lazarus burst forth from his tomb. And yet, what extravagance! The money spent on the oil would have cost a year’s wages for a laborer. The posture Mary assumes, kneeling and wiping Jesus’ feet, calls to mind the posture Jesus will soon take with his disciples, kneeling to wash their feet as he, servant of all, shares with them in the last supper.  

Judas’ response to Mary’s act suggests the foolishness or wastefulness of her anointing. And Jesus’ response “You will always have the poor with you,” perhaps is meant to call the hearer’s mind to Deuteronomy 15:11, where generosity is commanded for the poor because there will always be opportunity to serve the poor. Another way of reading Jesus’ reply might be in the imperative: Hold the poor close to you. To draw near to the living God, to Jesus, place yourselves in situations of incongruously extravagant offerings like that of Mary. 

Some of the fellow diners at the Wednesday night supper grumbled that Karen had missed her own supper to take care of Will. He could have gotten new shoes at the day shelter for people who were homeless. He could have taped up his own shoe, or at least someone else could have fixed it at a time when folks were not eating. People said Karen should not have gotten down on the dirty floor, puddled with melting slush tracked in from the wintry night. Perhaps the invitation of John’s gospel is that assuming the posture of service, offering extravagance, allows you to see and respond to real need, even when the act is as simple as binding up a loose sole. 

The Rev. Elizabeth Marie Melchionna is the rector of Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill.