Mark 14 – two responses to Jesus

AJM Holy Trinity 25.3.07 am

Reading Mark 14.1-11

Introduction

Good morning. I’d like to ask you a question. Here it is. Have you found Jesus?

There he is, behind the curtain.

But seriously, have you found Jesus? These two guys are asking this woman that question. But do they know what they are asking? And is the Jesus who she obviously has found the same as the one they are wanting to talk to her about? For the implication is that she knows a bit more about him than they do…

So. Have you found Jesus? And if you have, have you decided who he is, and what you are going to do about it? Because that’s what this passage is all about.

Let’s pray.

The background

Let me start with a bit of scene-setting. It’s just before the Passover. The Passover was a significant time. It was, and still is for the Jewish people, a freedom festival. It celebrates the release of the people of God from slavery in Egypt, and marks the beginning of the journey to the Promised Land. Jesus has chosen it for the timing of his arrival in Jerusalem. That’s not a coincidence. This is going to be a new Passover, the beginning of a new kind of freedom, the beginning of a new journey to a new place.

So it’s the Passover, and here Jesus is in Bethany, a village just outside the city, the place where his good friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus live. He’s been invited to dinner at the house of a man called Simon the Leper. This story is told not just by Mark but also by Matthew and John. There’s a different story in Luke, which has a different woman anointing Jesus at a different time and place. The two are often confused. The woman in Luke isn’t named, but she’s said to be a sinner and sometimes identified with Mary Magdalene – though Luke doesn’t say that’s who she is. That event takes place in Galilee, much earlier in Jesus’ ministry, and she anoints his feet. This incident, the one Mark records here, takes place in Bethany. Mark doesn’t name the woman but both Matthew and John identify her as Mary of Bethany – the same woman who had sat at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching while her sister Martha told her off for not doing the washing up.[1]

So that’s the Mary bit. But Mary isn’t the only figure we get confused about. There’s Judas too. Judas is the other main person in this story. Judas traditionally has been seen as a traitor, the one who for his own financial gain sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. But here as Mark tells the story we will see it’s not quite as simple as that. The usual view is this: Mary the sinner goes over the top, Judas the traitor does the deal. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Theologians have been wondering what to make of Judas for years, but recently it’s become a bit of a fashion to try and rescue his reputation. We’ve had the gospel of Judas, which Bill will talk more about tonight – and now Jeffrey Archer has apparently just written a new novel with Judas as hero. Judas, they say, has been horribly misunderstood. So we will need to look at that too.[2]

The Question

So we can see already that this is quite a complicated story. But for me, the complexity becomes even more obvious not when you look at Mary, or even when you look at Judas, but when you look at Jesus, sitting there in the middle of it all. Have you found Jesus? That’s an ancient question, it was one he himself was fond of asking – who do you say that I am? - and it was one which even his disciples had had difficulty answering. [3] In this passage we see Mary answering it one way, and Judas answering it another way. Outside the chief priests and the scribes had come to yet another answer – Jesus was a dangerous threat to established religion, who needed to be arrested quickly, and if necessary violently, somewhere well out of the public eye (perhaps one of those dawn arrest jobs the police seem to go in for these days). And then there’s a fourth group of people struggling for an answer – for inside the room Mary’s action triggers a whole new debate. What is the correct response to Jesus, his friends begin to ask themselves? Is this it, this ointment stuff? What about the poor he himself had said he had come to save? [4]

The whole thing is very confusing.

Judas Iscariot

Let’s start with Judas. Here he is, as two thousand years of Christian art have represented him. This one is from a 14^th century illustration of Dante’s Inferno. It shows Satan as a 3 headed monster at the bottom of the pit of hell, chewing the three greatest traitors of all time. They are Judas, Brutus and Cassius (Brutus and Cassius betrayed Julius Caesar, founder of the Roman empire). The one who suffers most is Judas, in the middle, because he gets lacerated by Satan’s nails as well.

But what do we know about Judas? Not much, is the answer. We know that he, like many people in Palestine, was expecting a Messiah - because a Messiah had been foretold by the prophets. But the Messiah who they thought they were expecting was not quite the same kind of Messiah as Jesus was turning out to be. What people were looking for was a political leader, a revolutionary who would overturn foreign rule and restore Israel’s fortunes as a sovereign people under her own king.[5] Simon, and some think Judas too, had been part of the revolutionary movement known as the Zealots. The Zealots, among other things, opposed the payment of taxes to the Romans. That meant they’d been on a steep learning curve as they watched Jesus. Should people pay taxes to Caesar, the provocative question had come – the story is in Mark 12, only a couple of chapters ago. It must have been hard for those with Zealot sympathies to watch Jesus reading the inscription on the coin and telling its owner to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s. [6] Not the heroic, uncompromising stuff they’d been looking for.

Now Jesus had said from the very beginning of his public ministry that he came to proclaim the beginning of a new kingdom, the kingdom of God.[7] He had spent a lot of time teaching about this kingdom, and trying to explain that it wouldn’t be quite as they expected. They’d not always found it easy to understand. James and John had asked in advance for senior cabinet positions, and been told they’d no idea what they were talking about. [8]

But Jesus had just ridden into Jerusalem, the seat of government, like a king, so things were looking up a bit - except that he did it on a donkey, which seemed a bit odd. He’d been greeted by the people as they would greet a king, with the waving of palms and excitement as they lined the streets. [9] It was going quite well, but there were some peculiar and worrying signs. Judas, and some of the others, must have felt a bit uneasy. Was this guy going to deliver? They’d seen his power on countless occasions. Was it all going to come to a triumphant end, would the new kingdom be established; would the people of Israel be delivered from their oppressors – or not?

And so there they all are, sitting at supper, watching Jesus to see what he’s going to do. And then Mary walks towards Jesus, Mary the sister of Martha, and sister too of his friend Lazarus, whom he’d once raised from the dead.

Mary of Bethany

Mary has a pot of ointment made of nard – made to be precise from the roots of the rare plant, spikenard. This plant didn’t grow in Israel. It’s actually a native plant of the Himalayas, and had to be imported from India. It was therefore horrendously expensive and this single jar of it is worth 300 denarii, the dinner guests calculate – that is about a year’s wages for a labourer. Assuming Mary hadn’t stolen it, it probably represented her entire life’s savings. So what does she do? She doesn’t go down on her knees and present it to him as a gift. Oh, no. She breaks the flask – very dramatic – and pours the ointment over his head. Now this is way over the top. Judas and his friends can’t take it at all. They protest – look, this money could have been used for the cause, spent on the poor. We are talking thousands of pounds here. They look expectantly to Jesus.

But Jesus just says, leave her alone. She’s done a beautiful thing. Even more; it’s a prophetic act; it foretells the anointing of my body for burial. You can do good to the poor any time you like. But not to me. You will always have them; but you won’t always have me. Mary will be famous throughout history for this her gift to me.

At that Judas can take no more. Maybe he thought Jesus’ arrogance just incredible. Maybe he was suddenly overcome with the thought that he himself had got it badly wrong, badly misjudged Jesus, made a fool of himself. At any rate, this was the last straw. Here he was, giving up everything to follow this man because he believed the future of the nation depended on it. It had sounded great, all the stuff about announcing good news to the poor, all the healings, the crowds, the sense that something momentous was about to happen; but now when it came to it the guy just wanted to be pampered by women with perfume. It’d obviously gone to his head. That can happen, can’t it, with leaders, if they’ve been in the public gaze for too long. It doesn’t do them any good, they can get overconfident. So Judas gets up in disgust and marches out. He goes straight to the already plotting priests, and promises to take them to Jesus as a time when the crowds aren’t around. And he might as well, seeing as money could obviously be spent on personal requirements, have (according to Matthew) 30 pieces of his silver for his trouble.[10]

I wonder what all that did to the atmosphere round the dinner table..

So what do we make of all this? Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine myself acting like Mary. It’s over the top. It’s extravagant. It’s not sensible. It reminds me of King David making a fool of himself dancing in the streets in front of the ark, to the deep embarrassment of his wife. [11] Does she know what she’s doing? I imagine not. She will have known that oil was traditionally used for the anointing of kings – and we can read that too, in Psalm 45. She will have known that oil was traditionally used for the anointing of priests – and we can read that too, in Exodus 30. She will have known that oil was used for the anointing of dead bodies – and according to John the rich Pharisee Nicodemus turned up later with a hundred pounds of the stuff to do just that with it, to anoint Jesus’ body for burial after the crucifixion.[12]

But I don’t suppose she’s thinking of any of that. This is a passionate act, an over the top act. It doesn’t look to me, regrettable though that is, like a theological response borne out of careful study. It looks like a wordless outpouring of love, commitment, devotion. Why does she do it?

Well, we don’t know the answer to that question. But we do know Jesus approved of it. Maybe it reflects something of God’s own passionate commitment, out of all proportion, to his people. Maybe it is an act of love, responding to God’s many acts of love – and anticipating the one he would perform in Jerusalem a couple of days later.

Let me read you a poem. It’s not about Mary, it’s about God. But it’s called ‘Oil of Spikenard’, and it’s the poet’s comment on Mary’s action. It’s by Anne Ashworth, and it’s addressed to God.

Oil of Spikenard

What a spendthrift you are, sir,

a squanderseed wastrel!

Did they never teach you

the Puritan virtues?

Look at those puffball heads.

You toss your hair like a petulant schoolgirl, and there –

how untidy you are! — it’s like dandruff.

Then there’s sperm,

not to mention the sand and the stars and the orange pips.

It’s embarrassing, all this extravagance.

And not five minutes ago you painted a skyscape

in a whole fruit salad of pastels,

a study in citrous shades.

So now what are you up to?

You’ve rubbed it out and started again with blue.

Stop a minute and give us viewing time, you throwaway artist.

Even when invention funds

are unlimited, surely the waste.

Couldn’t this oil of spikenard

have been sold and given to the poor?[13]

Maybe Mary has understood something about God. Maybe she is giving back to him what she knows he has given to us – while she still has the chance. Maybe that’s why people like to identify her with the unnamed sinful woman in Luke – after all, only someone who’d been forgiven a lot would act like this, wouldn’t they. Not decent, sensible people like us. But that’s not the way Mark is telling it. And Mark had it from Peter, and Peter was almost certainly there. It may even be that Mark himself was there – the young man mentioned in verse 51 is usually taken as being the author.

A sensible religion

So what then of us? What kind of response do you have to Jesus? Is it a carefully thought out, sensible one, measured and English and reasonable? Or is it a passionate, overflowing one, over the top and unashamed? I don’t think we are all called to be like Mary; but at least some of us are, and the rest of us are supposed to rejoice at it. Tom Wright, the bishop of Durham, points out in his commentary on Mark that here is Jesus, surrounded by mostly men, and all of them are expressing their opinions about what should happen. Some outside – how can we get rid of this threat. Some inside – should he or should he not have said that? And here in the middle of them all is Mary, who doesn’t say anything at all. She just does something. Not for nothing, Tom Wright says, is this story sometimes held up as an example of a woman getting it right while all around her men are getting it wrong.[14]

At half term we went on holiday to Portugal. We visited a particular church in the town of Lagos, now a museum. It was dedicated to St Anthony, a 13^th century Franciscan born in Lisbon. As a Franciscan, Anthony dedicated his life to poverty and the aescetic life. This is his church. Now as you see, there’s not much evidence of poverty or asceticism here. Every single surface is covered in gold. You’re not allowed to take photos, but Roger distracted the custodian and I managed to get this one.

What did we think? Well, we thought it was awful. All that gold. Did the church not have the faintest understanding of its mission? And then I began to think about this passage, and I thought – hmm. People must have given the money for that to be done, for God to be glorified. Would I have given mine? I can tell you, I wouldn’t. Nor would I have bought the ointment. Nor would I have broken the jar. I’m much too sensible for any of that.

So how sensible does Jesus want us to be? How careful, how ordered in our Christian lives? Maybe not as much as we think. As ever, we come back to the conclusion that this life is all about relationship. Relationship with Jesus. Mary understood that. Judas did not. Judas put the goals ahead of the relationship.

Finding Jesus

So let’s go back to where we started. Have you found Jesus? Judas thought he knew who Jesus was, and gradually it dawned on him that he’d got it wrong. He wasn’t the only one to be confused – James and John had got confused, and Peter would get confused, and angry too, as we shall see later on in this chapter. But James and John accepted correction. Peter accepted Jesus’ rebuke and hung on in there, following ‘at a distance’ as the soldiers marched him off, reluctant to abandon the dream. I suppose the difference was that even when they were completely flummoxed by what was going on, they continued to trust Jesus. Judas was the only one who didn’t, and that is what distinguishes him from the others. Judas turned against Jesus, and earned himself the worst reputation in human history as a result.

So the question that Judas couldn’t answer, the question that we began with, still stands. Have you found Jesus; and if you have, have you worked out who he is and how you are going to respond? Do you trust him, even if you can’t make sense of what is going on around you? Do you love him, and what are you willing to do in order to tell him so?

The empty plinth

What I want to do now is give us a chance to stop and think. I’m going to take us on a little trip to see Jesus - not to Bethany but to London’s Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square is known for its statues. Nelson stands imperiously at the top of his column in the middle. Four giant lions guard the fountains beneath him; I used to climb on them as a child. And in the four corners of the square stand 4 enormous plinths. Three of them have statues on, statues of great men, as befits the square which lies at the heart of London, one of the great capital cities of the world. The square was laid out in the 19^th century, so the statues are all of 19^th century heroes. On one plinth is General Charles James Napier, a British General and Commander in Chief in India. On another is George IV on horseback. On another is Major General Sir Henry Havelock, another Victorian military hero from the Indian Campaign.

The 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square, however, never got a statue, and it had remained empty for 158 years. In 1999 a competition was held to mark the Millennium, and a series of three winning statues temporarily occupied the plinth for 6 months each.

One of them was a statue by Mark Wallinger. It was a statue of Jesus. This is what it looked like…

The first thing that you notice about this statue is that it is ridiculously small. In fact it’s life-size – whereas all the other statues are four or five times larger than life, as befits their status as heroes.

Jesus, by comparison, doesn’t look heroic. He looks ordinary... .vulnerable. . .lost... .very human.

The statue provoked some interesting responses.

Here are some of things some of the people who first viewed the statue said about it —

· “You couldn’t put your faith in someone like that, he’s a weak as a kitten.”

· “His smallness just shows what little meaning Christianity has in today’s world. He’s a typically lily-livered, Anglican Jesus.”

· “1 just want to go up there and give him a hug. I never notice the other statues in the square — they’re just target practice for pigeons — be he looks so vulnerable you just want to take him home.”

And this was the view of Sir Roy Strong, a distinguished historian and for a time Director of the National Portrait Gallery just over the road from the square: ‘Only people totally ignorant of the Square’s very definite theme could have chosen something so gloriously inappropriate’. I suppose that’s exactly what Judas thought about Mary’s ointment. Totally inappropriate.

Some of the criticism came from Christians. He looks too human, too ordinary, they said: neither heroic, nor especially fragile. But this statue expresses the presence of Christ, and it was meant to ask the question the Millennium posed — who exactly is he? And what place does he have in our society now?

· His shaven head and barbed wire crown reminds us of concentration camps, and I suppose the violence which was raging in Kosovo at the time. I imagine that’s where Judas would have been, with the freedom fighters, fighting for all the right things, for a just and free society. But Jesus is not shown here as a heroic freedom fighter, but rather as a victim. And yet there’s more to him than meets the eye – you can’t tell, for example, but his barbed wire crown is made of gold.

· And look at the expression on his face. We see none of Judas’s anger. His bewildered expression invests the horror with no particular meaning. He looks like an ordinary innocent caught up in something bigger than himself. His passion was not Judas’s passion of anger; it was Mary’s passion of love, her willingness to make sacrifices.

And this was, surprise surprise, the sculptor’s intention. Mark Wallinger says — ‘I wanted to show him as ordinary human being led out in front of a lynch mob. I think he has a place here in front of all these oversized imperial symbols.’

So what do we make of this Jesus? Someone’s said that it’s the embarrassing ordinariness of this image that is so powerful. He just doesn’t look like the triumphant king riding in to the city to proclaim a new era – it’s George IV who manages to look like that. He doesn’t look like a conquering hero either – it’s Havelock and Napier who look like that. This guy just looks like you and me. Like the sort of guy you’d want to pour ointment over if you loved him, perhaps.

So if you want to find Jesus, maybe this is one of the places you can find him in. Who is Jesus, for you? And how do you respond to him? With anger, like Judas who wanted him to be someone else? Or with extravagant love, like Mary who poured her life savings all over him? What does this unheroic hero mean for you? Let’s just look at the image for a bit, and pray.