Reflectionary

The Next-to-Last Supper

(Cross-posted at Set Free)

Matthew 26:1-16

It was two days before Passover when Jesus became explicit with his followers. He had just finished a lecture to the crowd, the kind of talk a person gives when he knows there may not be any other opportunities, a talk full of last-minute reminders such as a person might give to the babysitter on the way out the door, the sort of instructions that mean the difference between eternal life and unremitting death.

There was urgency in his voice and in his message as he told the stories of the good and faithful servant, of the separating of the sheep and the goats. He hurried to be as clear as possible in his storytelling way.

And then it was time for dinner, time to collapse at the end of the day, to leave the crowds behind and gather with his friends around the table. This Jesus who so treasured his time away came to the end of his ministry surrounded by inescapable crowds, teaching non-stop with no time to simply retreat.

They must have had more questions for him. The disciples always did. Teacher, we didn't quite get that story's meaning? Who exactly are the sheep? It's us, right?

While they continued to thrive on the excitement and danger of the day, a woman came to the table, a woman whose name we do not know according to Matthew's gospel. She came to the table with a jar of perfumed oil, and she poured it on his head. It was the sort of perfumed oil handed down from mother to daughter over many generations, a family heirloom, and the only way to open the jar was to break it.

She poured out the whole jar, since there was no way to put a stopper in it or save it to use another day. She poured out the whole jar, because she somehow knew that Jesus needed it.

At that next-to-last supper, the room filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil, intoxicating, overwhelming, lavish and unrepentant. You could not put it back in the jar, this display of love.

Jesus tells the disciples that she has done him a good service. She has prepared his body for burial, he tells them, and we don't hear that they say anything else to him. How could they? They needed to pause and take in what he had said, to try and understand what he meant. They still did not understand.

And do we? It can be hard to hold onto the whole story. There are too many parts that makes us cringe and want to turn away. Judas would turn to earthly powers. Peter would draw a sword and later deny even knowing Jesus.
We don't know this woman's name. We don't know if she followed the group with Jesus into Jerusalem, or if she stood at the cross. We only know she gave her all in that act of care and honor and devotion to the one who devoted himself to all of us.

"Wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world," said Jesus, "what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

We all know people, women and men, who pour themselves out for others in the name of Christ. Most of them would rather we didn't acknowledge or remember them. So it is perhaps not surprising that her story is hidden away in Holy Week, never to be heard on a Sunday except in its more embroidered version, where the house belongs to Lazarus and the perfume belongs to Mary and is poured onto Jesus' feet.

A woman who we do not know, a woman without a name, stood behind Jesus and broke a jar and poured out the riches of her life on his head. She anointed him as king and prepared him for burial in the same act. She showed the love that others feared to show, at that next-to-last supper.

And then there's Judas

(Wednesday of Holy Week Year A    John 13:21-32)

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, "Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me."

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples--the one whom Jesus loved--was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, "Lord, who is it?"

Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "Do quickly what you are going to do."

Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, "Buy what we need for the festival"; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. (John 13:21-30, NRSV)

When my oldest son was an 8th grader, we put on a production of "Godspell" at Large Church. A group of kids gathered to audition. Among the boys, there was one part they all wanted to play.

And it wasn't Jesus.

Everyone found Judas more compelling as a character. They liked the idea of being the one so close and yet so far off the mark.

Although all the gospels name Judas as the betrayer, it is John who sets him up with a reference ahead of time, naming him as a thief who pilfers from the common purse. John makes the people around Jesus come alive, both good and bad, and in his version Judas is not only a bad buy but possessed by Satan. Oddly, that spirit of evil enters him after he eats the bread Jesus gives him, in a sort of horribly opposite Eucharist.

Since for John it matters for Jesus to know exactly what lies ahead, you have to wonder how early in the process Jesus chose Judas to play this particular part? Did he recruit a bad egg on purpose? What if Judas had been changed?

My oldest used to play with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures when he was a little guy. He had a huge collection of the characters, good and bad, as well as environments in which to arrange them. One day I noticed the Evil Shredder's henchman, BeBop, being used on the side of the Ninja Turtles. When I asked, #1 Son said, "He came over to the good side!"

I believe in coming over to the good side. And so my heart goes out to Judas. Was he in the grip of something he could not comprehend? Or was he simply a right down bad'un who never repented?

I have to think it was the first, because I find it hard to believe that someone, anyone, could walk with Jesus for three years and not be changed in some way.

The Fragrance of the Perfume

Monday of Holy Week Year A   John 12:1-11

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.

(John 12:1-3)

There are moments in all our lives that we associate with fragrance. It might be the warming scent of cinnamon erupting from baking cookies, or the antiseptic aroma of attempts to keep a sick room clean or even the sad smell of a dead skunk in the road, each fragrance touching our minds and activating our memories.

In seminary I wrote a paper about Mark's version of this story, the unnamed woman who anoints the head of Christ, not the feet. I wrote about the alabaster jar and considered who the woman might have been and where the jar might have come from. I remember the faintly musty smell of the room I had that semester, in a corner of an unattractive, '60s-era dormitory. I remember the whiff of popcorn in the air, wafting through the halls, calling us to gather in the lounge and watch "The West Wing" on Wednesday night.

In all the years I spent going to seminary, it was the only year I made friends, chatting during the commercials, getting to know the students who lived there year round and the others who, like me, drove in from some far city or town to spend one night per week in the dorm, clustering our classes around it. We were Episcopal and Unitarian Universalist, Baptist and UCC, even one Disciple. We celebrated triumphs and deconstructed lectures and evaluated professors.

Did anyone else take as long to finish as I did?

I see them now, a middle-aged women giving herself a cap highlight while another cooked ramen like a teenager, the night a potpourri of popcorn, peroxide and pork broth.

There must have come a day when Mary smelled something that reminded her of the perfume, something that brought the scene before her mind's eye, the night she poured out her love for Jesus.