6th April 2025
Reflection with readings below
In John’s account of the woman anointing Jesus’s feet, the event takes place in the home of the three siblings – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It occurs after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead -and it is repeated a couple of times, that it was this action of raising Lazarus that is both attracting the crowds and causing the Jewish elders to plot to kill Jesus. Placing the story here draws attention to this earlier sign that Jesus had performed. And that sign echoes Jesus’s telling of his role as the Good Shepherd in which he says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus is the one who protects the vulnerable, who lays down his own life for them, so that they may abundant life.
Mary seems to be particularly in tune with Jesus, seems to know that Jesus is facing the imminent ending of his life. And she is determined that this should not happen without some acknowledgment that a) she is aware of his impending death and b) expressing physically her love for him.
In Jesus’s telling of the Good Shepherd, we hear of the hired hands – the paid shepherds – who don’t stay the course, who value their lives more than the sheep in their care and who, at the first sign of danger, run away. And Jesus’s audience then and the gospel readers since, understand that those hired hands represented the Jewish religious leaders – those very same ones who now feel threatened by Jesus and find it easier to kill him that to try and understand his message.
As we hear Judas criticising Mary, we sense again the presence of a hired hand, of someone whose heart is not committed to the business of Jesus’s life-giving gospel.
Who are the poor? The poor are those who lack sufficient resources for daily living. In the first century regions of Judea and Galilee, they were the shepherds, the hired labourers working someone else’s land, the fishermen, the carpenters, the slaves and the beggars. They were not the middle class small farmers or the local business men nor the scribes nor the priests nor the Pharisees. The poor were the lowly and the humble. They were the ones forced to depend upon others.
Yet the poor were also those favoured by God. Time and again God – and God’s prophets – speak up for the poor. Time and again, God’s law calls on society to care for the poor – for the widow, the orphan and the alien.
“For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11
“Vindicate the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and destitute “ Psalm 82:3
“When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’” Leviticus 23:22
“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” Isaiah 41:17
Time and again, it is the poor who receives God’s message, it is the poor who know their need of God, it is the poor whose love for God is strongest.
Jesus’s own teachings highlight the importance of giving generously to those in need, of giving and not counting the cost, of repaying what we owe, of giving all that we have. Maybe we all need to become poor to enter the kingdom of heaven? For if we become poor, we will not be fixated on wealth that rusts and decays. If we become poor we will learn to give and receive the little we do have. If we become poor we will learn to live with the sufficiency we have. If we become poor we will learn to live lives dependent on God. If we become poor we will be creating a counter cultural society – a society in which even the king will ride a donkey.
However let’s not forget that poverty is an unasked for state of affairs for many millions of people; that poverty exposes people to pain and suffering at level that we can not imagine. Poverty is corrosive of many people‘s lives and such poverty is contri to God’s will and desire. The growing differential between those who are wealthy – and getting wealthier by the minute – and those who are not, both globally and in individual countries is wrong. Poverty and greed lead to conflicts and wars, to social unrest and unease. Greed is creating the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, whilst the resulting suffering is being felt more strongly by the poor.
I would suggest that as followers of Jesus, we would be using our counter cultural life style to challenge this corrupting status quo and working to effect real change in people’s lives. I don’t think it is an easy task. It is certainly not one we can attempt on our own. Rather it is a task where we must work cooperative with each other and with God.
Isaiah 43:16-21
Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
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?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
Psalm 126
1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, *
then were we like those who dream.
2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, *
and our tongue with shouts of joy.
3 Then they said among the nations, *
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
4 The Lord has done great things for us, *
and we are glad indeed.
5 Restore our fortunes, O Lord, *
like the watercourses of the Negev.
6 Those who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy.
7 Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, *
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
Philippians 3:4b-14
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
John 12:1-8
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.”
The Green Tau 