A lovely love scene - Gospel of Mark 14.3-9 (CEV).
Jesus was eating in Bethany at the home of Simon, who once had leprosy [unknown skin disease] when a woman came in with a very expensive bottle of sweet-smelling perfume. After breaking it open, she poured the perfume on Jesus' head. This made some of the guests angry, and they complained, "Why such a waste? We could have sold this perfume for more than 300 silver coins and given the money to the poor!" So they started saying cruel things to the woman.
But Jesus said:
"Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. You will always have the poor with you. And whenever you want to, you can give to them. But you won't always have me here with you. She has done all she could by pouring perfume on my body to prepare it for burial. You may be sure that wherever the good news is told all over the world, people will remember what she has done. And they will tell others."
A like anointing story appears in all four Gospels. The accounts may represent different traditions of the same event. Such does not concern us here. We are concerned not with historical fact but with this story before us now.
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In the story, we see a contrast between 'masculine' and 'feminine' energies. Generally, 'feminine' indicates sharing, communion; 'male' to accomplishment, agency. Someone once explained it this way. A group of women completed a project, and what was most important to them was the sharing that took place during the work, and for the group of men, the accomplished task.
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Some interpreters see the woman as Mary Magdalene by comparing with other Scripture about her. It is best to leave the woman anonymous since the story does. This anonymity invites us to see the unnamed woman as a universal figure (i.e., archetype) - she represents the potential within us. We are invited to be the woman - her story, our story.
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Jesus is eating in Bethany at Simon's home. A woman comes in with an expensive bottle of sweet-smelling perfume. After breaking it open, she pours the perfume on Jesus' head. Her lavish act makes some guests angry. They complain, "Why such a waste? We could have sold this perfume for more than three hundred silver coins and given the money to the poor!" They start saying harsh things to the woman.
Jesus says, "Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. You will always have the poor with you. And whenever you want to, you can give to them. But you won't always have me here with you. She has done all she could by pouring perfume on my body to prepare it for burial. You may be sure that wherever the good news is told all over the world, people will remember what she has done. And they will tell others."
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An unnamed woman expresses extravagant love for her friend and teacher, Jesus. He welcomes her devotion while she breaks an expensive bottle of perfume - a year of wages - and pours it on his head.
Guests protest the lavishness. To them, it is impractical, wasteful. They may be into social action - here helping the impoverished - so much they miss the centrality of love, here and now. In their view, her gift to her friend, Jesus, is impractical, inefficient. She is thinking like a lover, they like economists.
Jesus tells them to leave her alone, for she has done something beautiful for him. Unlike the muttering discontents, he sees her lovely act as practical - preparing his body for burial. He knows beautiful and useful are not necessarily opposites, even as 'masculine' and 'feminine' are not.
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The breaking of the bottle and pouring of the perfume signify important matters about Mary, Jesus, and us. Let us contemplate some of these matters.
1) Spirit is present to open us up for the pouring out of ourselves.
We are the bottle and the perfume; the woman - 'feminine' - is the power that breaks us open. Likely, we each can name a Mary - and it may have been a male - who has been instrumental in illuminating the capacity to open ourselves in compassion and, thereby, give of ourselves - for we cannot just give something, we give ourselves.
We are the scented oil of healing. We are healed to be healers. In giving to others, we give to our Source. All true giving is a sacred self-offering. We are conduits of Life. Aliveness increases through giving. We slowly die spiritually when blocking the flow.
2) Love does not place practicality before the beautiful; the two go together.
The onlookers can only see the practical; their response is 'masculine.' The 'feminine' knows 'beautiful' does not mean 'impractical'; it means 'beautifully pragmatic' or 'pragmatically beautiful.' In Unitive consciousness, these two seeming opposites are one. We discover they were never two.
On a silent retreat in 2018, I was reading a classic Zen text. I was considering becoming Zen Buddhist and had received a reading list of Zen books. This one book was difficult reading and not inspiring. The book reflected a militant stance to spiritual practice - apparently reflective of traditional Japanese Zen. After three-fourths through, I put it down. The book, classic or not, was so thoroughly pragmatic - like a Zen boot camp -it lacked the sense of the beautiful. I sensed no love - only instruction on how to do Zen rightly. The sense of the beautiful is integral to spiritual practice and life; where beauty is, love is.
If your spiritual path is not lovely, you need another one. If you do not enjoy the beautiful daily, even on emotionally overcast days, welcome the beauty that shares itself on all days.
3) The scene reflects to the reader a sacramental, incarnational lifestyle.
Life becomes a means of Grace through its physicality. The flesh of the world, of objects, becomes means of the Unseen seeping into our world.
In an incarnational spirituality, nature, physical bodies, traditions, sacred sites, relationships, social institutions, sex, holy books, poems, flowers, sunshine, raindrops ... are channels of blessing. These open to be seen and experienced from a consciousness that can receive the blessedness and pass it on to others.
4) We, like Jesus, need to allow ourselves to receive the outpouring of love.
Jesus - like the woman represents an inborn, universal capacity - could have agreed with the onlookers. For the act to be complete, he allowed himself to receive and be served by a woman follower-friend. He welcomed the 'impracticality.'
We are inspired to be like Jesus - and other Love-beings - in welcoming ourselves to be loved by others. Some of us may find this most difficult while serving others, feeling they need us but not allowing ourselves to receive their love. Yet, allowing them to love us is as healing likely as what we can offer them.
An acquaintance and I once agreed, "To give is to receive." Later, I recollected, "Yes, but to receive is to give." Overfunctioning for others is not wise behavior and is likely a sign of not being willing to receive equally from others. It is a means for the ego to hide its vulnerability. To allow oneself to be served by another can feel to the ego like being defenseless, yet love goes in all directions, not just one.
Overacting for others is a means to control the narrative. Yet, we are all in the same story, whether we choose to be or not, and it has its own wisdom. Jesus teaches us to relax and let ourselves be served and, in being served, to be loved. Hence, we are acted upon, even as we act upon others.
The story depends as much on Jesus as the unnamed woman. The sharing of love depends on both equally. So with us.
Thought: Legalism - religious, social ... says, "That's not the right thing to do," while Grace says, "That's the lovely thing to do."
How does your life reflect the unnamed woman in the story? Jesus in the story? What most attracts you to the woman? To Jesus? Who has recently done a beautiful thing for you? How did that feel? To whom did you recently do a lovely thing? How did that feel?
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photographs.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
