How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
In our Gospel it is 6 days from Passover and the Pharisees are out to get Jesus, as he knows only too well. He escapes to the home of his friends where Mary shows extraordinary extravagance, abundance and gratitude, just what Jesus needed for his wellbeing. Mary had recently gone through the pain of the death of her beloved brother Lazarus, witnessed the miracle of his resurrection and was in a highly emotional state. She was aware of the danger Jesus was in as she had listened and perceived.
Mary gives Jesus a personal expensive gift of oils, an expression of her love and gratitude, filling the whole house with fragrance that permeated the atmosphere. What a privilege to be able to show love to the living God while he was in her home! Mary poured oils on his feet and used her hair as a towel, an intimate act and in her culture a shocking display of emotion and vulnerability. An act that was sensory, symbolic and filled with meaning.
Mary anointed Jesus! This was revolutionary for a woman but not in God’s kingdom. Anointing is a symbol of Jesus being priest and king. Anointing was also performed to prepare a body for burial. The time had come for Jesus to walk to his death on the cross and Mary was preparing Jesus’ feet for this.
Mary mirrored Jesus washing his disciples feet at the last supper. By this Jesus showed that he was a servant king giving all he had for us, as Mary gave all she had to him. We are called to symbolically wash one another’s feet, thereby to love one another.
Mary expressed kingdom values. Gifts can be a blessing and used to spread the fragrance of God’s kingdom and by generosity we can enjoy the blessings of both giving and receiving. God blesses us by giving good things, as all things come from him, and we are called to do likewise by sharing our gifts.
Mary pampered Jesus when his feet walked this earth. She ministered to him, soothed him and gave him rest. Our feet earth us, they are sensitive to our world of sand, sea, grass. In reflexology our feet are used as a map our body. Mary could have been giving Jesus reflexology and aromatherapy therapy.
Judas ‘moneybags’ stated that the money paid for the expensive oil should instead have helped the poor. He tried to bring a spiritual act down to a material level but Jesus said to Judas ‘you will always have the poor but you won’t always have me’. Let us do our giving while we are living! Grab the moment and seize the day! Jesus lifted up the poor and came to bring good news to all. Loving Jesus and loving the poor are the same, inseparable, as expressed in the hymn by Sydney Carter:
Said Jesus to Mary, “Your love is so deep,
today you may do as you will.
Tomorrow, you say, I am going away,
but my body I leave with you still.”
“The poor of the world are my body,” he said,
“to the end of the world they shall be.
The bread and the blankets you give to the poor
you’ll know you have given to me.”
Angela Stewart (lay minister)