This Week: Lent 5C
Gospel: John 12:1-8
In the previous chapter, Martha and Mary seek out Jesus in an attempt to save their brother from dying. And while they are unsuccessful in that attempt, the greater desire, that he live, is fulfilled. The famous story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is the essential background. for this story, right?
It was also just a few verses ago. Since then, Jesus took a stroll into Jerusalem and then came back. This story isn’t happening months later.
And, while it might not weigh too heavily on one’s thematic-focused mind, the passage immediately after this one describes how some leaders are plotting to assassinate Lazarus. That he exists as a living, breathing proof of Jesus’s power and that’s inconvenient for them.
How this small story fits into that bigger theme may be interesting to explore. But here I want to offer a simple thought on the matter.
Always the money
I find it telling that this passage always makes us talk about money. As if everything around it would be OK with us going yes, yes, raising the dead to life, murderous Pharisees and all, but let’s explore the real question about whether virtue ethics would require us to sell the ointment and give the money to the poor.
There is a chasm between what the narrative is inviting us to see in the life and teaching of Jesus and then what the lectionary inspires and our brains will no doubt fixate on.
In a sense, the answer is actually quite clear: we’re not supposed to think Judas has a valid point here. Meanwhile, people read this passage like those posters in the MCU that say “Thanos was right”. No! Murderous dictators aren’t right and neither are their enablers.
We’re likely to find the theory here intoxicating because it is meant to intoxicate us. This, of course, is why the evangelist needs to remind us that Judas didn’t actually believe what he was saying — his real goal would have been to sell it and steal the money for himself! But even the evangelist got that he needed to put that in there — not because of the logic of what Judas was saying, but because of our cultural bias to want to listen to him rather than Jesus.
The Bias
The implicit bias many will have when reading this comes from an expectation that hard work is inherently good, that merit is an honorable organizing system, and that the prudent use of resources is always the proper metric. But these are not innate virtues, they are relative ones. This is why the wasteful use of resources by the wealthy is often condoned (think of yachts, fleets of cars, and mega-mansions) because we see it as relative to their financial health. That’s also why these are not seen as a moral failing but those who try to buy decent food on food stamps are treated as being “wasteful”.
What we see from Jesus is the opposite. Generosity increases with need. The powerful are the least deserving. The poor are the most. And the purpose of the Jesus Event is to help overturn the proverbial apple cart so that we live like this is how we do things.
In other words, the relativity of power and privilege is not to itself, but to the suffering of the poor particularly. This is why wealth in Jesus’s time was treated as sinful because its existence is proof that the wealthy have already exploited the poor. And then, when that wealth is used to further injure the poor, we will recognize that such a later action could only happen because of the prior exploitation.
Jesus wants us to see through a different lens. A lens that isn’t based in a bias toward power, but in one that helps us see the poor as the children of God.
Parties are important
OK, so we get that what Judas said isn’t what we should be thinking about. And we’re trying to see things a different way. So what does that look like?
Here, I think, the lectionary has done us an actual favor by putting this passage a week after the parable of the Lost Sons where we see a positive iteration of Jesus’s vision.
A common theme to all three of the parables of the lost (sheep, coin, sons) is that 1. each main character is compared to God and 2. they all throw extravagant parties after finding what was lost. The best example, I think, is the middle one because it displays the economic conditions most plainly.
In Jesus’s telling he says “who wouldn’t [do this]?” implying that his vision is more natural than the selfish vision of the world. Then he proceeds to tell a story of a woman who loses a coin that is probably worth a day’s wages — so it is of some value, right? But he then says she lights the oil lamps and searches through the night, overturning everything and cleaning her home as she goes, and then, when she finds it at, say, three in the morning, she calls up her friends and tells them to come over becuase it is time to party.
You know what this vision is not? Prudent. Reasonable. Thrifty. It is the opposite of that. It is urgent and extravagant and impulsive. And the kicker — between the lamp oil and the party, she is likely to be losing money on this endeavor.
For Jesus, parties are important. And if we consider this in relation to what Judas is suggesting, it helps us see just how different Jesus’s values are from our expectations.
Be careful, though!
Jesus doesn’t suggest we should throw parties instead of feeding the hungry. Matthew 25 reins in that impulse. Nor should we treat the idea of the poor always being with us as reinforcing a poverty-creating economic system.
What we have is the extravagant gift Mary offers Jesus in anointing him for burial aligns more with the Kingdom of God than Judas’s deceptive attempt to make others feel bad.
We might also consider the parallel in Mark’s gospel in which an unnamed woman prepares Jesus for burial in a similar way and it is the whole lot of disciples that argue about it. For Mark, it is another example of the disciples swinging and missing as they attempt to gatekeep for Jesus and determine what the right thing to do in every situation is. This, too, is instructive.
We remember that the context is in honoring Jesus who is preparing to be executed by the state. That religious leaders are trying to have him killed and now are looking to kill his best friend.
How we honor one another in life is more important than the hypothetical selling of goods and donating of money.
And, I think we already know this to be true. Even if we struggle to fully embrace it. Because we know Mary is the greatest disciple and Judas definitely is not. And that alone should tell us who we need to pay attention to in the end.