They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served,
while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil
made from genuine aromatic nard
and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair;
This extravagant display of her affection for Jesus was hugely impractical, even unreasonable. There were many things that could have been done with the value of the perfumed oil that would have seemed more superficially useful. The funds could have been used to help Jesus and his mission or to do any number of other good things. Using the oil in the way she did seemed to be nothing other than a display of excess for the sake of excess.
Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples,
and the one who would betray him, said,
"Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages
and given to the poor?"
Most of us aren't thieves who steal the contributions from the various money bags which are sometimes entrusted to us. But we all tend to do this thing where we make one good deed the excuse not to do another. We think, 'This money could be better spent', but then it fades into the total balance of our ledger, we forget, and it is put to mundane purpose. We use some future possible good as an excuse to excuse ourselves from the good immediately at hand.
What of Jesus? No one was more concerned for the poor than he who came to "proclaim good news to the poor" (see Luke 4:18), who told the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, and who said ultimate judgment would be on the basis of how we treat the lowest and the least. But Jesus also said seek first the Kingdom and all else would be provided. He said that following him would need to take precedent even over the bonds of blood relation. Those who obeyed this call would find that they also received all else besides. It was not in fact a zero sum game in which slices were gradually removed from a finite pie until nothing remained. Jesus wanted us to be free to do the good that was at hand, even the hugely impractical good of showering him with our affection.
If we insist on only acting on the basis of practicality our Holy Week will look just like all our other weeks. We are meant to feel reassured that it is OK to simply fall before him this week and to anoint him with our love and affection. The poor, and all other things we ought and must do, will be waiting after. And the secret is that it is only connected to Jesus, only by receiving the life and love that flow from his presence that we can be truly useful to anyone else. No doubt Mother Theresa and her sisters could have found many more 'practical' things to do than their morning Holy Hour. But she insisted:
Unless we believe and see Jesus in the appearance of bread on the altar, we will not be able to see him in the distressing disguise of the poor.
- Saint Teresa of Calcutta
Giving Jesus first place in our hearts and our lives is the only way we truly love as we are meant to love. We must, of course, be on the watch that his place in our lives is more than a convenient excuse to avoid work. Like anything, devotion can be a mere excuse to avoid our duty. But not so for the sort of real devotion showed by Mary. May we be guided by her prayers and those of Mother Teresa to be reckless and extravagant in responding to Jesus this Holy Week.
Matt Maher - Your Love Is Extravagant
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