April 26, 2020 Easter 3 Matthew 28:16-20

https://churchpop.com/2015/08/25/the-great-commission-according-to-the-american-popular-version/

I like this little cartoon about the Great Commission which ends our gospel reading for today, and is the end of Matthew’s gospel.  These are Jesus’ last words to his disciples. 

I suspect we don’t like this commission.  The idea of going out and making disciples brings up the image of Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses going door to door and annoying you.  I mean, how many times have you actually been excited to see them come?  I believe we’ve all had the impulse to hide, or not answer the door, or pretend we have to leave for something important.  I’m sure those who do door to door evangelism get a lot of frustrated and angry responses.  Even if you do try to be polite and listen you probably just want them to go away and have it over.

Is that what Jesus really meant?  Is that what he wanted his disciples to do when he gave this Great Commission?  Let’s take a closer look and see.  Some places in Matthew’s gospel are jam packed with details and subtleties.  These five short verses are that category.

  The setting is after the resurrection.  Matthew gives no clue as to how long after the resurrection this occurs.  We are just told that the women who went to the empty tomb were to tell the disciples to go to the mountain in Galilee where Jesus had directed them.  In Verse 16, the first verse of our reading, we learn that they have done that.  And in Verse 17 we are told that they saw him and worshipped him.

And let’s remember that just about every word here has been carefully chosen by Matthew.  The next part of Verse 17 is very interesting.  Our English translations read, “When they saw him, the worshipped him; but some doubted.”

Now that’s an odd thing.  The disciples saw the resurrected Jesus on the mountain where he had directed them to go, but some doubted.  How could that be?  What more proof could they want?

But that is actually a mistranslation.  There is no word “some” in Matthew’s Greek sentence.  It literally reads, “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but doubted.”

Now that’s even more intriguing.  More literally we realize that all eleven remaining disciples are having doubts; doubts despite having solid evidence right in front of them!  What is going on here!?!

Two major themes of Matthew’s appear to be at play here.  First, for Matthew, doubt and worship can work together.  All of the gospels record the resurrected Jesus as being real, yet not limited or totally tangible.  They don’t give us a scientifically detailed description of his resurrected reality.  All they talk about is an empty tomb and Jesus appearing to his followers.

I think our human minds want God overall to feel more tangible, more concrete, more like something we can wrap our minds around with confidence.  But we do not get it.  Our gospel writer Matthew seems to know that.  That brings us to our second theme of Matthew’s here.

For Matthew doubt is not the opposite of faith.  For Matthew fear is the opposite of faith.  We get to see that developed a little in the three verses that follow.

Again, this is jam packed with details.

Jesus next line is, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  Does that ring a bell for you?  Does that remind you of anything?

Think back to the beginning of the gospel.  Just before Jesus begins his public ministry he goes out into the wilderness and fasts for 40 days.  At the end of it he is tested by the devil.  What does the devil say at the final test?  It’s Chapter 4 Verses 8 & 9.  The devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor and then says to him, “All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me.”

Were the actually the devil’s to give away in the first place?  No.  At best we could say the devil stole them all and was offering them to Jesus if Jesus would play the game of life the way the devil wanted him to.  But Jesus refuses.

Here at the end of the gospel Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  In other words the authority has now legitimately been given to him.  It is his.  It is not the devil’s.  It is not someone else’s.  And it is more than just earthly authority, it is heavenly authority.

Remember, from the beginning Matthew’s gospel has been a story about a conflict of kingdoms.  The kingdom of heaven (or kingdom of God) and the kingdom of this world; which includes political power, satanic power, and the human mind.  For Matthew’s gospel it’s all one and the same.

Now after the crucifixion we see that all authority has been restored to its rightful owner – Jesus.

That is what we need to keep in mind as we get into the Great Commission.  The Great Commission is not at all like the little cartoon we started with.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”  There we have the word all again – all nations are God’s possession.

And what does the word “disciples” really mean?

When we hear the word disciples we probably tend to think of Jesus’ twelve closest followers.  Or maybe we think of someone who follows a leader and is loyal to that leader.  But that Greek word that we translate as disciple is more literally the word “learner.” 

Hear it in the full context of the Great Commission, “Go therefore and make learners of all nations baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

What are they to teach?  Facts?  Religious doctrines?  A supernatural belief?  No.  They are to teach everything that Jesus commanded them.  What have been the commands since the beginning?  Is faith a belief system for Jesus?

We’re still in the conflict of kingdoms.  Jesus’ commands are about bringing about the kingdom of God into this world, where it rightfully belongs.  For Matthew that is faith.  That is belief.  That is a Christian’s way of life.

When people make faith into belief in Biblical teachings or church doctrines they are missing the point.  Faith is not holding fast to beliefs and believing in them with all your might despite a lack of solid evidence.  Faith is a life of trust.  And just like the disciples with Jesus on the mountain that day, faith, doubt, and worship all go together.

So, is Jesus telling his followers to go door to door with Bible in hand and annoy their neighbors?  No.  Jesus is changing his disciples, or should I say learners, into teachers who are now equipped to spread God’s kingdom into the world.  This is not about winning souls for Jesus.  This is about making God’s will into living reality on earth – earth which is still trapped in the conflict of kingdoms.

I think we can be far more enthusiastic about that sort of Great Commission.  That is something we can strive for and easily believe in.

There is one final thing.  Has Jesus left them abandoned?  Is he going away and saying to keep the shop until he gets back?  No.  He says he’s still going to be around.  He says it in an interesting and profound way.

The Great Commission includes the words, “… baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Again, back to the gospel’s beginning.  What does Matthew’s gospel begin with?  A genealogy, a list of names.  Now the disciples are to act in God’s name.

We aren’t done with God’s name yet either.  Even in our English translations which so struggle to get the Greek nuances, it hasn’t been lost.  Jesus says, “And behold, I AM with you always, to the end of the age.”

What is God’s name?  I AM.  In Greek it is more emphatic.  A closer attempt into English leads to bad grammar, but it’s something like this, “Behold, I with you, I AM, to the end of the age.”

Jesus’ presence as God’s divine presence is emphatic.  It really says, “I AM is with you till the completion is with you.”

God is with us until all is complete.

Doubts are a part of faith.  They go hand in hand.  Fear is the opposite of faith and it will keep you in the kingdom of this world.  But faith is freeing.  Faith is empowering you to accomplish this great commission; to bring about God’s kingdom.  God is with us until all is done, and God will not leave in any way shape or form beforehand.     

April 19, 2020 Easter 2 Matthew 28:11-15

The gospel reading today is five short verses but it is packed with significant details and it gets at some of the most fundamental questions of faith.  It’s all about contrasts.

The first contrast is between the women and the guards.  You’ll remember that these guards are Roman guards the Jewish leaders asked the Roman governor Pilate to have.  They said they wanted to have the tomb of Jesus guarded so that his body wouldn’t be stolen.

The idea is absurd – guarding a dead guy’s tomb.  Of course in America we have the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier but the guard is of course simply honorary.  Biblical scholars tell us there isn’t historical reality behind the presence of the guard at Jesus tomb.  And indeed the other gospels do not report it.  That means my speculation is pointless, but still, I wonder how I’d feel if I was asked to guard the grave of just some country guy who had been executed; so that his body isn’t stolen by his followers… who were so cowardly they fled at his arrest!  This guard duty is insulting!  But I digress.

We aren’t told how many guards there are, but it is several big burly guys with the might of Rome to back them up.  Then there are two women – Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.”  (Now that’s a way to get in the Bible – being “the other” Mary.

We have two women, women who aren’t allowed to own property, women who have no voting rights, no political say, their evidence is hardly admissible in court; and then these women aren’t even Roman citizens but Jews, making them even lower.  They have no strength, no weapons, and no standing.

Both the women and these burly guards experience the angel and the earthquake.  We are told the men are so terrified they shook and became like dead men.  Whereas we aren’t told how the women feel.  They are presumably afraid, but not as much as the men. 

The women hear the message and then they run to tell the disciples.  The women run one way.  What do the guards do?  They run the other way.  Verse 11 tells us that some of the guards go into the city and tell the chief priests.

The women’s message is that Jesus is alive and heading to Galilee, where it all began.  The guards message is that the dead guy they were guarding has escaped!  They probably left out the part that they were so terrified they shook while the women weren’t all that fussed.

On the way the women meet Jesus.  They lay hold of him and worship him.  Jesus also says not to be afraid but tell the disciples and keep going to Galilee.  The guards tell the chief priests who do what?

What did they do when Jesus was teaching in the temple compound?  They held a consultation.  What did they do when they had arrested Jesus?  They held a consultation.  What did they do when Judas returned the money?  They held a consultation. 

So what did they do here?  They held a consultation!  This Jesus fellow is certainly causing them a lot of headaches.  They would have loved to have Zoom to speed up all these consultations!

What did they do in their consultation?  Verse 12 tells us they “devised a plan.”  What did they do at all their previous consultations?  They made plans.

How much did they give Judas to betray Jesus?  You know the answer to this, 30 pieces of silver.  That’s the value of an injured slave according to Exodus.  An injured slave isn’t worth much.  Who would want one?  So Judas betrayed Jesus cheap!

Now what do these “consulting” and “planning” leaders do?  They offer a “large sum of money” to the soldiers.  We aren’t told how much.  But it is certainly hush money.  The religious leaders then tell the soldiers to lie: that they fell asleep and the disciples stole the body.  And, if the whole scheme catches up with them and they get into trouble with Pilate the governor, the religious leaders promise to keep them out of trouble.

Schemes, hush money, lies…  I could make a cheap crack about politicians but it would hardly be funny.  This is how the world works. 

We are just a few verses from the end of Matthew’s gospel.  And we are still strongly seeing a theme that Matthew has had from the beginning.  It is a contrast of kingdoms.  It is the kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of this world.  And the kingdom of this world includes: evil, the Roman government, the Jewish leadership, and the human point of view overall.

The human point of view, or the kingdom of this world, is all about protecting yourself, getting ahead, and staying alive.  It makes the human intellect supreme.  It warps facts to suit its needs.  And it insists that the logical human point of view must be God’s point of view.  In other words, it makes God into the human image. 

In the kingdom of God everything is reversed.  There we learn that humans are made in God’s image – not the other way around.  In the kingdom of God we learn that God’s sacrificial love is ultimate power, not self-preservation.  In the kingdom of God all are equal.  Things like money, looks, gender, brains, age make you neither higher nor lower than anyone else. 

Both kingdoms require hard work.  One leads to exploitation and a dead end, and an endless lack of satisfaction.  The other one, God’s kingdom leads to wholeness of life.

It seems to be an eternally ironic truth that the more you give of yourself – the more you use your power in support of others – the more fully you become your truest self.  Selfishness is the path to self-annihilation.  Self giving is the path to wholeness.

There are two more points to make about these verses.  First, our translation says that the soldiers took the money and did as they were directed.  It would be more literally translated that they took the money and did as they were taught.

Teaching is a key point for Matthew.  The Sermon on the Mount is not introduced as a sermon but as a teaching.  All throughout the gospel Jesus teaches.  At one point he sends his disciples out to spread the gospel and to heal and to cast out demons, but interestingly he does not give them permission to teach.  Next week we will discover that Jesus’ final sentence to his disciples is the commission to go out and teach.

It is only with the crucifixion behind them that they know enough to teach, and can now teach the truth.

But what about these soldiers, representing the kingdom of this world?  They are instructed by the religious leaders to teach lies – a lie that the body of Jesus was stolen by his disciples. 

            And that takes us to the final point.  Why did the women see the angel and the empty tomb and believe, yet the soldiers also saw the angel and the empty tomb and they did not believe? They both had the same evidence.  They both had the same experience.

            The resurrection is the key miracle of Christianity.  It is also the most controversial and hardest to believe.  It is just too counter to our experience for it to possibly be true.  Even the four gospels in the Bible struggle with it.  Jesus is resurrected, real flesh and blood.  He can be seen.  He can be touched.  He can eat.  In John’s gospel he even cooks breakfast.  But he can also come and go through locked doors.  He seems to appear and disappear without regard to the laws of physics.

            We’re going to look at doubt more next week.  But for this week we acknowledge that facts do not equal beliefs.

            Believing in Jesus, or maybe I should say orienting your life to be in God’s kingdom, does not come about by having the right facts and evidence.  You cannot make believers by facts.  Faith is not something we control.  Faith is not something a person comes to by analysis and conclusion.  Faith is God’s work.  It is God’s gift.

            We are not given an answer a to why the women believe and the soldiers do not.  Instead we are given the invitation to live the resurrection reality.  With that as our goal we can understand all of what Jesus did.  We can understand why the crucifixion is actually and expression of power.  We can see that God’s love does lead to restoration.  We can live without fear knowing that death is not the end.  It is not to be feared.  It too is within God’s grasp, and so we live knowing God’s triumph is ultimate.

April 12, 2020 Easter Matthew 28:1-10

I recently watch the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  It was the version that was broadcast on TV a number of years ago and features Donny Osmond as Joseph.  As I was watching it I noticed something about the way the narrator, played by Maria Friedman, was interjected into several of the scenes.  The role of the narrator of most stories is to tell the story, helping to move the story along, and give interpretation to the audience.  Usually the narrator of a story stands off to the side; removed and outside the action.

But as I said, in this version of Joseph the narrator was interjected into any number of the scenes.  She playfully interacted with the rest of the characters; while still not being a character herself.  I was an interpretive move by the producers and it added a dimension to a musical many people know very well.

I think a lot of people envision God as being a sort of narrator of the story of the universe.  And they picture God as not the narrator sort who stands outside the action and simply watches it, but as someone more like Maria Friedman as narrator in Joseph.  God can interject himself into the world and engage the characters; all the while still directing the story.  Prayer to such a being is then asking for the narrators help to guide and understand the storyline.

Perhaps there is some bit of truth to that understanding of God, but I think it misses it on the whole.

In the birth, growth, ministry, and ultimately death of Jesus of Nazareth God has not come into the story of the universe as a narrator.  God has come into the universe fully as one of the characters.  God wants to be a part of history’s story.

That is one of the things that makes Christianity stand out so significantly from other religions in the world.  That God is not aloof and distant as a judge.  Life then is a test to see if we are worthy of God’s promises.  Nor is God occasionally interactive with people giving hints, clues, and revelations to be followed.  Life then is more like a quest to holiness.

No, God so wants to be with the world that God becomes a fully human character in the story.  That is a great statement of love.

Imagine your job is ditch digging.  And in the sloppy springtime you head out every morning with your pick and shovel and step into the sloppy ditch at the spot where you left off yesterday and begin to toil away in the mud and muck.  Then one of your friends comes along and sees you in the ditch and says, “Good job!  Keep it up!”  Or maybe your spouse travels by and looks down at you and gives an appreciative, “I love you.”

Fine words!  But wouldn’t a more impressive statement of love be if someone got down in the ditch with you, picked up a pick and shovel, and began to dig beside you in the muck and slop?  Yes indeed.  That would be showing that your work is valuable.  That would be showing that your work has dignity.  At the end of the project the ditch wouldn’t just be your work but yours and everyone’s who helped dig.

And so in Jesus God does not just say, “I love you,” but lives it.  God wants to be with us.  God wants to be with us not as a divine narrator who enters the story to give an extra special message.  God does not enter the story to perform miracles or display supernatural power; although the Bible records Jesus as being able to do such things.  But no, God enters the story as a character, a person.  A person who is prone to sickness and disease; a person who knows how to work; a person subject to the ruling authorities of the world; and a person subject to death.

God did not spare himself the unpleasant and painful parts of human life.  God so wants to be a part of the story that God fully embraces humanity – all the way to a humiliating and painful death.  As it has been said in many ways, Jesus enters into the realm of death just as powerless as any other human being.

Today is Easter.  So what does that mean for today?  In the resurrection does God return to the narrator role and say, “Well, that was fun.  Now back to my eternal existence.  I’m glad I had that experience.  It was a good learning opportunity for me.”?

No!
            And does God say, “If you’re good enough in life maybe I’ll resurrect you too and we can spend eternity together”?

No!

In the resurrection God invites us to see our story continuing.  And I use the word “our” deliberately.

Being alive is part of my story and your story and everyone’s story, and being part of the universe’s story, which is God’s story.  Dying is being part of my story and your story and everyone’s story, and God’s story.  And in resurrection my story and your story and God’s story all continue together collectively.

It can be helpful to think of God as out there, apart from us, above us, more powerful than us.  And then appeal to such a God for help when we need it.  Indeed God can be that.  But perhaps as we consider the resurrection we do better to understand what the Bible actually says about it.

The English language does an abysmal job of conveying Matthew’s original Greek.  The NRSV translation that we use in worship usually does a pretty good job in the tricky parts of translation.  But in the verses we read today it gets the Greek just plain wrong twice in the core of the story.  In 28:5 we hear the angel who has come do the tomb and rolled back the stone say to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.” 

No.  Wrong.  Bad translation.  English doesn’t have the sophistication of Greek, especially the range of verb tenses.  We have only past, present, and future.  The other tenses, like perfect and imperfect, we stumble to create.  But they play a key role here.

It would be a far more accurate attempt at the Greek if that verse were translated, “I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.”  Not, “was crucified” as our translations say.  “Has been” better conveys Greek’s perfect tense.  It is a past event but the ongoing reality.  Then the translators make the second mistake when the continue, “He is not here; for he has been raised.”  Wrong again.  It is the simple past tense in Greek.  It would be better to translate it, “Was raised.”

Has been crucified – was raised is correct.  Was crucified - has been raised is wrong.  So what?  You ask. 

Here’s what:  God is part of the story of history, not as narrator but as a fully human participant.  Jesus’ crucifixion was not a temporary episode in the career of the Son of God - a past event now nullified, transcended, or exchanged at the resurrection for heavenly glory.  Even as the risen one, Jesus still bears the mark of his self-giving on the cross.  It is his PERMANENT character.

We need Easter.  Otherwise Jesus is just a sad story about a good guy who was some collateral damage of the political machine of his day.  But God’s call on our lives is not based on the empty tomb but the cross.

God does not intend to give up the human role in resurrection.  A couple verses later the women meet the resurrected Jesus first hand.  They take hold of his feet as they worship him.  Jesus is no ghost.  He has not left human existence behind.  He will bodily ascend at the end of the story.  While our scientific thinking is stretched beyond its limits as to how that could possibly work, God wants us to recognize that the real flesh and blood physical reality of our lives remains his even in resurrection.

In other words, God is not done being a character in our story.  God is not taking on a narrator role, removed, aloof.  No, God is an active participant living the story with us.

Let Easter remind you of the full adventure God wants to live with you.  Even if days are boring as we can’t go places.  Even if days are scary and filled with pain, God wants to be fully in your story. 

April 5, 2020 Palm Sunday Matthew 26:1-16

Let’s start by remember where we are in Jesus’ ministry with this text.  Matthew’s gospel doesn’t actually have a “Palm Sunday” entrance into Jerusalem the way Mark’s gospel and John’s gospels do.  Instead Matthew has Jesus enter into Jerusalem on Monday and immediately to into the temple and overturn the tables of the moneychangers.  Then Jesus leaves and spends the night in the nearby village of Bethany.  We read about that two weeks ago. 

The next day, Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus comes back into the temple.  He appears to spend the whole day there preaching and teaching; and arguing with leaders from different Jewish sects.  The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians all have a go at him.  He silences them all.  Then Jesus gives what we call the Judgement Discourse.  We began reading it last Sunday.  If you follow my daily blog posts we continued it day by day.  This is three chapters of woes, predictions, and warnings.  It includes famous parables like the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids and the Parable of the Talents.

Now we pick up with Wednesday of Holy Week.  Matthew doesn’t have a lot to say.  Notice this though: Jesus caused a ruckus on Monday with his entrance into the city and overturning the tables in the temple.  Tuesday Jesus continued to be defiant in the temple with his teachings.  Now Wednesday starts off and we learn that the religious leaders are gathering and making plans to arrest Jesus and kill him.  But they say, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”  Indeed, laying hands on an apparently popular man like Jesus in the temple during the busy Passover holidays is risky.  Perhaps it is best to do it stealthily; just having this guy quietly disappear.

So it is Wednesday.  But where is this Jesus fellow?  He came into the temple Monday.  He came into the temple Tuesday.  And remember, the temple is not in the center of Jerusalem.  It is in the northeast corner.  The walls of the temple compound are the city walls in the northeast corner.  There is a gate going right from outside the city into the temple.  The road to that gate goes to the Mount of Olives and the village of Bethany.  So Jesus has been just suddenly appearing in the temple and disappearing into no place almost instantly for the last couple days.  He is not journeying through the city.  He is not an easy character to lay hands on.

It is Wednesday.  Is he going to show up in the temple again?

No.  Matthew lays out the events of Wednesday for us with 16 simple verses.  Jesus’ actions cover only seven verses.  Jesus decides to stay in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper. 

In a time of quarantine this is fitting.  Leprosy referred to any number of contagious skin diseases.  Those who had it were usually sent away from everyone else to live alone.  They stayed alone until either the disease killed them, or if it was a type that could be recovered from, until they recovered.

We don’t know anything more about this Simon.  Maybe he was contagious then and Jesus healed him.  Maybe he wasn’t there but was in quarantine.  This was just his house.  What is certain is that Matthew wants us to make some contrasts. 

In verse 3 of our gospel reading we learn that the chief priests and the elders have gathered in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas.  That would be in Jerusalem.

Where is Jesus?   In nearby Bethany in the house of Simon.

The high priest’s palace was surely a religiously clean place, especially for Passover.

Simon’s is a leper’s house.  It is not ritually clean.  It is worth noting that houses could get diseases too.  These days we call it mold or mildew.  And just like today, there were ways to clean them.  Some of the Old Testament laws seem absurd to us but they were also practical instructions.  Instead of saying mix so many parts bleach with so many parts water and then scrub the walls and floors, some of the laws in Leviticus are real recipes for cleaning.

Anyway, what are the chief priests and elders talking about in Caiaphas’ palace?  How to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.

What does the unnamed woman in Simon’s house do?  Prepare Jesus for being killed.

Do you see the contrasts?

Biblical scholars note that all four of the gospels have some sort of scene where a woman anoints Jesus with an extravagant amount of perfume.  Yet each one tells it a little differently.  Worth noting is that in Luke’s gospel he chooses the Greek word criw which the technical word for anointing to a high public office.  For Luke it is a symbolic act.

Matthew however simply says this woman pours a great amount of expensive ointment on Jesus.  It is an extravagant act of devotion.  Socially inappropriate?  Yes.  Sexually suggestive?  Yes.  Wasteful?  Yes, at least to any hard-working person who thinks money should be used wisely and not wastefully.

 Matthew is trying to put us in a place to understand the actions of Judas, which immediately follow. 

People often struggle with Judas the betrayer.  What made him do it?  What made him sell out his friend?  There are many answers.  As Matthew portrays it, Judas has had enough.  Here they are, a day before Passover.  Jesus and the disciples are not in some good clean place like upright Jews, but they are in a dirty house away from Jerusalem.  Instead of condemning this dirty foolish woman for embarrassing and ritually defiling a good clean rabbi like Jesus, he commends the whole scene.

What is Jesus playing at?  This is the kind of thought going through Judas’ mind.  He decides to turn traitor; and make a few bucks in the process.

And yet the truth has been present for Judas and the other disciples the whole time.  Jesus has told them repeatedly that he is going to be handed over to the authorities and crucified.  Jesus has been teaching them for years that he is bringing in the kingdom of God.  And that the kingdom of God is different – opposite in fact – to the kingdoms of this world.  God’s ways are not our ways.  And God’s point of view is not our point of view.  Jesus knew full well that a “wiser” use of the ointment would be to sell it and give the money to the poor.  But now is not the time. 

This woman, misguided and confused and she undoubtedly was, performs the most extraordinary act of devotion to Jesus.  She and she alone anoints Jesus.  And given that bathing was not a part of daily life, it is pretty safe to assume that as Jesus was hanging in agony on the cross the smell of that ointment on his head was still with him.  It was humanity’s one and only act of pure unasked for devotion to Jesus.

We don’t know enough about this woman to say much, but it seems likely that she and she alone took Jesus seriously when he said he would be crucified.  She alone seems to have heard when Jesus said, “You will not always have me…”  And so she showed her love and devotion.  She is an unlikely disciple, but a true one.

We are at the beginning of Holy Week.  As this week goes on, and especially as we get to Thursday and Friday, I invite you to hear the stories anew.  We know them so well that we forget how out of sync they are with the way everything in the world works.

May we be able to see things through God’s perspective.  That way we will know when to be frugal and when to be extravagant.  We will know when love takes the form of a reassuring voice or the form of strict accountability.  We will know when to follow boundaries and when to break them.  We will probably never to anything that will make us be remembered by others throughout the ages, but we can still be devoted disciples of our Lord.