Today we are faced with what seems a definite contrast; between the actions and discipleship of Mary on the one hand, and the actions and discipleship of Judas on the other: Mary’s actions are sensuous, extravagant and bordering on the scandalous. They speak of intimacy, of relationship, of personal attachment and of reaching out to the other.
Judas does not act but protests against an action that has already taken place. His is a rational objection; he speaks on behalf of a worthy cause but not in terms of a relationship or an attachment. He speaks of the poor’, not poor people we know’.
Of course we know the outcome to the story; Judas will betray Jesus and his objection to the wastefulness of Mary’s anointing is hypocritical; he keeps what is in the common purse for himself. Because we know the outcome to this story it can be hard to place ourselves within the story; if we do might we not have some sympathy for Judas? After all Mary’s actions are extravagant, anointing Jesus’ feet might be a beautiful act of adoration but wouldn’t the money spent on such expensive perfume, the fragrance of which will last such a short time, be better spent on people who really need it? And besides, aren’t Mary’s actions, at the very least, a bit embarrassing or even foolish?
Mary is one of only two women mentioned in this scene. Her sister Martha is present doing what Martha always does- cook and wait on table. The other people present are possibly all men. There is the suggestion that this is a feast- Jesus is reclining, which automatically means his feet are exposed. Mary does something which is not only extravagant but improper. She has let down her hair- which for a Jewish woman at the time was indecent in public company and anoints the feet of Jesus with perfume and wipes his feet with her hair. In the other gospels the woman is unnamed and in Luke’s account of the story she is a sinner’, which may have been shorthand for a prostitute. Her actions automatically associate her with that sort of woman’- a woman who is an outsider.
In these circumstances might Judas have thought, as any of us might think, that there was a risk things were getting out of control? When we see conventions and taboos being broken aren’t our suspicions aroused? Does Judas speak for all of us in the face of a faith which seems embarrassing, which seems to speak not on the level of the head but on the level of the heart and of the body? Did Judas find that his own desires were being awakened? Did he feel a need to shift the focus of attention from this physical act to more rational considerations?
It seems then there is a tension in this passage between the rational appeal to an ideal- the poor’, represented by Judas, and an embodied gesture of personal love, represented by the actions of Mary. Can we observe similar tensions within the church, and within ourselves?
Western Christian spirituality has been heavily influenced by the Enlightenment. This assumes that the basis of human identity lies not in the body, nor in the world of relationships but in the individual mind. I think therefore I am’. So many of us operate on the assumption that to be fully human is to be rational, objective and autonomous. On this level our ideals are important; they represent something out there’ against which I might measure myself and to which I might aspire.
But another way of understanding human identity is to see our physical embodied nature as key to who we are; our physical surroundings, our lived experience in our bodies powerfully shapes how we know the world around us. Anyone who has experience of severe illness, injury or disability knows this very powerfully. It is when we are healthy that it is easiest to assume a sort of independence from our bodies. But Jesus’ last moments; his sense of being forsaken by God, were shaped by an intense physical suffering. Just as he could not escape his body neither can we.
How might a fuller understanding of the role of our embodied experience affect our discipleship? In the difference between Mary and Judas perhaps we can see a contrast between the concreteness and earthiness of desire and the elevated nature of ideals. Christian thinking tends to favour ideal over desire. Growing in holiness is often associated with resisting desire- which is partly why we attempt to discipline our desires during Lent.
The Christian academic Philip Sheldrake argues powerfully that we need to recover a spirituality of desire. He sees growing in holiness as a process of befriending, rather than resisting, our desires.
Rather than typify desire as an impersonal power outside myself which might lead me to do things that aren’t really me, desire is better understood as
“our most honest experiences of ourselves, in all our complexity and depth, as we relate to people and things around us.” (Befriending Our Desires- P. Sheldrake p.18)
So desire is intrinsic to our identity.
Only by attending to our desires are we able to reach into our deepest self, where the image of God lives. Here we can uncover an aspect of ourselves that enriches our relationship with God and our prayer and which become a source of wisdom as we navigate life’s journey.
Until we feel comfortable owning our desires we are unable to distinguish between fruitful and unfruitful desires. In its positive sense Sheldrake sees desire as
“Intimately associated with our capacity to love truly- ourselves, other people, God and even abstract things such as ideals or causes.” (Sheldrake p.16)
We tend to disconnect love from desire in Christian thought. The best sort of human love is seen as disinterested, universal love rather than the engaged, passionate love which Mary represents. But disinterested love which loves everybody can end up being uninterested love if we leave desire completely out of the picture. In this thwarted sense disinterested love can mean I end up making “a gift of everything but myself.” (Sheldrake) Even if we take Judas’ commitment to the poor at face value it still contrasts with Mary’s gift of her very self.
Key to this is also how we understand God’s love. As I was growing up I was told, as many of us are, that God loved me but I was inclined to dismiss this divine love. In my mind God loved me because he had to, because that’s what God does, it doesn’t really mean anything. I associated God’s love with disinterested, universal love with agape rather than eros. But if we see God as a God of desire who yearns to be in relationship with us, who loves with passion we might understand God and our own passions and desires very differently.
This Sunday is the beginning of Passion Week when we move towards the final week of Jesus’ life. Originally passion simply meant suffering’ or being acted upon’. It is in this original sense that the Church uses the word passion’ to refer to the final period of Jesus’ life. In today’s gospel reading Jesus’ suffering is anticipated in Mary’s anointing; Jesus sees in this an anointing of his death for burial. But he is also vulnerable and allows himself to be acted upon’. He does not rebuke Mary or try to limit her extravagance. Later on Jesus will allow himself to be acted upon by Judas and his supporters. He will allow himself to be handed over to the Jews and will not try stopping this through force.
Jesus lived a life of passion in both the original and more modern sense of the word; His was a life of suffering and of embodied yearning. In Jesus, God became flesh. This is key to our understanding of ourselves and God. As we approach the events of Christ’s crucifixion let us seek to understand how our hearts, minds and bodies are involved in his redeeming act.