Our beautiful Gospel today is in stark contrast with the equally beautiful gospel from last week. As we explored then, last week’s Gospel is generally known in a very limited fashion, as ‘the Parable of the Prodigal Son’. In that reading the women and girls of the community are invisible and forgotten – not one is mentioned or referred to.
In today’s Gospel it is the actions by the visible women, Mary and Martha of Bethany, and the ones hinted at – Mary the Mother of Christ and Mary Magdalene – that bring us to the very heart of our Christian faith, showing the importance of the hidden feminine force of the Gospel.
Up to this point in the Gospel according to John, Mary, Martha and Lazarus are the only people Jesus has declared his love for. And so, he has a final meal with his closest, most intimate friends.
At the dinner, Martha, whose name means ‘mistress’, the feminized form of the title ‘master’, serves. The Greek word chosen for ‘served’ is the same as the word for deacon, a deacon of the growing church at the time of the writing of the Gospel.
What is being referred to here is not a woman serving dinner or tea and biscuits, but Martha, beloved of Christ, who professes her recognition of Jesus as Messiah, taking her role as leader of the house church where the dinner was held.
What is here, is a Gospel testament to the equality of women in the early church, a testament that still speaks to us today.
Eating with Mary, Martha and Jesus is Lazarus – whose name means ‘God has helped’, who is recently risen from the dead. We are told Jesus loved Lazarus – we are not given a reason, he just loved him; Lazarus did not do anything, he did not act, he did not profess Jesus as Messiah. He just was, and was loved, as all are loved today.
Lazarus is a living icon of Christ’s victory and power over death and he is there in body and flesh, breaking bread and drinking wine with all in that house, right next to them, as close as those we who we share our homes with, as close as our animal companions or the friends we visit, or the people in the pews next to us right now.
And now as part of this ceremonial meal, Mary acts.
Often, we focus on her extravagance, her abundant and lavish gift. But there is so much more here, things we might miss, not being part of the culture of the day.
Feet washing, here done with oil not water, was strictly the act of a servant. And yet Mary, mistress of the house, does this herself. She kneels before Jesus, giving up what status she as a woman has, lowering herself. Her body shows her worship, trust and abandonment to God in Christ. Jesus of course will imitate her example before Passover, washing the feet of his disciples, which is the sacrament within John’s Last Supper, a sacrament we will remember and relive on Maundy Thursday.
And Mary is intimate with Christ – a woman would never, in the culture of the day, touch a man other than her husband. Her intimacy, her breaking of social rules in the presence of the incarnate God is further shown by unbinding her hair, something only ever done in private. Seeing a women’s hair was equivalent to seeing them naked – Mary is opening, revealing and giving herself completely.
So, what is happening here, what does this embodied, worshipful intimate embrace between Mary and Jesus mean?
Well, Mary anoints Jesus with nard meant for embalming, for the day of his burial. But she does this while he is still alive. She is anointing Jesus for service through death, just as the old Kings of Israel were anointed for service through life.
And it is by this anointing, from a woman, not a male prophet, that Jesus becomes who we know him to be – Messiah – the Anointed One, Christ – the deliverer from death. This anointing for death, with the oil of death, while alive, is a sign by Mary that Jesus will become the ruler of both life and death, both the living and the dead, the seen and the unseen.
Mary is also completing the work of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and foreshadowing the work of Mary Magdalene.
It was the Virgin Mary’s heartfelt, soul affirming “yes” to God at the annunciation, that allowed Christ to incarnate, to become body and flesh within her womb. Her “yes”, gave Jesus life.
And now, Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus’s own heartfelt, soul affirming “yes” – this time, a “yes” to his death, not his life.
The Virgin Mary was the gate of life, the feminine power that allowed the Invisible, Uncreated One to become visible and human, and Mary of Bethany stands as the Gate of Death, anointing Jesus’s feet, for his willing walk to Jerusalem, the Cross and all that entails.
And of course, we know that Jesus will rise and will come again, breaking forever the barrier between the living and the dead.
And the first to see him will be another Mary – Mary Magdalene. Three Mary’s – one allowing the incarnation, one preparing the death and one at the resurrection of our saviour.
All this in just a hundred words!
But these hundred words also speak to us now, bringing us, if we allow them, closer and closer to God. For we too, every Sunday, share a meal, in a house, the house of God.
When John writes that “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” the word he uses for ‘house’ can also refer to the church – and yes, our church is filled with the fragrance of the perfume of Christ as ruler of life and death, our church is filled with the living and the gone, our beloved dead, as they too share the Eucharist we offer.
At our meal, each Sunday, if we look carefully, we will see Mary, we will see Martha, and of course, Lazarus, right next to us on the pews.
We break bread with those who serve the church and the world that the church serves. We are next to those who are so in love with Christ, they fall at his feet, give themselves to him and offer him all they have. And we have all, like Lazarus been raised from death to life through our baptism. We are all living icons of the resurrection, and we have all, in our personal lives been through times of living death, when the darkness overtakes and the stars fade and there is nothing – only, finally, to be made alive again by the Love of God Herself.
And this is the transformation our story offers us; not through any moral injunction or persuasion to any outer action, but through entering the story and simply eating. Eating, again and again, a last intimate meal with Christ, because as Lent reminds us, one Sunday will be our last meal with Christ, our last meal with the One who calls us to transform more and more towards His likeness.
We transform when we serve, when we use the power God Herself has given us. We transform when we give ourselves to God in intimate worship and love. We transform when we, like Lazarus, know ourselves as beloved of God, for no reason at all, and know that by Her love we enter life eternal, now and forever,
In the Name of Christ. Amen.