Archive for the ‘Anointing’ Category

Wild, extravagant love – Mary anoints Jesus

April 7, 2025

Lent 5 – 2025

John 12:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of God who draws us into relationship and who does not pull back when we demonstrate affection wildly, extravagantly and passionately. Amen.

In the 1960’s Harry Harlow carried out a number of experiments in to determine if the mother-child relationship was solely a consequence of the role a mother played in providing food and protection or whether affection and touch played a role.  Of these the most well-known (if unethical) experiment involved removing young monkeys from their mothers just a few hours after birth. The young monkeys were placed in cages with two “mothers” one of which was made of wire and dispensed milk through a baby bottle. The other was made of soft cloth but provided no food. What Harlow discovered was that the monkeys spent a majority of their time clinging to the relative comfort of the cloth mother and went to the wire “mother’ only for food.  In other words, the babies drew more comfort from physical contact than nourishment.  

Thank goodness experiments such as this could not be carried out today but this, and other research demonstrates how important touch is to human development and well-being.  

We don’t need experiments with monkeys to prove this. In recent decades we have come face-to-face with the long-term trauma experienced by those who were removed from their families and placed into orphanages, group homes or foster care in which many experienced abuse and neglect. Many victims of such actions will tell of their continuing inability to feel secure, to form relationships and to trust anyone. 

We live in a society in which touch is carefully regulated – by law, but also by social norms. Touch can be used to demonstrate care, support and intimacy, but it can also be used to abuse, to control and to isolate. Touch is important but it can be misused and misunderstood. The appropriate use of touch differs from country to country and changes over time.  It is only recently (in my lifetime) that it has become widely acceptable for women to shake hands. And it is important to note that while many people welcome a comforting hand on the arm, but there are some who will recoil from physical contact.

While it has proven necessary to legally regulate the use of touch, this in itself has problems. Children and the elderly can often be starved of physical signs of affection. Children who experience neglect at home, can no longer hope for a quick hug from a teacher or sports coach. Older persons in aged care facilities likewise miss out on daily, or even occasional hugs.

Social norms around touch is one of the things that makes today’s reading so extraordinary. In the culture of Jesus’ time and place, the behaviour of women and men was tightly regulated. Women were the property of their father and then their husband. In public a woman would have been forbidden from speaking to a male who was not a member of her family. A woman who physically touched a man to whom she was not related would not only have been seriously castigated, but her behaviour would have sent shock waves through her community. In any other circumstance she would have been labelled as a harlot, as a woman with no morals and no self-respect.

Yet here, as if it were something completely ordinary, we have a scene in which Mary does a number of things which are socially inappropriate – she lets down her hair, she places herself at Jesus’ feet, and using extravagantly costly ointment, proceeds to wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair. It is a wonder that it is only Judas who expresses horror at the events unfolding before him.  In a room which is presumably filled with men, in which Mary’s role would have been to join Martha in serving the meal, Mary breaks not one but several social conventions and Jesus instead of condemning her, commends her!

This scene tells us a great deal about Mary’s relationship with Jesus. She obviously felt a very deep affection for him, but it is perhaps more significant to note that she had complete trust in him. She did not feel that she had to stint in her outpouring of love or to keep a distance (physical or emotional) between them. She had no fear that Jesus would reject her expression of the depth of her care and affection. She was confident not only that he would not recoil from her or from her outpouring of love, but that he would protect her from the censure and negativity that her actions would almost certainly engender.

It is too easy to focus on the extravagance of Mary’s gesture (and the meanness of Judas’ response) and to avoid focussing on an action that might make us feel deeply uncomfortable. But Mary’s action is clearly a description of intimacy, service and abundant and extravagant love, the love of a woman for one whom her sister only days before had identified as the Christ. It is an account of intimacy between a believer and God.

By weeks end, Jesus will have been touched by strange and cruel hands. He will have been arrested, roughly handled, whipped and crucified. During these moments of humiliation and torment, will he have remembered the gentle hands of Mary, the caress of her hair and the smoothness of the ointment? Will her wild and extravagant outpouring of love be one of the things that sustains him?

Mary’s actions throw into sharp relief our own elationship with God. How many of us respond to God’s love for us with such wild, extravagant abandon? How many of us truly believe that all God seeks from us is not – as we would believe – mindless obedience, but a selfless, humbling outpouring of our love for God, a love that reveals our understanding of how much God loves us, a love that is utterly confident that God will accept our expression of love, no matter how wild, extravagant and unconventional it may be? God’s love for us is boundless, and unconditional, yet many of us find it hard to trust that God loves us that much, and equally as hard to love God in kind. Many of us portion out our love, tentatively offering God some but not all of us, anxious perhaps that God may not welcome our gift. 

Mary has no such hesitation but throws herself (literally) at God’s (Jesus’) feet, lavishly and liberally covering them with an ointment worth a year’s wages and wiping up the excess with her own hair.

What proof do we need of God’s love for us? What will it take for us to love God in return?

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Abundance not sacrifice – Lent is God’s gift to us, our gift to ourselves

March 12, 2016

Lent 5 – 2016

John 12:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of God whose outpouring of love is more than we can ever imagine.  Amen.

It is just possible that I am turning into a grumpy old woman or it may be that I am by nature someone who tends to take the world and faith seriously. Whatever it is, I have found myself being irritated or disappointed by the attitude that some people (particularly via social media) have taken towards Lent. There have been posts on Facebook by people bemoaning the fact that they are saying “goodbye” to beer or wine or some other treat for forty days as if Lent is a burden imposed upon them rather than something taken up freely. Other people have posted cartoons, which again make it seem that Lent is at worst some interminable punishment or at best a trial that has to be endured. To be fair, I am sure that most of the posts are from people who do take Lent seriously and who assume that their friends will understand that they are simply making light of it not expressing how they really feel.

It does concern me however that the negative messages about Lent, give the wrong idea – not only about the practice of Lent but about the Christian faith – to the non-Christians who hear or read them. Those who are not in on the secret could be forgiven for thinking that Lent is a period of misery expected by an exacting and demanding God instead of seeing it as a time of self-imposed abstinence that will liberate us to know more fully an indulgent and affirming deity.

The readings for the first four weeks of Lent have encouraged us to turn our lives around and to remove the barriers that separate us from the overwhelming abundance of God’s love. John the Baptist urged us to “repent” (literally – turn around), the parable of the fig tree reminded us that we share with all of humanity its frailty and imperfections, Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem gave us an insight into the sorrow experienced by God because of our refusal to accept God’s love and the parable of the two sons demonstrated God’s utter refusal to exclude us from that love and at the same time reminded us of the ways in which we place ourselves beyond the reach of God’s affection.

Today, as we approach the end of our forty days, we are confronted by a description of an act of intimacy, extravagance and tenderness – not of God towards us, but of Mary towards God. At first the gospel seems out of place an action of such beauty and lavishness seems to conflict with a time of fasting and self-denial.  But today’s gospel is a perfect fit – not only with the gospel readings that have preceded it, but also with the central purpose of Lent. In conjunction with the gospels of the past four weeks, today’s gospel sums up what Lent is about and what we can hope to achieve.

We discover, if we plumb the lectionary offerings, that Lent is primarily about ensuring that we are in the best condition possible to accept God’s love for us. We allow ourselves a period of prayer and self-examination to reflect on our lives and in particular to consider whether or not we are truly open to the love that God is constantly pouring out on us. Fasting and self-denial are not intended to be a way of  “mortifying” or denying the flesh” but a means of identifying and ridding ourselves of the obstacles that we place between ourselves and God – obstacles which are just as likely to be emotional and psychological as they are to be physical.

When we strip ourselves bare, when we purge ourselves of all the things that prevent us from experiencing the fullness of God’s love, we will be simply overwhelmed by the outpouring God’s grace and the generosity and the bounty of God’s affection. We will be astounded that God could love us so much and we will be acutely aware of our little we deserve that love.

Lent is a lesson of love, God’s extravagant, unconditional and boundless love, which is ours for the taking. The disciplines of Lent are not intended to weigh us down, but to prepare us to receive God’s love without question and without hesitation.

This is where Mary fits in. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, responds to God’s love with an extravagance that matches Jesus’ own. Mary is the perfect example of someone who has allowed herself to be stripped bare, who has opened herself completely and unreservedly to God’s scrutiny and in so doing has discovered not judgement but compassion, not condemnation but understanding, not rejection, but complete and total acceptance. Mary responds in the only way possible – with a demonstration of her deep and humble gratitude.

Even by today’s standards, Mary’s actions open her to disapproval – the loose hair, the public and intimate display of affection, the extravagance and waste. Yet for Mary there is no other response that will adequately express her reaction to God’s love for her. Mary throws caution, propriety and decorum to the wind. She has no thought of what others might think of her only that she must express her own love in a way that matches her experience of the love of God.

Lent then, is not so much about sacrifice as it is about abundance, not so much about self-denial as it is about self-acceptance, not so much about being unable to measure up, but about realizing that there is nothing against which to measure ourselves. Lent is less about sacrifice and more about abundance – about discovering the abundance that emanates from God and not from the world. Lent is less about will power and more about letting go – for it is only when we truly let go that we are able open ourselves to the wealth that is ours for the taking.

During Lent we identify and shed the obstacles that separate us from the love of God – a love so overwhelmingly abundant that it calls for a response that is extravagant, intimate and tender a response like that of Mary sister of Lazarus.

Forty days is not much to ask – in fact it almost seems far too little to give when we gain so much in return.

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