"... and she poured in on his head as he sat at the table..."
Jesus did all things right, which infuriated the rightness of one who was closest to him. Our sense of what Jesus should be doing, and who Jesus should be doing it with, often flies in the face of what he's really doing and who he's really doing it with.
That's why we need to continually pray, "On earth as it is in heaven" - not so much as to make it happen by our words, but to be able to bless it with our hearts.
Three things lead Judas, one of the 12 (meaning one of his closest, most intimate brothers), to blow a gasket and turn Jesus into the Chief Priests. First, they were in the house of a Leper. Simon had been healed by Jesus previously, but still had the social stigma attached to his past life. Jesus was able to dine freely at Simon's table, and enjoy the fulness of his presence, hospitality, and healing. Then, a woman poured a flask of very expensive oil on Jesus' head - right there at the table. The future King was seemingly humiliated by the actions of a woman who, aside from children, ranked lowest in status. Finally, Jesus turns around and justifies her action - calling it an anointing for his burial, casting concerns about the cost of the event to the Wind, and sets this woman up as an everlasting example of worship throughout all time.
Sometimes the most awkward events - the things that run against the very core of our sensibilities - are actually holy portals revealing a Deeper Sensibility.
When these portals appear - and they appear daily - they often arouse a contrary passion that keep us from seeing through the thing and cause us to rise up against the thing which is seen. Jesus, no doubt, in his humanness, may have been just as surprised as Judas with the actions of that evening. Yet he was able to get past his misunderstanding of the event and see through it.
"This is a bit out of the box," he may have thought. And then, with an opened heart, freed of personal bias and social correctness, "What are you doing here, Father?" While Judas - in his overly righteous responsibly in who knows what, was deadened from seeing anything but what he saw.
Yet Jesus affirmed the event. He engaged in it. He honored it. He had the eyes to see what God was doing through the event (which no doubt infuriated Judas all the more). Jesus was not held captive with lists and protocols of what was right, wrong, politically correct or otherwise. He took Life as it came and sought the Deeper Sensibility within it. He knew from experience there is always a Deeper Sensibility.
So he blessed it. And, in so doing, others were blessed, too. And the home was filled with the fragrance of his mercy.
Simon - an outcast from society - was affirmed in his healing and love from God. And this beautiful woman - perhaps thinking she had done something stupid and, only realizing it afterwards, felt condemned and shamed - she was affirmed in who she was, what she did, and forever memorialized as a an example of her actions.
Lord, give us the grace to see through our day to a Greater Day, to see through the irks, puzzlement, and senseless actions of this life into your Deeper Sensibility. And, once there, let us turn to bless, affirm, and heal based on what you are doing beneath the surface, based on what we see the Father doing, and not merely what we see in our flesh.
No comments:
Post a Comment