Wednesday April 16

April 16th, 2025
by Paul Lang

The Sin of Respectable People

Mark 14:3 NRSV While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4 But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”
Mark 14:10 Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. 11 When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

The sin of respectable people lies in our refusal to risk our respectability in extravagant acts of love.

I hate to admit it . . . But the truth is that, had I been with Jesus in Bethany that day, I would likely have been found among those complaining about the woman who anointed Jesus. I suspect that the complaint about the money would have been, for me at least, a smoke-screen covering up my real complaint - which was that she had made a spectacle of herself in this very public display of affection. Very unseemly - don’t you think?

Perhaps you’ve heard the definition that a “fanatic” is anyone who loves God/Jesus/a sports-team more than you do. I know that I find fanatics off-putting. And yet, here we have Jesus taking the side of this unseemly, fanatical woman.

I wonder sometimes if my own fear of being seen as a fanatic by someone else has kept me from finding a really passionate love for the God I claim to follow? I am so careful to have a respectable kind of piety that I never tap into the rivers of emotion and trust which run deep and which hold the best potential for transformation of my life. So, this Wednesday of Holy Week I and going to cut loose and love unabashedly. I’m going to risk being seen by others as a little too much in the hope that I might find the kind of love this woman displayed with her alabaster jar and her tears.

Prayer — Lord, help me today and always to love you and to love others in a way that cares more for the person than for my image. Help me to be as extravagant in my love as you have been in loving me. In the name of the one whose love for us all took him to the extravagance of the cross. Amen.

Posted in Lent