Monday in Holy Week • 29 March 2021
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Isaiah 41.1-9; Psalm 36.5-10; Hebrews 11.39-12.3; Mark 14.3-9
+
Last night, in a conversation with a friend, I commented that I would probably write a daily meditation during Holy Week because I could not imagine going through the week without the readings. I said that Holy Week is my annual get-together with old friends, with whom I have conversed for decades. To hear these texts is to refind these dear friends for our annual chat. To walk Holy Week day-by-day is to descend deeper and deeper into the mystery before arriving at Easter. I said that I once visited a coal mine in VA, where we went a mile into a mountain, so I have the image of going deeper and deeper into the earth as an analogy to walking the narrative of Holy Week. Without this annual descent into the mystery of the Passion, I cannot fully enter into the joys of the Resurrection.
My mind can picture 26 years of in-person Eucharists (last year was virtual and only the Triduum), with the stillness of the church building as I would set up for a simple, said half-hour service. The three buildings where I served were each over a century old and so they would creak with the changing inside temperature. The first church, made of out of wood, has a wonderful southern-facing stained glass window of the Road to Emmaus story with an inset pelican and her babies which, in the evening sun, turns the area by the side altar completely golden orange. Another church, facing due east/west, has three lancet windows at both ends and, again, in the evening sun, the light from the stained glass windows casts long rays of light on the aisle floor. The tranquility of these spaces contrasts with the brutal nature of the narrative of Holy Week that we follow year-in, year-out. So, I carry those spaces with me this year as I walk Holy Week alone from my upstairs study.
+
The unknown/unnamed woman, who pours ointment of nard (which I have always imagined to smell like gardenias—overwhelmingly sweet) on Jesus’ head, in Jesus’ words, ‘has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 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.’
How strange to hear these same words, ‘in remembrance of,’ not followed by the familiar, ‘me,’ as in Jesus’ command to break the bread and share the cup ‘in remembrance of me.’ Instead, Jesus chides the disciples’s lack of generosity of spirit by telling them that the action she has done for him is far more significant because, in essence, it is an action that only can be done once. The disciples will continue to have ample opportunity to ‘show kindness to the poor,’ but they will not always have Jesus with them. Unlike the disciples, who would want to avoid dealing with Jesus’ impending death, this presumably wealthy woman squarely faces Jesus’ death. Ched Myers in Binding The Strong Man goes as far as to say that she better understands the gospel message than do the disciples.1 Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples reflects, once again his frustration with them who, despite having listened to and travelled with him, still do not understand what Jesus has been teaching and proclaiming. In one small gesture, this woman shows clearly that she understands his message and him.
Back in my days of teaching, I can remember how, despite my best efforts to explain some arcane grammatical concept, a certain percentage of the class would not grasp what I was explaining, no matter how many different ways I tried. I can remember the mutual frustration they and I experienced. I can only imagine then Jesus’ frustration and perhaps underlying anxiety and a worry whether the disciples really were going to be able to carry on without him, as time drew nearer and nearer to his death .
+
What would Jesus (and the prophet Isaiah for that matter) say to us today as he looks at our world?
I write this meditation on the first day of the trial against the police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for almost 9 minutes. Other headlines are just as grim: There is a vaccination gap between Latina communities and other groups. State legislators want to pass bills that restrict trans girls from competing in girls sports at the same time they are trying to restrict voting rights in a way that would more affect communities of colour and Black communities than white ones. We continue to witness the mass killings by firearms of ordinary citizens going about their daily lives. And, finally, we still are stuck in this pandemic that has altered our lives in ways that we still do not understand.
What would Jesus say to us? Perhaps he would ask: When was the last time we did something that recognised the dignity of the person in front of us? The woman who anointed Jesus recognised his God-given dignity. The disciples, for all their wanting to support the poor, did not recognise the dignity of the woman.
All the above examples of current life demonstrate an individual or societal failure to respect the dignity of someone else. When we fail to respect someone else’s dignity or even our own, we fail to find God, who dwells in all of us. We may not have the occasion to anoint the feet of someone who is dying, but we have daily opportunities to find God in those whom we meet.
On this Monday of Holy Week, may we look into our hearts to examine where and when we have not respected the dignity of our neighbour and ourselves and then may we explore how we might find that dignity going forward.
END NOTE
1 Ched Myers, Binding The Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 359.
No comments:
Post a Comment