by CCW | 11 April 2022 21:00
Nathan’s words to David seek to convict his conscience about his sins. So, too, the accounts of the Passion present a compelling picture of our humanity in all of its sin and disarray, in all of the confusions of our incomplete loves. At the center is Jesus in his encounter with us. The Passion according to St. Mark begins with the encounter between Jesus and an unnamed woman “in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, and as he sat at meat,” as Mark tellingly notes. It begins with Jesus in the company of the afflicted; in short, with us in our afflictions. As Isaiah puts it in the lesson, “in all their affliction he was afflicted.”
The unnamed woman – identified by John as Mary of Bethany and later in the commentary tradition as Mary Magdalene – breaks open an “alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious” and pours its contents on his head. She anoints him. Why? Is she acknowledging him as the Messiah, the anointed one of God? Her action excites indignation, anger and division as if she has done something wrong. Jesus responds “let her alone; why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me: for ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good. But me ye have not always. She hath done what she could; she is come to aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.” He names his death, his embrace of the realities of human sin. Yet he acknowledges the good in her action even as he convicts our consciences about our neglect of the sufferings of one another. Her act belongs to one of the acts of corporal mercy with respect to the burying of the dead. Her act, too, is an act of sacrifice, an act of love towards Jesus.
“The poor you have with you always” does not mean our neglect of them. Jesus is challenging us about whether we make any effort to do good towards those in need. There is no illusion that we can solve all the problems of inequality and poverty and suffering in our world but there is no mistaking the idea of an obligation to do whatever we can. This goes to the logic of Christ as “the mediator of the new covenant” and so to the meaning of his passion as the ultimate reconciliation and restoration of our wounded and broken humanity. It means encountering ourselves in our dealings with one another. No sooner does Jesus say that what “she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her,” then Judas Iscariot goes to the chief priests to betray him unto them.
What unfolds is Mark’s account of the supper in the Upper Room where Jesus says to his disciples that “one of you which eateth with me shall betray me.” It excites a questioning on the part of each. “Is it I? Is it I?” It is the point of the accounts of the Passion to excite in us self-examination about the ways in which we have betrayed the truth and goodness of God in one way or another. Jesus takes bread and takes the cup; he identifies himself with the bread and the wine of the Passover. It signals the sacramental ways in which we participate in his Passion. “This is my body.” “This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many.”
This is immediately followed by the agony in Gethsemane where Jesus rather gently convicts us of our own weaknesses. We fall asleep. “Couldest not thou watch one hour?” Once again, we confront ourselves. The same logic unfolds with the kiss of Judas, with the accusations of the chief priests, along with the elders and scribes, and with his being beaten and condemned to death. And Peter is there, “following afar off,” observing all of these things at a distance.
The beginning of Mark’s Passion ends not just with the threefold betrayal of Peter but with how he confronts himself in his betrayal. Like David, he is the man of sin, the man who has betrayed his friend. The cock crows twice, “and Peter called to mind the word that Jesus had said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” He confronts himself in the words and figure of Christ. What does he do? He does not attempt to deny it nor to excuse himself. “When he thought thereon, he wept.”
Such is metanoia, repentance. It is about our being recalled to Christ and his truth which allows us to confront ourselves in our sins. The tears of Peter are like the precious ointment poured out upon Christ’s head. They are an acknowledgment of our sins and failings through our awareness of the greater truth and goodness of God. We confront ourselves and weep for our sins that are our betrayals of love. To know this is our good.
Fr. David Curry
Monday in Holy Week, 2022
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2022/04/11/sermon-for-monday-in-holy-week-12/
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