God’s Mighty women: The Anointer

Jesus is anointed by a sinful woman – she is given no name, it is only noted that she has fallen, often and salaciously by the look of it. Other gospel writers speak a little differently of her, however Jesus has the final say ‘Your faith has saved you, go in peace.’ This woman’s actions were rather outlandish, certainly ‘inappropriate’ and probably deemed as quite sexual. However, the woman isn’t trying to seduce Jesus, she is pouring out her love and worship in the only way she knows how. Worship is worship because of the integrity with which it is offered, not because of its ‘appropriateness’. How often does the ‘church’ judge people of all ages, gender, backgrounds, because they don’t seem to fit in with the way ‘we do things’ – or even try to teach and guide them into a ‘more appropriate’ way of worship so that they fit in with the church culture?

Jesus recognised and valued the worth of this woman’s worship; he didn’t seek to change her or comment that her behaviour was ‘out of place’. God has a penchants for exuberance and abundance – that’s the way he loves us, isn’t it right that we should love him in this way too?

Simon(the host has a name) has fallen short on the basic etiquette of hospitality, yet he feels fit to criticise the woman. Before we comment on those whose worship ‘sticks out’ maybe we need to check or own motives and rituals? Let’s face it, if we have time to observe others in their worship, and the spare energy to note and criticise and comment on what they are doing, we aren’t worshipping God with all our hearts, our minds, our souls; and if we are only worshipping half-heartedly we’re not worshipping at all.

So, who is the sinful one in this story? The one with the past or the one blinded to the future? The one pouring out her heart and soul in worship, or the one scoring points on ‘appropriate behaviour’?

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Mary – the fragrant woman

The Failure of the Human Project.

In his corner of West London, and in his self-preoccupied daily round, it was easy for Clive to think of civilisation as the sum of all the arts, along with design, cuisine, good wine and the like. But now it appeared that this was what it really was – square miles of meagre modern houses whose principle purpose was the support of TV aerials and dishes; factories producing worthless junk to be advertised on the televisions and, in dismal lots, lorries queuing to distribute it; and everywhere else, roads and the tyranny of traffic. It looked like a raucous dinner party the morning after. No one would have wished it this way,  but no one had been asked. Nobody planned it, nobody wanted it, but most people had to live in it. To watch mile after mile, who would have guessed that kindness or the imagination, that Purcell or Britten, Shakespeare or Milton, had ever existed? Occasionally, as the train gathered speed and they swung further away from London, countryside appeared and with it the beginnings of beauty, or the memory of it, until seconds later it dissolved into a river straightened to a concreted sluice or a sudden agricultural wilderness without hedges or trees, and roads, new roads probing endlessly, shamelessly, as though all that mattered was to be elsewhere. As far as the welfare of every other living form on earth was concerned, the human project was not just a failure, it was a mistake from the very beginning.’                            Amsterdam, Ian McEwan

Are we a mistake? Or have we been mistaken? Maybe it’s just that we have made huge mistakes of cataclysmic proportions. Maybe not even that, just a continuous stream of tiny little selfishnesses that have grown into huge mistakes. But the whole human race a mistake? I can’t believe that.

I believe that humanity was planned, designed, created to be kind and imaginative. I believe that humanity was breathed into life so that we could live lives full of friendship and exploration and beauty. I believe that humanity is designed to be relational. I believe that ‘community’ is a good thing where people are naturally interested in each other and supporting each other and celebrating with one another, not just a political buzz word, which really means ‘get on with it and don’t bother us’.

The human project was not, is not, a failure. The human is not a project, it is a being. Maybe we have lost our way a little and need to learn how to’be’ once more, and how to ‘be’ in the presence of neighbours rather that televisions and other screens (yes, including the one you are reading this on!). Maybe we need to learn how to ‘be’ a part of the landscape, walking more, driving less; taking an interest in the planet we live on and respecting its need for space to breathe. We have undoubtedly made mistakes, but we have not fallen so far that we cannot be ‘redeemed’, to use religious language; we have not fallen far that we cannot pick ourselves up and start all over again, or even help each other up. We have not fallen so far that all is lost. We do after all have a redeemer. The death Jesus died on the cross was to take away all the brokenness and fallenness and failures of this world, and his resurrection was, is, to be the energy that enables us to get back up again and work things out properly this time round, with the love and support of our neighbours, and of our God.

God, the Holy Trinity, three in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Creator, Redeemer and Life Enabler. This is community, mutual love, respect and support, and it is in this loving image that we are created.

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