Mark 14:1-9
Some Leaders Act Out Jesus’ Parable of the Vineyard
Mark 14:1-2 – Some Leaders Plot to Kill Jesus
1 The festival of Passover and of Unleavened Bread were two days away. The chief priests and scribes were seeking how they might secretly get hold of him and kill him, though they were saying, “Not during the festival, in case there might be a popular uprising”.The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were the same Jewish feast, both commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from the slavery of Egypt and their austere period in the Sinai wilderness.
The plotters were not necessarily all the priests, even all the chief priests, nor all the scribes, but an obviously dominant power group among them. They were acting under pressure. Whilst they undoubtedly had power and the backing of the occupying forces, they also knew that they were not particularly influential with the people, who tended to despise them for their ready collaboration.
They foresaw the possibility that Jesus might not have remained in Jerusalem after the Passover. If they were to remove him and to stamp out his movement, they needed to act quickly. Yet to arrest him publicly during the feast, with so many apparently enthusiastic Galileans in and around the city, would have been to risk an uprising. A popular uprising could have meant the intervention of the Roman forces and the loss of their own privileged position.
They would have had to be careful.
Interpreting Jesus’ Death (1) – Anointed for Death
Mark 14:3-9 – A Woman Anoints Jesus
3 He was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining there at table. A woman approached who had an alabaster perfume container of very expensive pure nard. She shattered the alabaster container and poured it over his head.Mark had not identified Simon the leper previously in his narrative. That he did so may have meant that Simon was known to the Markan community. Given that Simon was presumably at home and free to mix with people, his leprosy had obviously been cured. In the light of Simon’s hospitality, it was possible that Jesus had cured him sometime in the past.
Formal dinners were generally eaten in a reclining position, with the guests lying on their sides, their heads near the table. Whilst access to their feet was easy, access to their heads would have been less so. Yet Mark indicated that the unidentified woman, immediately before Jesus’ death, poured the perfume over his head.
The woman’s gesture was astonishingly extravagant.
4 Some there were indignant, saying to themselves, “What is the point of wasting this perfume?5 It could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they were indignant at the woman.The perfume was incredibly expensive – three hundred denarii would have been the equivalent of a whole year’s wages for an ordinary workman. Even the alabaster container would have been valuable. The stunning perfume of the nard would have lingered for hours.
Her critics were not identified. Their comment sounds more hypocritical than genuine. Undoubtedly there were tensions within the group of disciples (as would become even more obvious from what would follow). Their objection raised the question whether they were genuinely concerned for the poor and really objecting to the extravagance, or whether their criticism was the overflow of their own uneasiness with Jesus and his behaviour of the past few days.
6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good deed for me. 7 You have the poor with you all the time, and you can help them whenever you like. But you do not have me all the time.Jesus knew that there would always be poor. His comment about the inevitability of the poor did not indicate a lack of hope in the possibilities of the Kingdom but the realisation that the breaking-in of the Kingdom would always depend on people’s free responses.
Poverty and Justice
Of itself poverty does not indicate injustice. Certainly it can be the direct result of injustice, indifference and social systems that prize capital over labour, and generate or tolerate levels of unemployment. On the other hand, oppressed peoples can sometimes themselves remain attached to their helplessness even in the face of freedom. To change from what has always been can be too difficult for some.
Action for justice is clearly an essential element of living and preaching the Gospel. Jesus was certainly concerned about the injustices done to the poor by the wealthy and powerful. The system cried out for change.
But economic productivity is not the essence of the Kingdom. That experience of the Kingdom comes from the inner change accompanying the vision of universal human solidarity and the surprising discovery of the ability to respond in love. Such love always presupposes an inner freedom from self-interest, a virtual death to self-centeredness, and is the gift of God.
In marked contrast to the man of great wealth, the woman was certainly not attached to her precious ointment: she poured it out for the one she esteemed and loved. She showed an amazing freedom. She was experiencing the reality of Kingdom.
8 She has done what is in her power to do. She has anticipated anointing my body for its entombment.Jesus read beautiful symbolism into the extravagant gesture of the woman: she had anointed his body before his imminent death.
Perhaps she may have seen a further meaning in her gesture. Only when the container had been broken could the ointment break free and its precious perfume fill the house. Jesus would be killed; his body would be broken, just like the alabaster container she had broken. With the intuitive insight of love she may have seen that with his death his precious love would be released profligately throughout the world, available for the redemption of all.
9 I tell you clearly, wherever the good news is proclaimed throughout the whole world, what she has done will be told in her memory.”This statement of Jesus is echoed nowhere else in the whole body of scriptural writings. Mark obviously saw that the woman’s gesture had great meaning, yet chose not to indicate clearly what that meaning was. His community, and his other readers, were left to conjecture.
Mark presented a woman who, in her gift to Jesus, had herself mirrored the life-giving death of Jesus. In her love for him and her desire to serve him, she had surrendered what was most precious. She had done what was in her power. She had focused on and was in touch with his pending destiny, and she had said her “yes” to his redeeming death. Her insight into discipleship and her total response were to be of inspiration wherever the good news is proclaimed throughout the whole world.
Mark no doubt saw the free, unmanipulated response of this woman in strong contrast to the gift made previously by the poor widow to the uncaring Temple system.
Mark carefully noted that she would be remembered; yet he left her anonymous. Somewhat unnecessarily he had named the male owner of the house, but the woman had no name. Did Mark intend to show her complete embodying of discipleship: content to be the least of all, even to the extent of remaining unnamed? Or was his omission an unconscious illustration of the pervasive patriarchy of the culture (and even of the Christian community)?
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