The Dude Abides
“Oh sure, give me the ringer.”
That was my first reaction when I read the passage from the Gospel of St. John (see below), the scripture that the nice folks who have produced a beautiful new translation of the New Testament — the Common English Bible — invited me to contribute my braindroppings to their Lenten Blog Tour.
The eight short verses from the 12th chapter of St. John are among the most difficult in all of the Gospels, one of those passages that seemingly is forever debated by theologians and biblical scholars as to what, precisely, it really means. The Bible contains, by some accounts, 2,103 verse about the poor. The passage in John 12 is perhaps the most challenging.
John 12:1-8 (Common English Bible translation)
Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Lazarus and his sisters hosted a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who joined him at the table. 3 Then Mary took an extraordinary amount, almost three-quarters of a pound,h of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She anointed Jesus’ feet with it, then wiped his feet dry with her hair. The house was filled with the aroma of the perfume. 4 Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), complained, 5 “ This perfume was worth a year’s wages!i Why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor? ” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He carried the money bag and would take what was in it.)
7 Then Jesus said, “ Leave her alone. This perfume was to be used in preparation for my burial, and this is how she has used it. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you won’t always have me. ”
This passage, particularly verses 7-8, are often used by people of faith to dismiss efforts to work to alleviate the suffering and injustices of poverty.
“What’s the point?” they’ll ask. “Jesus himself said the poor ‘would always be with us,’ so why waste our time trying to end poverty or help the poor? It’s a fool’s errand.”
Other folks, such as my boss Jim Wallis over at Sojourners, insist that such interpretations of this passage are way off base. In his book, God’s Politics, Jim says:
“Remember the context. They are at the dinner table with a leper, and Jesus is making an assumption about his disciples’ continuing proximity to the poor. He is saying, in effect, Look you will always have the poor with you because you are my disciples…Jesus is assuming the social location of his followers will always put them in close proximity to the poor and easily able to reach out to them…So because of our isolation from the poor, American Christians get the text wrong!”
Jesus, in his own words many times elsewhere in the Gospels, clearly cares about and commands us to care about the poor. We are told that whenever we care for “the least of these” we are caring for Jesus himself. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a direct order. If we are truly Jesus’ followers, we must care for the poor.
So what in the world does Jesus really mean when he says, “You will always have the poor among you, but you won’t always have me”? The tension these words bring to the overall message Jesus brings about our collective responsibility for the poor is seemingly untenable. These verses clang. They nag and trouble us like a hang nail. They make us uncomfortable.
Now I’m no theologian and I’m certainly not a biblical scholar, but, because they asked, let me humbly offer a few thoughts on “the ringer.”
When I read familiar verses anew this week, the first thing that struck me was the literal context in which they appear. Jesus is at Lazarus’ house. Lazarus was Jesus’ friend, the one who had died before he could get there to heal him from an illness. The one whose untimely death made Jesus weep. The one who Jesus then called to in his grave and told him to wake up. The one Jesus raised from the dead.
When Jesus speaks these words in verses 7-8, he is having dinner in the house where Lazarus is living. LIVING. Lazarus was dead. And now he’s alive. Because Jesus said so.
That’s quite a thing. It is, perhaps, Jesus’ most spectacular miracle. Even death itself is no match for the power of Jesus’ love.
Enter this woman and her container of nard, an expensive perfumed oil that was commonly used to anoint the bodies of the dead in preparation for their burial. She crashes the party, breaks open her bottle of nard, spreads it on Jesus’ surely dusty feet and wipes them with her hair. She cause a scene. And Jesus’ posse, the Disciples, are peeved. “Oh come on!” they whine. “What is she doing? Stop that. Yes, you.” And then Judas Iscariot, the schmuck in charge of the Disciples’ community purse (who apparently enjoyed skimming off the top for himself, thief and liar that he was), complains about the woman “wasting” the nard, which could have been sold for a pretty penny and used for the work of the Kingdom (or to buy himself a nice new pair of sandals and a bottle of good wine.)
But that’s not Jesus’ reaction. See, he gets it. He knows why the woman has crashed the dinner party. He sees what she is doing. She is worshiping him, which is the correct response when we come face-to-face with the Living God. The woman with the nard didn’t turn up at Lazarus’ crib for a social justice meeting. She didn’t make a scene because she wanted to be part of the planning committee. She came to see and to worship Jesus. And she did so with great flare (the lady knew how to make an entrance.) She wanted to be close to Jesus the Christ — the Messiah, the Promised One, the man who raised the dead and healed the sick and preached a Gospel of radical love and inclusion — to bow down and worship him, even if she made a fool of herself (in some folks’ eyes) in the process.
Sometimes, in spite of our best intentions, many of us get caught up in the “work” of the Gospel — the healing of the world, Tikkin Olam — and we forget to worship the Living God who asked us to do the work in the first place. We should care for the poor. We must. Jesus told us to do so. And when we are in the presence of Jesus, we should worship Him. It’s not an either/or. It’s both/and. It’s being the hands and feet and voice of Jesus in the world, and worshiping the One whose hands and feet and voice we are called to be in the world. Work and worship. Both/and.
And where are we sure to be in the presence of the Living Christ? When we are with the poor, the suffering, the sick and marginalized. Because that’s where Jesus always is.
The timing of this lil’ Lenten reflection on the Gospel of St. John 12: 1-8 is wonderfully prescient. This Sunday (April 10) in churches across the nation, some folks will be marking what the fine folks at the ONE Campaign are calling “Lazarus Sunday.” It is a day to recognize a powerful story in the fight against HIV/AIDS — the miraculous effects of antiretroviral drugs that have the ability to snatch dying AIDS patients from the jaws of death. Doctors call it the “Lazarus Effect.” As a part of ONE’s event, churches all across the country will screen the HBO documentary “The Lazarus Effect” for their congregations in an effort to convey the monumental importance of antiretroviral treatments in the fight against AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan African countries where HIV/AIDS have claimed millions of lives — nearly entire generations of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, teachers, nurses, preachers and children.
This Lazarus Sunday, may we remember the Jesus’ command to heal the sick, feed the poor and care for the least of us. And while we are gathered with the community of the saintss in the presence of the One who raises the dead and promises us all eternal life, may we also bow down and worship Him.
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