Remembering Her

From the Jerusalem Bible, Mark 14:3-9…

Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper; he was at dinner when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the ointment on his head. Some who were there said to one another indignantly, “Why this waste of ointment? Ointment like this could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor”; and they were angry with her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you upsetting her? What she has done for me is one of the good works. You have the poor with you always, and you can be kind to them whenever you wish, but you will not always have me. She has done what was in her power to do; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. I tell you solemnly, wherever throughout all the world the Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told also, in remembrance of her.”

Some years ago, at the Tuesday night liturgy of Holy Week, our pastor invited us to enter this story and take on one of the characters, to experience it from the inside out. What follows is what flowed from my imagination later that evening…

Sometimes…I…just want…to…shout! But, honestly, I’m not sure what I would shout. I have never in my life met any one person who stirs up such myriad emotions in me, some of which I haven’t experienced since I was a child.

We were eating, and occasionally someone would enter the room, bringing a tray of food, or a jug of water. But at one point a woman came in, and she startled me. I hadn’t seen her before, either when we arrived at Simon’s home or serving the meal. The first thing I thought of was that she was an agent of the chief priests, sent to trap us somehow. They didn’t need much provocation to arrest Jesus, or us for that matter. I was suddenly scared that this was it. I wanted to shout a warning that we should get out and away from her!

Then she did the most astonishing thing. I saw clearly the jar she was carrying. I had thought it was a water jug, but I now saw it was made of alabaster, truly a lovely thing to behold, and it was sealed, the way nard is stored, to preserve its fragrance. She broke the jar! Without any hesitation, just cracked it right open. What could she be thinking! What was she doing! She poured the nard over Rabbi’s head. I’m not sure which surprised me more, that she seemed to know exactly what she was doing, or that he seemed to know exactly what she was doing. I watched in horror, thinking she must have been sent by the priests, she was obviously trying to incite him into behaviors we’d always heard the Romans engaged in, at their pagan festivals. I wanted to shout at her to leave him alone, didn’t she know her place! But as I watched, I realized she was attending to him as I’d seen my mother and the other village women tend the body of a recently deceased neighbor. She was preparing him for burial. I wanted to shout at her to stop, couldn’t she see he was alive, and didn’t need her ministrations. He’s not dead! Yet! My soul shriveled at the word that shouted back at me in my head. Rabbi had talked before about his death. His sacrifice. I never understood. Perhaps I never tried to understand. I didn’t want to know about that. There was too much joy in listening to him discuss the scriptures, too much beauty in the healing he performed. It can’t come to an end, it just can’t.

I was drawn back to the present by the voices raised around the room. I couldn’t make out all the strands of discussion, but it was clear most everyone viewed that use of the nard to be a waste! “Valuable asset” and “sold for a goodly sum” and “benefit the poor” were recurring expressions of the discontent in the room. Some began berating the woman. She was clutching the broken pieces of the jar and there was a streak of blood on her hand where a shard had scraped her skin. I could see tears welling up in her eyes, though from the words or the wound I did not know, when Rabbi’s voice cut the air and silenced everyone. “Leave her alone,” he said, so very calmly. I felt my insides go cold, not for the first time at one of Rabbi’s quiet rebukes. Instantly I was a child again, having just done something to bring disappointment to my father’s heart. I will never forget the weight of that burden. So many times I react to something, and Rabbi is disappointed in me, and I want to shout at him, teach me, Master, command me to understand! “You will always have poor among you. You can care for them any time. You will not always have me.” There he goes again, talking about his death. “She has done what was in her power to do. She has prepared my body for its burial.” I couldn’t see any good in this woman’s actions. I’d agreed with the voices I’d heard condemning her. And here was Rabbi, disappointed in us again, showing us something that should have been obvious, I guess. How could she have known? Why did she understand, when all of us still struggled?

I looked around the room for the woman, as Rabbi told us she would be remembered for her ministrations, but she was gone. One of Simon’s servants must have urged her out as the arguing started. I was sorry she hadn’t heard all of Rabbi’s kind words for her.

I wished I’d asked her her name…