From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Sixth Week after Pentecost
Matthew 26:1-16
When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”
Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”
Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”
Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.
Matthew’s narrative now moves into the account of Jesus’ arrest, torture, and crucifixion. Jesus has spoken harshly about the Jewish leadership as to their complicity with the Roman system, and more importantly, he has spoken of the leadership’s apostasy, their rejection of the ways of God; their self-interested opulence, and their callous disregard for the poor. If you’ve followed the several chapters before the passion narrative, the parables and teaching contained therein, then you know Jesus’ execution is inevitable. He has burned every bridge in his relentless critique, and the status quo of self-interested power will defend to the death its privilege.
In his ministry Jesus has taken on the plight of the poor and marginalized, the left out of his society. He and his followers have publicly protested on their behalf. He has chosen sides amid the socio-economic paradigm of his world. The chief disparity in this world is the disparity of dignity. The powerful elite have it. The poor, and the slave, and the outcast do not. And God, and the people who follow God’s ways, will not rest until there is an equilibrium of human worth. Poor lives matter. The lives of the outcast and marginalized matter. To the elite who cry, “All lives matter,” Jesus would say that “you powerful already have your reward.” The Gospels are about justice as the means of shared and equal dignity. Therefore God’s action is first for the least of us.
The anointing of Jesus is an often overlooked passage in the passion narrative, but it is most important to Matthew’s theology. Anointing with oil is a sign of God’s blessing and favor. It is a sign of dignity. Jesus is now in the inevitable process of a most ignoble death. Crucifixion was as much about shame as it was about execution. Jesus here is anointed in solidarity with all the shamed of our world, all the world’s victims, bearing witness to the reality that in God’s reign, even the condemned have dignity in the eyes of God.
And to make the tragedy more poignant, Jesus is betrayed by one of his trusted disciples. Victimization always comes by betrayal, a violation of trust. Black Americans over their history have suffered from betrayal, a breach of trust, failed promises. The immigrant at our borders suffers from a betrayal of our democracy’s core values. Racism is not just prejudice; it is a betrayal. In The Divine Comedy Dante places the “betrayer” in the most loathsome circle of hell: Cassius, Brutus, and Judas hanging from the jaws of the devil for eternity.
Love demands that we choose sides. Neutrality is a mere abdication of responsibility. Love demands that we raise up the beaten down of our world; that our salvation is contingent to theirs. We are Love’s advocates, and Love is not satisfied until all have a place at God’s table as honored guests. To do otherwise is to betray the trust God has in us. Love is always trustworthy, and good people, we belong to Love.
A Prayer for the Human Family (BCP p. 815)
O God, you made us in your image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
