Sermons
25th March 2007 - Passion Sunday
It is easy to forget how shocking many familiar gospel scenes must have been to their first hearers. Not only does St John’s gospel present startling news and theological claims about the divinity of Jesus and about his eternal co-existence with the Father, about Jesus being the eternal word made flesh, fully human and fully divine, but John’s gospel also contains stories that cut across many social and religious conventions and these stories go some way to explaining why Jesus faced such unrelenting opposition from the religious leaders of his day. Religious leaders often fall into the habit of protectionism and law-giving, and when religion is not disrupted often enough it is ever in danger of ossifying, of becoming conventional. And conventional religious law-giving, it should be remembered, has been for the most part been formulated by men, sometimes, it seems, as a protection against, and a control upon women. In many religions women are seen as dangerous, they are even covered up or reduced to the status of legal property. The charisma with which Jesus clearly drew women towards him must have been very alarming for the religious leaders of the day, and also perhaps for the disciples and the scene in today’s gospel is a particularly startling example of the ministry of Jesus cutting across religious and cultural convention.
If you turn to the front of your pew sheet you will find a rather stylised representation in stained glass of Mary Magdalene at the feet of Jesus. Next to Jesus is Lazarus who was raised from the dead and Martha is at the back carrying out the traditional role of serving at table, whilst the wicked Judas insincerely complains about Mary wasting the precious ointment. But to begin to understand how shocking this scene is we first need to remember that Jewish women in Jesus’ day would have always had their hair tied up and normally covered as well. There were two occasions only when a woman was supposed to release her hair, first, when utterly distraught with grief or mourning and secondly when alone with her husband. Both times were occasions of passion, and it is perhaps unsurprising that commentators on the gospel scene in front of us have seen Mary’s action as a symbolical anointing of Jesus as if he were already dead, this is a prefiguring of his forthcoming passion, not a moment charged with conflicting emotions. Neither is this a royal anointing of the head, Mary is seen as the one who realises what is to happen to Jesus in Jerusalem, this anointing looks forward to the Passion of the Christ. The only problem with this approach is that Jesus is very much still alive, perhaps this unloosing of the hair involves more than one sort of passion.
Discussion of the scene has also often focussed on the dispute arising from the great generosity and costliness of Mary’s gesture in contrast with the miserly enquiry of Judas the traitor, who fails to see that this forthcoming death is a quite literally a once-and-for-all event, cutting across time in which the poor are always present. Certainly this is central to the scene. Judas sits at table with his saviour, he sits within touching distance of Lazarus, fleshly evidence of the power of Jesus to bring life out of death, and yet Judas’ actions will lead directly to Jesus’ death on the cross, and in the meantime all he can do is complain about lavishing the body that will be raised with a costly anointing.
But there is more to this scene than Judas the wicked betrayer of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene the extravagant follower of Jesus. There is more, because this word passion has several meanings and Mary’s considerable immodesty before Jesus has several meanings. Jesus does not prevent Mary from making her tactile offering, he allows her to express an intimacy and passion which is another signal to us of the reality of his humanity, his nature is fully human and fully divine. There would be significant gaps in that fullness if there was no acknowledgement that humans are tactile, passionate, sexual beings. Jesus does not prevent Mary from unloosing her hair, he doesn’t prevent her from being herself.
The suppression of women and of their sexuality is a key element in many religious narratives but it shouldn’t be part of ours. Both women and men are called to a passionate encounters in life and a passionate encounter with the gospel, and with the person of Jesus. We can only imagine the sort of power and charisma that must have been present in Jesus to draw so many to give up all that they had and follow him, but in following him they and we are not called to renounce our humanity and the joyful ways in which love is properly expressed. It is perhaps because of these radical demands to acknowledge who we are and see our lives transformed through knowing and loving Jesus, that Christianity at its best still very often cuts across religious and social conventions.
So if you ever find yourself tempted to use Christianity as a way to retreat behind the barriers of social and religious convention, you may need to follow the example of Mary Magdalene and come into passionate engagement with the person of Jesus. And if you ever find yourself using Christianity to justify the suppression of your full humanity, you may need to follow the example of Mary Magdalene and let your hair down!