Why mention the poor?
Once again, Jesus makes what appears to be an offhand remark about the poor. Jesus often criticized the leaders of Temple and Pharisees for their treatment of the poor; doesn’t this remark catch you off guard?
It would be easy enough to lose the context of Jesus’ apparent ambivalence toward the poor in the rush of events surrounding Passover week. Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem has many seemingly more important things going on than what to us would first appear to be a slip of the tongue (sort of like cursing the fig tree). Yet like in our previous series you may find some subtleties worthy of note that impact more than just the poor.
The Gospel Quotes:
Prior to examining Jesus’ point of the comment, which we will do later in this series, let’s begin quotes from the view points of three different gospel writers.
Mark 14:7
For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them.
Matthew 26:7
For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.
John 12:8
For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
The 5 W’s
Now to discover the context we must examine all three stories asking:
Who, what, where, when and why?
You will find some variation in the three Gospel stories and some similarities. We begin today with Mark’s gospel.
Mark 14:
It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, 2 for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”
We have the ‘when:’ two days before the Passover, which in this particular year with the Passover on a Thursday, was Tuesday.
3 And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.
4 There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. 9 And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Where? In the house of Simon the Leper, in Bethany, near Jerusalem.
Bethany is today el ‘Azareyeh (“the place of Lazarus”- the L being displaced to form the article).
Who is present? Jesus, of course; Simon, host of the meal (who Jesus had likely healed from leprosy; ‘some,’ likely the Twelve and others; and an unidentified woman who enters Simon’s home.
What happens? She pours out some very expensive oil on Jesus, an act of great humility and worship.
(More about her and her gracious act later.)
To be continued…
