March 24, 2024 at St Peter and Saint William Catholic Churches s in Naples, FL
Mark 11: 1-10 + Isaiah 50: 4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2: 6-11 + Mark 14: 1-15:47
Mark begins his report of the Passion with a woman who anoints him, and it will end with more women who come to a tomb to anoint him once more. Women, in Mark’s Gospel, are the only ones who stay and see the death of Jesus. The men are all off hiding somewhere. Among these heroic women is this first one with no name. With a name, she would be identified and defined. With no name, she can represent everyone who follows her example.
By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany for dinner at the home of a leper, there was already a sense so danger. Everyone understood the parable he had told before fleeing Jerusalem. His friends understood that like the murderers in the parable, his death was being plotted. Danger is in the air. The powerful are scheming over how to be rid of him. Yet, one woman gave her all in an extravagant gesture of faith. She broke that expensive jar spilling all the precious ointment over Jesus, all of it.
She does not show up when Jesus was being followed by admiring cowds awed by his power and is words. For her, he was a King to be anoinited as all the Kings before him. She saw a vulnerable man who was about to die. When fickle crowds, confused disciples, and threatened authorities turn on him because he is not the Messiah/King they wanted, she comes to proclaim her faith that God was working through this man who taught that love was the only law of life. With all her riches, she broke the jar and poured out everything in it showing us that wealth is worthless and God is not revealed through human power.
We can learn something important about faith from this woman that Mark puts before us today probably hoping that what she does will become what we do and what she believes will shape our our belief.
She is unafraid to show her faith in a powerless man who has entered Jerusalem like a pauper riding someone else’s ass. She can see the divine in a man who is helpless to defend himself with no one to defend him. She can see a King about to die and believe that selfless service, pouring out all that one has is the best way to honor the real King.