Seeker

Five Senses of Love reflection on John 12: 1 - 11 for Monday of Holy Week What does love look like? Love looks shocking. Love breaks rules, as did Mary of Bethany who rubbed perfume on a rabbi's feet and dried them with her hair -  in public. Love shocks when it wastes expensive perfume or destroys a precious body like that of Jesus hung out on a cross to die. What does love feel like? Love feels good to the one who can receive it like a baby relaxing in its parents' care, or like a lover in the arms of the beloved. What does love sound like? Love sounds to Judas like 300 coins, a whole year's wages  spilling to the ground, rolling away and lost - an extravagant waste. Love sounds to Jesus like the sound of friends, of tears, laughter, music and companionable silence.  What does love taste like? Love tastes like the best food and drink, caringly prepared, served and shared. ...

6 days before Passover Jesus shared a meal in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Martha served it. Lazarus was among other men at the table. Mary's gratitude to Jesus after restoring her brother Lazarus to the household was enormous. Her love for Jesus was overwhelming. She wanted to express it. She could not have chosen a more embarrassing way do it. In an astonishing intimate gesture  Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus' feet with very expensive perfumed ointment. Even more shockingly she wiped his feet with her hair.  It was inevitable that criticism would be immediate - the immodesty, the stepping out of her expected role helping Martha to serve the meal, the waste of expensive assets instead of giving to the poor. Women simply cannot let their hair down like that in public without being damned by 'respectable' people. Tom Wright suggests this is an incident that demands that we ask,  "where are you in this picture?" * So I have to ask, am I  ...