Scripture
Readings: Isaiah 42.1-9 and John 12.1-11
The man who washes
cars does not own one. The clerk who
files cancelled checks at the bank has $2.02 in her account. The woman who copy-edits medical textbooks
has not been to a dentist in a decade.
This is the forgotten
America. At the bottom of the working
world, millions live in the shadow of prosperity, in the twilight between
poverty and well-being.
They are shaped by
their invisible hardships.
David Shipler: The
Working Poor (Invisible in America)
“Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the
money given to the poor?”
asked Judas, after Mary poured expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus, and
wiped his feet with her hair.
Why indeed? It is a good question. It is a question that seems, at first, to be
legitimate…reasonable. Jesus loved the
poor. The poor loved Jesus. If anyone should say, “give this to the poor,” surely it would be this Jesus.
But he accepted the woman’s
extravagance. And, according to the
story, he saw through Judas, whose motives were not all that pure to begin
with.
But, there is a simple,
hidden truth, in this story, and in story after story told about Jesus.
Jesus paid attention to
actual people. Real, actual people. You know, the human beings he
encountered. In this case, a woman who
wept in advance at the coming end to this most special relationship. Her act was so all-consuming that she
“wasted” her expensive perfume, using it all, filling the house with the experience (“the house was filled with the
fragrance of her perfume”).
In a similar account,
in Luke 7, (the same Mary – a different woman?), we learn that the woman “had
lived a sinful life,” and in this account she “wet his feet with her
tears.” But, to Simon, the Pharisee, the
woman was not a woman at all – but a
prop, a nuisance, something less than human.
So, Jesus asked the question for the ages: “Do you see this woman?’’
It is the only question
ever worth asking. “Do you see this
person?”
We might put it this
way – Jesus opened his circle to the people in front of his face. Whoever they were. Whatever they were. Because, what they were were human
beings. People.
In the Isaiah passage,
this is foretold. Those who are excluded
from the “circle” – the circle of the acceptable folks -- were to be included. Some of the “exclusions” are listed: Gentiles
– he had light for them. Prisoners – he wanted to free them. Those in darkness. He wanted them to see.
Jesus saw each person,
regardless of their group, their failures, their blindness, their sin, as a person – even a woman who
would waste her expensive perfume in one “irrational” act.
So, it is the season of
lent. “What shall we give up? What shall
we not do?” Maybe these are the
wrong questions. Maybe there is only one
question: do you see the people
around you, each one, as an individual?
Do you see their captivity, do you feel for their blindness (and, for your
own blindness)? Can you focus on a person,
this person, whether poor, or “outside of your circle,” in a way that helps
make them feel noticed, accepted, appreciated… more fully human? If you can’t, if I can’t, we’ve got some soul
searching to do.
Treating people as
people – as human beings first and always.
Including the poor among us – the people that are so easy to overlook,
to ignore. The “invisible.” This is always the challenge, for this season
of lent, and any other season of life.
Randy Mayeux, Adult Sunday school class teacher 
