Matthew 26:6-13 | 2 Samuel 6:12-22 | Gospels in Lent Track: Luke 19-20
“Consider that perhaps fulfilling all righteousness doesn’t look like doing what we’ve always done. But it does seem to always involve being with those who have trouble finding a place in the way we’ve always done things.” (David Young)
Is there a right way to worship? …to declare one’s gratitude and love?
Would you have thought pouring a jar of perfume on Jesus’ head was within the realm of “the correct ways to worship”?
Being set free, being given liberation, receiving healing…such things might cause someone to respond in ways they might not otherwise. Jesus has explicitly told us that he came for those who are otherwise ignored or even chastised. We don’t know what specific thing caused this woman from Bethany to do what she did. But let us not have the same haste with which those disciples condemned her act of worship.
Matthew 26:6-13
When Jesus was at Bethany visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease, a woman came to him with a vase made of alabaster containing very expensive perfume. She poured it on Jesus’ head while he was sitting at dinner. Now when the disciples saw it they were angry and said, “Why this waste? This perfume could have been sold for a lot of money and given to the poor.”
But Jesus knew what they were thinking. He said, “Why do you make trouble for the woman? She’s done a good thing for me. You always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me. By pouring this perfume over my body she’s prepared me to be buried. I tell you the truth that wherever in the whole world this good news is announced, what she’s done will also be told in memory of her.”
2 Samuel 6:12-22
King David was told, “The Lord has blessed Obed-edom’s family and everything he has because of God’s chest being there.” So David went and brought God’s chest up from Obed-edom’s house to David’s City with celebration. Whenever those bearing the chest advanced six steps, David sacrificed an ox and a fatling calf. David, dressed in a linen priestly vest, danced with all his strength before the Lord. This is how David and the entire house of Israel brought up the Lord’s chest with shouts and trumpet blasts.
As the Lord’s chest entered David’s City, Saul’s daughter Michal was watching from a window. She saw King David jumping and dancing before the Lord, and she lost all respect for him.
The Lord’s chest was brought in and put in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. Then David offered entirely burned offerings in the Lord’s presence in addition to well-being sacrifices. When David finished offering the entirely burned offerings and the well-being sacrifices, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of heavenly forces. He distributed food among all the people of Israel—to the whole crowd, male and female—each receiving a loaf of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake. Then all the people went back to their homes.
David went home to bless his household, but Saul’s daughter Michal came out to meet him. “How did Israel’s king honor himself today?” she said. “By exposing himself in plain view of the female servants of his subjects like any indecent person would!”
David replied to Michal, “I was celebrating before the Lord, who chose me over your father and his entire family, and who appointed me leader over the Lord’s people, over Israel—and I will celebrate before the Lord again! I may humiliate myself even more, and I may be humbled in my own eyes, but I will be honored by the female servants you are talking about!”
Prayer
God,
Give me the reckless abandon to be who I should be at all times.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.