Mark 14:1-11
Let’s continue to pray for Jim and Marty.
“Notice what you notice.” I replied to Debbie’s post yesterday that she would enjoy today’s reading. Why? Back in my Master’s program I took a course entitled “The Economics of Poverty”. For that course I wrote a term paper that I titled “Him, His Word, His Church, and His Poor”. The paper centered on Jesus’ words from yesterday’s and today’s readings, arguing that people often quoted Matthew – that we would always have poor people – and not quoting Mark, that we could do them good. So I truly enjoyed Debbie’s comment – going back to Deuteronomy – and I am enjoying today’s reading!
There’s another strange thing about these words of Jesus, For you always have the poor with you … But you will not always have me. (v. 7, with the “doing good” section omitted). When we leave out that “doing good” section, we have Matthew’s words from yesterday. These are also John’s words when Mary anoints Him in Bethany (John 12:8). But you don’t find these words in Luke! Luke has an anointing back in chapter 7 (vv. 36-50), but it’s a sinner anointing Jesus and anointing His feet, not His head. So we find Jesus’ comments about the poor in two Synoptics and John, but not in Luke. Very unusual…! It’s even more unusual in that Luke has more to say about money than all the rest of the Gospels combined! (My own assertion, not based in factual research…)
Finally, And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest Him by stealth and kill Him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.” (vv. 1-2) My Study Bible notes that the Jerusalem population was on the order of 50,000 people, but that during the Passover feast that number would rise to several hundred thousand. Many of these additional people were travelers from Galilee, where Jesus had a stronger following. So the Jewish leaders’ fears of an “uproar from the people” were well founded.
Slava Bohu!