Hello, and welcome to a new week of the STC Daily Podcast! My name’s Abby, I’m part of the staff team at STC and it’s a real privilege to be reading the Bible with you and sharing some of my thoughts this week. You’ve got me today, tomorrow and Thursday and then I’m delighted to have snuck in two guests as well – Clarissa Finnemore will be on the podcast on Wednesday and then one of our students, Sarah Carroll will be finishing off the week on Friday, so do listen out for them, I’m really excited to hear what they are going to share!

REFLECTION:

It’s been quite a journey through the book of Matthew! It started off with a bang with Jesus’s teaching through the sermon on the mount, we’ve followed Jesus’s practical ministry of many miracles, healings and training the disciples up, we’ve worked our way through the parables and now we’ve reached chapter 26 and are into the last weeks before Jesus’ death and resurrection. The verses that I’m going to focus on today describe a beautiful moment where a woman offers everything she has, to worship Jesus. The passage is Matthew chapter 26, verses 6-13 which I’ll read for us now.

“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.  The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Now firstly, just on a very practical note, when I stopped and thought about this scene I did wonder whether having a bottle of perfume poured on your head would be quite as pleasant as it’s made to sound, but I think refreshing ointment is probably a more accurate description, if that just helps you to set the scene in your head!

I don’t know about you, but I really resonate with how indignant the disciples felt here, about what they perceived to be a real waste of precious resources that could maybe have been better used elsewhere, particularly as they suggest in this case, in helping the poor. I imagine they must have been wondering why Jesus wasn’t reacting like they were. But from what we’ve already seen in Matthew and do see in the rest of the gospels, there’s no doubt that Jesus has a heart for the poor and also teaches a lot about using our money and resources wisely – the very fact that he’s in the house of Simon the Leper while he’s being anointed demonstrates how Jesus reaches out to the oppressed and the marginalised and I would love to talk more about that another day, but that just isn’t the main point that I think Jesus wants to make here in this moment. Jesus isn’t saying at all that we shouldn’t be concerned for the poor, that’s kind of a given, instead what we are challenged about here is what is first in our heart.

I think this moment is about worship. In pouring an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume on Jesus’ head, the woman is offering her ultimate worship – she recognises Jesus for who he is and the devotion that he deserves. She knows that Jesus deserves extravagant, sacrificial worship – in fact scholars think that the woman could have used all of her wealth to buy the perfume – there’s a challenge and a half!

The woman saw the opportunity here to be in the presence of Jesus and fully embraced it. As I’ve been thinking about this passage, I’ve been struck again that we have the opportunity to be in the presence of Jesus, all the time, through the Holy Spirit. We’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about wha...