You Will Always Have the Poor

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them* with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii* and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’--John 12:3-8

The last line of this passage in today's Eucharistic gospel put a lump in my throat when it was read on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. Clearly, since the evangelist didn't record a response from anyone in the room, I may not be alone in this. Perhaps Jesus' audience, too, was left speechless. It's one of those moments when everybody is sitting around drinking and talking and then something shifts the jocularity of the mood, and a statement is made that makes everybody go quiet and just sip their cups.
In this case, it's Mary and her jar of extremely expensive nard, and Judas and his chiding her for "such waste". (For the record, I tend to think the evangelist is cracking pretty hard on Judas in this passage because of John's own personal beef with the Jews in 100 CE). And then Jesus tells him, basically, to shut up. Anointing a body for burial was a custom, and what Jesus was seeing in this act is that Mary "got it" in ways that others simply couldn't or wouldn't.
But then comes the real bombshell: "You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
How true! How utterly, and completely true! In our own lives today... as much in the days of Jesus... the poor are all around us. And I'm not just talking about those people who don't have two coins to rub together in their pockets; the homeless are a visible population on our streets. But I'm talking about other types of poverty. The poverty that arises from crushed spirits. Those who feel that they must be apart from God because of the finger-wagging Judas types. I'm talking about those impoverished of good will and who lack a sense of community, who live only for themselves. These are the people who think nothing of the consequences of their actions which have the effect of robbing another brother or sister of their piece of fish or slice of bread. Poverty is not purely bad financial straits. It can mean lacking in any way.
And note how Jesus puts this: it's not "but you will not always have me" it's "but you do not always have me." That's active, in the here and now, not on Good Friday. OUCH! What are we to do with that? How often do we go about life 'without' God? Without recognizing God's abundance of love for us? A love so deep that if we really take it to heart, we should be moved to a place of true caring for the state of the world in which we live, and the people with whom we share this fragile earth, our island home? Probably a lot!
But that's what this week, this Holy Week time, is all about. Remaining ever mindful of the integral part Christ has played in the world. May we, like Mother Mary, treasure these things in our hearts as we step toward Friday.