Forgotten Women of Holy Week
Monday through Friday in Lent some of us have taken time to
carefully study the book of Ruth online. Ruth is the story of how a widowed foreign
woman from the wrong-side of the River Jordan becomes a valorous woman
supporting her widowed mother-in-law, marries into her dead father-in-law’s
family, and becomes the great-grandmother of the shepherd boy David who is
anointed King of Israel. Although the God of Israel makes no appearance in the
book of Ruth, it is the essence of God’s character that focuses the entire
narrative around the Hebrew word hesed. Hesed, often gets
translated into English as “steadfast love,” “mercy,” and “faithfulness,” is
perhaps best understood as an “act of good faith.” Hesed is a quality
that humans share with God: that generous ability to put the interests of
another, weaker, party before one’s own, most especially for the poor, widows,
orphans and resident foreigners – all categories that describe Ruth and her
mother-in-law Naomi. Because everyone, all of us, is created in God’s image, this
makes hesed the one characteristic we share in common with the God of
Israel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the Bible speaks of
love, it is often hesed, which is not a feeling, but an act of faith on
behalf of others – all others who are in need.
As if to illustrate that his entire ministry of Good News is
really all about hesed, Jesus singles out two women during his time in
Jerusalem for the Passover Festival – a festival recalling God’s act of
redemption and liberation of a disparate group of slaves out of Egypt who become
the people Israel, people who share God’s hesed with one another, with
those in need, and even with strangers from other lands who for one reason or
another end up sojourning in Israel.
After entering Jerusalem, we read that Jesus looked around
the Temple and then retired to nearby Bethany where he had friends, Mary,
Martha and Lazarus. [Mark 11:1-11] Each day he would return to Jerusalem, and
each evening retire to Bethany. One day, while in Jerusalem, he sits down
opposite the Temple treasury and watches people putting in money, noting that
many rich people put in “large sums.” Along comes a poor widow who puts in two
copper coins – likely the lepta, the smallest coin in circulation. Never
missing the teachable moment, Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you this poor
widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For
they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put
in everything, all that she had to live on.” “Truly,” at the beginning, is
really “Amen,” a word connected to faith and means something more like, “So be
it.” And “all that she had to live on” in the Greek is really, “she gave her
whole life”! One way to hear what Jesus is saying, “So be it! As it is with
this poor widow, may it also be with you! Her repeated acts of hesed
exemplify her generosity, faith and trust not only in the God of Israel, but
the people Israel.” For in those days, people made offerings and tithes to the
Temple so that the Temple priests could feed those who were poor and hungry,
like our poor widow, as an example of community hesed, community acts of
faith! The story is not about the money, but about the widow, and is meant to make
us wonder, How might we serve her and all others like her who are in need?
Later in the week of Passover/Holy Week Jesus is again in
Bethany [Mark 14:3-9], where he shares a meal with “Simon the leper.” A woman
walks in from off the street and crashes the dinner party. She carries an
alabaster jar with ointment of pure nard. She breaks the flask and pours it
over Jesus’s head - anointing him in the very same fashion in which Israel had
always anointed her kings – back when they had kings like David and were not
under Greek or Roman control. Some folks at the table are indignant. “Why does
she waste this ointment? It might be sold for 100 denarii or more and given to
the poor!” One hundred denarii would feed a family for a year. Again, never
missing the teachable moment Jesus says, “Let her alone; why do you trouble
her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with
you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always
have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for
burying. Amen! So be it! Wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world,
what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Like the widow, she is
another exemplar of generosity, faith and trust. This is what God’s hesed
looks like. So be it! May it also be with you. Again, it’s about the woman’s hesed,
not the money or the ointment.
How much trust in God in Christ does it take to give your
whole life away? How much faith and trust in God does it take to risk walking
into a strange house? To crash a dinner party? To risk being thrown out? To risk
being humiliated? To anoint Jesus as a king like David? And to lavish a year’s
income to do so?
Wherever and whenever the Good News is preached in the whole
world, what these two women have done is to be told in their memory! Like
Jesus, they empty themselves and give their whole lives to God! [Philippians
2:5-11] Jesus calls our attention to these two women in Holy Week, the week of
the Passover. The week of his Passion. His passion is for us to become a
community of God’s hesed, God’s acts of faith, God’s mercy and steadfast
love. Yet, we routinely rush past these two stories to get to the story of his
arrest and execution. We routinely overlook these two nameless women he calls
all of us to see and to remember and to tell their story. Because their story
is his story. Just as his story is theirs. And his story and their story are to
become our story. He knows he is going to die. Two of his last faith-acts of hesed
ask us to remember them. To tell their stories. To be like them.
How might we best do that? What does it mean to remember
them and tell their story? How might we give our whole life to Jesus in ways
that he would respond by saying, “Amen! So be it”? If two unnamed women, a
widow and a stranger from off the street, are exemplars of generosity, faith
and trust, of what it means to follow Jesus, what in their stories might become
a part of our story as well? So that one day we may hear Jesus say to us, “Amen.
So be it! You live a life of God’s hesed! Wherever the Gospel is
preached in the whole world, what you do for others in my name will be told in
memory of you!” Amen! So be it! So, Be it!
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