Lent Day 33: Where do you find joy? Part 2: Entertainment

I really do love the PCUSA Daily Prayerbook. Members of committees and boards in the congregation I serve are used to me waving the book at them prior to reading a prayer to kick off or close a meeting. One of the things I particularly love about it is the way the days of the week are themed. For example, Thursday prayers mention the ministry of Word and Sacrament, the affection of our friends, and our call to love and care for one another... all things that connect with Maundy Thursday, a day (night) on which friends gathered around a table, a Sacrament was instituted, and Jesus exemplified love and caring as he washed his disciples' feet.

The themes of Saturday are related to weekend-things... ministries of music and the arts, time for rest and recreation, but also the burden of addiction (which so often becomes more visible in weekend activities). 

The prayers begin with expressions of gratitude. One of these is "those who enlighten and entertain."

I come from a family of artists and entertainers. Both my adult children have pursued careers in theater in various ways; their dad works with symphony orchestras. My partner helps people to adorn their homes with the art and photographs they love. Even I tried my hand (ever so briefly) at singing professionally when I was in my twenties. All of us place value on the arts and entertainment--not in the abstract, but in the specific ways artists, actors, musicians hold a mirror up to life--the good, the bad, and the ugly-- and show us our humanity, or lack thereof. My children and I love to experience a play or movie or TV show together, and then talk about it at length, in detail, analyzing the choices directors and actors make, sharing our excitement at the things that really pop for us, shaking our heads sadly at near misses.

So, I love all these things. And seeing them, taking them in, and then pulling them apart with those who experience them with me, is a real joy. 

Last night a friend and I shared dinner and then saw a great local production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," a play I have loved since my mom bought me the concept album when I was eleven. I was a Catholic schoolkid who was pretty into the rosary and Mary and wanted to be a nun now and then, so, suffice to say, this music / musical was a kind of emotional and spiritual explosion. I had never heard anybody talk about Jesus like Judas (who, let's admit, is the star of the show, title notwithstanding. It is his journey that we are following with rapt attention, and that makes sense. He stands in for us, in many ways.) 

The first words of the opening song are, "My mind is clearer now." 

And you know what? Because of the brilliance of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, my mind was clearer, in the sense that I got to witness a struggle with doubt (Judas') that had been presented to me one-dimensionally. I got to witness Jesus with all his humanity on view (which, let's be frank, isn't typically well-presented, no matter what our theology tells us about fully God/ fully human. I am happy to report that last night's Judas knocked it out of the park.). I got to witness various disciples and their points of view and political sympathies and limitations. No matter what you think of how Rice and Weber use the gospel of John (which is their main source), the presentation of the Jesus story here is a revelation. That revelation is: There is more than one way to look at this. Even if the rock opera doesn't move the needle on your theology one point, anyone who allows themselves to take this in is enriched by the beauty of someone taking a story and telling it through music and song.

All this is my reaction to the album. Imagine what happened to me when I saw the movie.

Here's what happened. My favorite song went from "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (which, today, isn't even one of my top five favorite songs from the show) to "Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)." Why? because of Norman Jewison's brilliant direction which has Jesus climbing the Mount of Olives while he is singing to God, begging God to let him live.

I only want to say
if there is a way
take this cup away from me,
'cause I don't want to taste its poison,
feel it burn me.
I have changed.
I'm not as sure
as when we started...

This passage of scripture is generally called "the agony in the garden." Interestingly, this is one place where Rice / Weber depart significantly from John's gospel--Jesus is in agony in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In the gospel of John, he is not only resolved, but eerily eager to go to his death, which he calls his "glory."

Not here. Here, Rice / Weber embrace Jesus' humanity and fear (and the three synoptic tellings of this moment), and the climb is the embodiment of that. He is trying to reach out to God, climbing toward the invisible and, in this moment, silent Deity. He climbs higher and higher, his distress increasing with the altitude. At the apex of both his climb and the music ("Alright! I'll die!") the camera leaves the actor, Ted Neeley, and we see, instead, images of paintings of the crucifixion, as the time signature of the music jolts from 4/4 into 5/4, a rhythm that the listener feels in their body because, in that moment, it's so unexpected and off-balance. It heightens the horror. God either doesn't hear or won't respond.

I've never heard that song in the same way again. Now it slays me emotionally, all because a director and an actor and a production designer used the music and lyrics in a brilliant way to show us what agony looks like. It is imprinted on my soul.

This. Gives. Me. Joy. A well-made film or TV show, a well-produced play engages the senses, awakens the critical faculties, pierces the emotions, captures the viewer /listener, and gives them an experience they can't shake (and often, don't want to).

Here. You'll see what I mean. Entertainment like this gives me joy. What entertainment is flooding you with endorphins today?

 

Lent Day 27: The Women Who Anointed Jesus Part 2

Anointing the feet of Jesus in the house of Simon, the Pharisee [1]

Today I will be looking at the Lukan version of the story of Jesus being anointed. This version stands in sharp relief to the other three versions in several ways.

1. This story takes place in the north, the city of Nain in the region of Galilee rather than in Bethany (in the southern region of Judea). 

2. It takes place in the home of Simon the Pharisee (rather than Simon the leper). Pharisees make up a group often identified in the gospels as being intellectual sparring partners with Jesus.

3. The woman who anoints Jesus here is neither simply an unnamed woman nor identified as Mary of Bethany (as in John's version). She is identified as a sinner. It's hard to know exactly what is meant by this descriptor. Is she a sex worker? There is an insinuation that she is.

Again, an unnamed woman comes into the place where Jesus is at table. She is carrying an alabaster jar of costly ointment (as in Mark and Matthew). It was common in this place and time for people to recline at low tables, and the description of the woman's location makes it clear that this was the setup. She is described as being behind Jesus, at his feet (which would be difficult if he were seated on a bench or in a chair). She is weeping, and begins to bathe Jesus' feet with her tears, and wipe them dry with her hair. Only then does she anoint Jesus' feet, kissing them as she does.

In Jesus' day and time, it was considered entirely inappropriate for a woman to touch a man to whom she was not married. The Pharisee reacts to the woman's actions with shock and an interior monologue in which he condemns the woman as a sinner, and muses that Jesus must not be a prophet after all--if Jesus were any kind of legitimate prophet, surely he would have know about her? Simon is reading the woman's gestures as erotic, seductive. He is reading them wrong.

Jesus addresses Simon by name, announces his intention to speak, and Simon respectfully urges him to do so: "Teacher [Rabbi], speak."

Jesus tells the parable of the two debtors and the creditor.

A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” (Luke 7:41-43)

Jesus goes on to point out the difference in the treatment he has received from Simon--in whose home he is a guest--and the unnamed woman. Simon has not fully or appropriately received Jesus: for everything he did not do, Jesus names a parallel thing the woman did do.

Simon did not give Jesus water to wash his feet; the woman washed them with her tears.

Simon did not greet Jesus with a kiss: the woman continually kissed Jesus' feet.

Simon did not anoint Jesus' head with oil: the woman anointed his head with ointment.

"Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
(Luke 7:47-48)

Jesus is shown, not only to be a prophet, but to be a greater prophet than the Pharisee could have imagined. 

This story of anointing is in some ways very like the other stories, but it is still fundamentally different. Gone is the anointing as preparation for burial, replaced with a story of forgiveness and gratitude. Gone is the setting of Holy Week; this story plays out early in Jesus' ministry. Gone is the simple prophetic gesture of a woman anointing Jesus in affirmation of his mission; it is replaced with a powerful gesture of gratitude.

One last thing; this passage is followed immediately by a description of Jesus setting out on a journey with the twelve, and also with several women who are financially supporting them. The women are named as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and others. The proximity of Mary Magdalene's appearance to the story of the "sinner" who anoints Jesus has been used to suggest that Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus in Simon the Pharisee's house, but there is no evidence to support this. Mary is also described as having had seven demons cast out of her by Jesus. An early medieval pope used this fact to claim that the seven demons represented the seven deadly sins, and therefore Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, and furthermore, the woman who anointed Jesus in this passage. Again, there is no direct evidence of any of this in the gospels. The only Mary who is said to have anointed Jesus in scripture, was Mary of Bethany.

~~~

[1] Campi, Antonio, 1522 or 1523-1587. Anointing the Feet of Jesus in the House of Simon, the Pharisee, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56164 [retrieved March 31, 2022]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antonio_Campi_001.jpg.