WITH ONLY A FEW EXCEPTIONS, THE EPISODES IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN ARE NOT found in any of the other three gospels. One episode that does also appear in the other gospels is the so-called “Anointing at Bethany” — and in each gospel, it’s a story that turns the status quo on its head.
Each of the four canonical gospels includes a version of this story, but each version differs from the others. The versions in Mark (14:3-9) and Matthew (26:6-13) are the most similar. The version in Luke (7:36-50) is the one most different from the others. The story in John (12:1-8), usually thought to be the last version to reach written form, has elements in common with Mark (and thus with Matthew), shares a few features with Luke, and adds some unique details of its own.
The basic elements of the story are well known to most Christians: Jesus is at a dinner, when a woman comes in and anoints him with expensive oil. In every version except the one in Luke, the woman’s act draws criticism for being a waste of resources that could have been used for the poor. Nonetheless, Jesus affirms her action and links it to his burial. (In Luke, Jesus is criticized for not recognizing the woman as a sinner, and Jesus forgives her because of her great love.)
In Mark, Matthew and John, the story is a preliminary to the Passion, and serves in the narrative timeline (the plot) as a runup to the arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. (In Luke, it’s more of a “free-floating” episode in the earlier narration of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.) John, like Mark and Matthew, locates the incident in a friendly house in Bethany. John, however, says it’s the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus (see Jn. 11), while Mark and Matthew say it’s the home of the otherwise unknown “Simon the leper.” (In Luke, it’s the house of an unnamed Pharisee.)
One effect of the variations in John is to give us a story that is both more rational and more realistic in its details. For example, the synoptic versions (Mk. and Mt.) have an unnamed woman pouring a full flask of ointment on Jesus’ head, but John implies that the woman (here Mary of Bethany), after she anoints his feet, has some of the “pound” of ointment left over which Jesus says she is keeping for his day of burial (Jn. 12:7).
The details in John place the story at the home of his close friends whom he loved. The woman is identified as one of those friends, Mary of Bethany. Her action is not extravagantly wasteful (she has ointment left over), and the complaint against her is put on the lips of Judas, here described as a selfish, hypocritical thief stealing from the money intended for the poor. In other words, John has put all the details in order, and has created a logical, reasonable tale about a remarkable incident that leads smoothly into the subsequent Passion narrative.
The transition, however, depends on the symbolic depth and transgressive nature of the anointing story. Remember, anointing was a ritual act used in the ancient world primarily to establish someone as a ruler, a monarch, an emperor (see my recent post, “Our Potential as Anointed Ones”). What business did a woman in Bethany have anointing a new king? Why in the world would she anoint his feet instead of his head?
Both of these symbolic images amplify the subversive significance of calling Jesus “the Anointed One” (i.e., the Christ). Soon, John will have Pontius Pilate parade the humiliated, crowned and purple-robed Jesus before the crowd demanding that we “Behold the man!” (i.e., “Behold your king,” Jn. 19:5). Ironically, John’s Pilate and Mary are making the same point: If Jesus is king, then Caesar is not, and the domination systems of this world are bankrupt.
When an ordinary woman (Mary) anoints the feet of Jesus, rather than his head, her act symbolically upends the established status quo. Everything about the anointing defies expectations and challenges prevailing social norms. A woman does the anointing, not a male priest or high official. Anointing his feet makes it clear that we’re now in “opposite” world, watching a symbolic act that signals the emergence of a transformed reality.
We’re a long way from Luke’s unnamed “woman of the city, a sinner” (Lk. 7:37). In Mary’s shadow, when we look just over her shoulder, we see the Paraclete-Sophia (Lady Wisdom) calling us to an abundant banquet in her renewed creation. Are we ready to join her?
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