A few years ago at Thanksgiving, my immediate family spent time watching videos from the years my brother and I were kids. My grandfather had acquired a video camera when I was about 8, and I have very clear memories of trying to avoid the camera like the plague, although I seemingly failed. There were a lot of learnings in the watching of those videos, but I want to tell you today about just one. I learned that my grandfather had an accent!

This was mind blowing information for me. We were VERY close to our grandparents growing up, we spent all holidays and birthdays together, and weekends at their house. He was probably my favorite person to ever walk the face of the earth, and it is because of how he loved me that I can comprehend God’s love as unconditional.

However, I didn’t know he had an accent. He died when I was TWENTY, and I didn’t know. It wasn’t until he’d been dead for more than a decade and then I heard his voice again that I was able to hear it. Until that point he’d been so close to me that it hadn’t occurred to me that anything was out of the ordinary about him – mostly I guess because he was my ordinary. It is also possible that I’m an idiot. I’m not sure.

But I’m going with the point that overfamiliarity can blind us. I’m going with that point because I was reading the gospel this week and the WORLD’S MOST OBVIOUS question jumped out at me. It is, of course, not one that I’ve ever thought over before, even though I’ve heard this story and ones like it plenty of times, and likely preached them – often.

Ready?

Why were Martha, Mary, and Lazarus all living together? They’re presented as adults, and their own parents aren’t mentioned. They are said to be siblings, but no spouses are mentioned, and they’re all in the same household. This wasn’t a THING. Unlike 2016 where singleness in adulthood is normal, and this would simply be a notable attribute along the lines of “Oh, yeah, Mary’s cool. In fact, she’s so cool that she can manage to live with her sister and brother! They rent a place in Bellevue.”

Adult singleness and adult siblings living together was significantly less common 2000 years ago in Israel. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to identify a lot of scholarship on this issue. It seems, as per normal, that my questions aren’t what anyone else wants to answer. I did find a few articles, but I have some questions about the validity of their scholarship.¹ Basically there appear to be a few theories about why Martha, Mary, and Lazarus are all living together in their adulthoods:

They are actually quite young, and in fact too young to be married. This would be REALLY young, as average marriage age (of women) was between 14 and 16.

The women may be widows who didn’t remarry.

Martha and Mary may have “belonged to an ascetic sect and had chosen singleness and celibacy.”²

In particular, “It is believed that a colony of ascetics (perhaps Essenes) lived in Bethany. Literary evidence from one the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that these ascetics had a hospice in Bethany for the ritually unclean, which included lepers . The ascetics were known for their acts of charity and it is most likely that their hospice also helped and accommodated the poor and destitute.”³

There are a few other little things that I learned along the way in asking this question that I just have to share with you because they’re wonderful. First of all, Martha may not have been Martha’s name. “The name ‘Martha’ is the feminine form of an Aramaic word meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master’, so ‘Martha’ may be a title rather than a name.”⁴ Also, in all of the gospels, Martha is mentioned first which means that she likely was the older, so this makes all the more sense. This implies that no matter how this went down, Jesus kept visiting a female dominated household. (Also, I sort of want to name a daughter Martha now.)

Next, it seems likely that Lazarus was their little brother. He never has a speaking role, which would make the most sense if he was young. This also makes his death (which was related in the chapter prior to our gospel reading today) all the more sad. I think it is unlikely that Lazarus was a child though. Jesus was really open minded, and broke open barriers with his “let the children come to me” line, but I don’t think that a child would be referred to as “he whom you love”. That, for me, suggests that they may not have all been that young. If Lazarus was “an adult” (whatever that meant at the time, but at least a teenager) but was the younger brother, then Martha and Mary were clearly above normal marrying age. Yet, I would guess that if Lazarus was an adult then he’d be called Master of the household. Perhaps Lazarus was a man with special needs, which would make this all even more awesome.

Yet, really, who knows?

There is always the third option. Bethany, the town in which they’re said to reside, means “Poor House” or “House of Misery”.⁵ It is even suggested that as “Bethany was only two miles from Jerusalem which made it a perfect location for a hospice for pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem who became ritually unclean and were unable to participate in the Jewish festivals.”⁶ As residents of Bethany, it isn’t all that unlikely that the family was involved in running a hospice of sorts. In fact, it would make sense out of this story itself! How did Mary happen to have a nard of perfume worth a year’s wages for a laborer? It would be reasonable that she might have gotten it as a gift from a wealthy former patient.

On the other hand, it could just be that this was a wealthy family headed by Martha, and supportive of Jesus. We don’t know. If they weren’t running a hospice, then it is notable that they had a house large enough to offer hospitality to Jesus AND his disciples (and their families) and the capacity to feed them all, which would be consistent with having enough wealth to own expensive perfume as well. They wouldn’t be the only wealthy, female dominated household that identified with the early Jesus movement either, so that could be.

While I’m muddying waters, I also want to mention that I’m pretty confused about how Jesus MET these siblings anyway. He’s from up north, in Galilee. Its almost a 100 miles away. He is clearly really close to them, and they show up in all the Gospels. This family matters to Jesus. But he spends his life and ministry in Galilee and only visits Jerusalem. In the gospel of John, Jesus is killed because he raises Lazarus from the dead, but he is called to their house because of his existent relationship with them, which we haven’t heard about until he is called. He was already in the area though. How did they know each other? How did they become so close? Mary presents as a disciple. Lazarus is called beloved. Martha and Mary both presume the right to chide Jesus. Don’t you just want to know?

Me too. But I have no theories on this. Sometimes love happens between people (including the deep friendship kind), and it is always amazing. It seems it was amazing for Jesus too. There is perhaps ONE clue. The passage states that the perfume filled the room. That is, it says, “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.” This sounds A LOT like Song of Solomon 1:12, “While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.” Maybe, just maybe, Jesus and Mary were courting. This is mostly fun because when people tend to theorize about romantic relationships for Jesus, they usually pick Mary of Magdala instead of Mary of Bethany. I’m a rebel.

Now, I have two last things to clarify, this time about our gospel lesson in particular. John’s story is different from the other versions of this story. The setting is different (in the synoptics it happens at Simon the Leper’s house), the woman is different (not a prostitute here), and the location of the perfume is different (it is on his head in the other versions). Only John tells this crazy story of Mary anointing his FEET and them wiping them off with her HAIR. It is also only John who presents the action of Jesus on the last night he was with them as being FOOT WASHING and not the Last Supper. That means that Mary’s action of washing Jesus feet comes before Jesus chooses to wash his disciples’ feet… almost as if Jesus found the experience so moving that he let it define his ritual of goodbye to his followers.

Also, when Jesus says, “the poor you will always have with you” he is likely quoting Deuteronomy 15:11 which in the NRSV reads “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” It isn’t a passive acceptance of poverty (which I always worried about) but a commandment to share. However, even as he quotes the scripture, he goes on to say, “BUT you will not always have me.” Whoever poured the perfume, wherever, in all the stories Jesus defends the action. One commentator says, “What church serious about discipleship does not struggle with the tension between money spent in beautiful acts of worship and money spent on behalf of the poor?”⁷ AMEN to that. The affirmation of this passage is of that tension, that both beauty and a response to poverty are necessary.

As in this sermon, life often has more questions than answers. This passage sure does, even though its familiarity can be blinding. That’s true of a lot of the Bible, at least for me. There are some great take aways from this, even in the midst of all the questions though: Jesus had the capacity to form deep, meaningful friendships – including with strong women. Therefore relationships REALLY matter. Beauty has inherent value, as does taking care of each other. And the way we follow is a way of servant leadership – of foot washing – and radical expression of love. May both the questions and the answer bless us all this week. Amen

1Issues: lack of doctorate; way of describing Christianity; and lack of footnotes. Presumably the last one should matter the most, as I don’t have a doctorate either.

2“Martha, Mary, and Lazarus of Bethany” in New Life written by Marg Mowczko found at http://newlife.id.au/christian-living/martha-mary-and-lazarus-of-bethany/ on March 12, 2016.

3Ibid

4Ibid. (I really liked this article, I just wish it was better footnoted…)

5Ibid

6Ibid

7H. Stephen Shoemaker, “Homiletical Perspective on John 12:1-8” in Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 2 ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) p. 145.

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Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 13, 2016