I haven’t done any griping about the lectionary lately. Some of you might have thought I’d given it up for Lent (and maybe I should have) but I didn’t! Here’s my complaint. We’ve been journeying through the Gospel of Luke, this being Lectionary Year C, and, were going along just fine, when we veer off into the Gospel of John for this story of Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, (also known as Mary of Bethany, and perhaps “the other Mary.”) It’s a perfectly fine story and I guess Luke thought so too, but he used it in an entirely different way, a different woman in a different place and a different time. In Luke’s version, Jesus is dining with some of his Pharisee friends in the Galilee, very early in his ministry. The woman is unnamed and not only is she not hosting the dinner, she’s not even invited to the dinner. She is accused of being a sinner, and having learned that he was there, she enters the house to anoint Jesus’ feet. There is no mention of the expense of the ointment, or grumbling about extravagance or mention of people who were poor. Luke uses the story to teach something about the high degree of correlation between great forgiveness and great love.

So I don’t like veering off into other Gospels when we’re following a story. But if we ARE going to veer off, I’d much prefer we hear Mark or Matthew’s version of the story of the anointing woman. Those two are nearly identical to each other, and similar to John, but John changed some very important details. The earlier and older Gospel accounts of Mark and Matthew write that Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, sitting at table, when an unnamed woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very costly pure nard – a perfumed ointment.  Here’s the detail difference that matters most to me. In Marks and Matthew’s accounts, the woman anoints Jesus’ head – in a bold and prophetic act. In response to the grumbling of the witnesses (called disciples in Matthew), Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Ahhh. But it never IS told in memory of her.

The story from Matthew never gets read as part of the Church’s three-year lectionary schedule of readings. The story from Mark is an optional extension of the reading on Palm Sunday every three years when the already very long Passion Narrative is scheduled to be read! The Mark version used to also be an option on Monday in Holy Week, but that is no longer the case. The two versions of the woman acting in a subservient way and anointing Jesus’ feet in Luke and John get read on Sundays in the same year (this one). Furthermore, artwork depicting a woman anointing Jesus’ feet is bountiful, while artwork depicting a woman anointing Jesus’ head is almost non-existent (although I do have a copy of a thirteenth century woodcut print showing a woman anointing Jesus’ head). Sunday School lessons? You guessed it, stories of a woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair. It’s powerful stuff. If I’d asked you before the service today if you knew the story of the woman who anointed Jesus, chances are, if you said, “yes,” you would have told me about the woman anointing Jesus feet. We can’t remember the story of the woman anointing Jesus’ head because most of us never learned it in the first place. We don’t remember the story of the woman anointing Jesus’ head because it does not get told in memory of her, in spite of Jesus’ Gospel instruction.

So it’s not that the version in John of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet is without merit. (In John, it is a beautiful precursor to six days later when Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. According to John, Mary has shown Jesus how it’s done.) It’s not that John’s version isn’t good, it’s just that I’m with Jesus in wanting you to remember the woman who anointed his head. In a sermon that my professor Joanna Dewey preached, she said “In Jesus’ time a host might anoint the head of his guest as a sign of gladness…a [sign] of rejoicing….Also to anoint a person on the head [was] to call that person to God’s service, to consecrate her or him, and to empower that person to carry out God’s service. Elijah was instructed to anoint Elisha. In earlier times, priests were anointed. Above all, kings were anointed. It was the function of a prophet to anoint the sovereign, to announce God’s choice as Samuel anointed Saul, and later David…[This] woman was a prophet.”(1)  I want you to remember this woman and any woman who has been bold and extravagant in her love. I want you to remember this woman and any woman who has been prophetic in her work. The other thing that Jesus says about the woman in Mark and Matthew’s Gospel accounts is, “She has done beautiful work (Kalon ergon in Greek).”

In memory of this bold and extravagant, prophetic woman, I want to invite you right now into a Litany of Remembrance and Thanksgiving which I first heard in 1996 at the 25th Anniversary of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus. It’s a prayer that will help us to remember. I will read the biddings. I will leave space for you to name women aloud or in silence, and when I say, “God of our sacred story,” your response is “We remember.” So we begin:

God of our sacred story, we remember women who remain steadfast in the faith, bearing witness to God’s love: prophets, women evangelists who proclaimed the Good News, and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember women whose teaching helps us grow in the knowledge and love of God: women teachers in Freedom Schools after the Civil War; women serving on seminary faculties; women serving as directors of religious education; women teaching in Sunday Schools, and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember women serving as ordained leaders in the church: All ministers, priests, bishops, and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember women who work for justice and peace; women who offer themselves in charity and service to those in need; women of prophetic vision and action; and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember women who enrich the church and the world with their intellectual gifts; women who serve in government and business; women who cultivate the earth and women who protect its resources; and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember women who offer hospitality and nurture; women artisans, writers, musicians, and other artists, creators of beauty; women of spiritual wisdom and women who practice healing arts; and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember women who mother, women who sustain the life of the church and community by quiet acts of service, in the kitchen, in nurseries and nursing homes, in classrooms and meeting rooms; and especially those we now name…

God of our sacred story, we remember our sisters named and unnamed in the scriptures…

God of our sacred story, we remember.

And we give you thanks, O mothering God, in whom is heaven, for the gifts of love so freely given. We ask that you guide us in your way and empower us to live in faithful witness and work, in Jesus’ name and for his sake.