
#ALABASTER JAR LICENSE#
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only license CC BY 4.0.Įgyptian vessels from this era vary in size and shape.
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Library reference no.: Science Museum A634855. Ointment pot, Egypt, 2000-100 BCE, L0065469 Credit Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images. How much can we truly serve others while we are so distracted?

Until we are able to do that, we continue to be distracted by fear of our own mortality. Each of us is invited to embrace the death of “the Christ within” which is our true self. Quaker faith and practice internalizes the crucifixion. Instead of distracting herself from that reality with worldly concerns, she is blessing me right now. This woman is not afraid to acknowledge my mortality-or her own, or yours. Jesus is direct in his criticism of his friends: “There will always be the poor around, and whenever you want you can do good for them.” He is more subtle in his challenge.Ĭome back to the present moment. What interests me, though, is the paradoxical play of sacred story. At the level of evangelical storytelling, it is the author of Mark pointing his audience toward the crucifixion of Jesus. Miller, Polebridge Press, 1994Īt one level, this is a story about men who resent an independent woman wealthy enough to pour out an entire jar of nard. The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version,Įd. She did what she could-she anticipates in anointing my body for burial….” Remember, there will always be the poor around, and whenever you want you can do good for them, but I won’t always be around. Why are you bothering her? She has done me a courtesy. “What good purpose is served by this waste of myrrh? For she could have sold the myrrh for more than three hundred silver coins and given to the poor….” He was just reclining, and a woman came in carrying an alabaster jar of myrrh, of pure and expensive nard.

The Gospel of Mark tells us a story in which Jesus addresses this pain and guilt, yet we tend to miss his message-in part because centuries of tradition have focused so much on him rather than on what he was teaching us. Even so, we still feel our discomfort and our seeming failure to accomplish a fix. That longing drives us to cast about for things to do that would “fix the problem.” We try and we urge others to try political action. We live with a longing to be rid of the pain and guilt that we experience in witnessing all of this suffering. It confronts us in the 24/7 news cycle, in social media, in what we pass on the street every day. Many of us are chronically distressed by the suffering we see around us.
