Sharon H. Ringe on The Woman At Bethany and the Anointing of Jesus

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they reproached her. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." (Mark 14:3-9 RSV; cf. Matt 26:6-13)

Commenting on this event in the Gospels, Sharon H. Ringe, at the time of writing, professor of New Testament at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio, wrote the following which was rather interesting:

The Woman at Bethany

(Matt. 26:6-13//Mark 14:3-9)

One’s response to “the poor” is also associated with the confession of Jesus as the Christ in the story of the anointing at Bethany. The story is presented in virtually identical form in Matthew and Mark. Its principal points are:

1. The woman’s extravagance in anointing Jesus’ head (Matt. 26:7//Mark 14:3);
2. The objection to the waste of the ointment instead of its sale to provide for the poor (Matt. 26:8-9//Mark 14:4-5);
3. Jesus’ words of commendation to the woman and his statement about the poor (Matt. 26:10-12//Mark 14:6-8);
4. Jesus’ assurance that the woman’s deed would be remembered wherever the gospel is preached (Matt. 26:13//Mark 14:9).

If one takes the story out of context, it appears to contradict the message of “good news to the poor,” for in this account Jesus is said to rebuke those who are concerned about the poor and to praise the woman’s apparent extravagance. To draw such a conclusion, however, would be to deny the significance of the place in the Gospel narrative in which this account is found, and also to fail to pay close attention to the saying about “the poor.” The anointing story in Matthew and Mark (like the similar story in John 12:1-8) is set in the midst of the passion narrative, at a point when Jesus’ approaching death is coming into sharper focus. This story is set between the account of the conspiracy against Jesus by the religious establishment and that of Judas’s plan to betray Jesus. In that context, the words attributed to Jesus concerning the woman’s act compliment its timeliness and its appropriateness without denying the importance of the others’ concern for the poor.

The saying about the poor substantiates the conclusion that, far from denying the significance of care for the poor, this episode interpreters that concern against the background of the extraordinary demands of the impending crisis in Jesus’ life. In fact, the parallelism of the clauses of Mark 14:708a (RSV) essentially equates the woman’s act at that moment with a continuing commitment to care for the poor:

a. ongoing time: “For you always have the poor with you” (v. 7a);
b. appropriate action: “Whenever you will, you can do good to them” (v. 7b);

a’. immediate crisis: “But you will not always have me” (v. 7c)
b’. appropriate action: “She has done what she could” (v. 8a)

The difference between the two actions (b and b’) is not the superiority of one over the other, but rather the difference between an ongoing need (a) and the urgency of a one-time event (a’). Mark, or the community to which this formulation of the story and interpretation of the anointing of Jesus is to be attributed, thus appears to be saying that the question of discipleship, or of one’s relationship to Jesus and the gospel, is intimately related to one’s relationship to and care for the poor.

The story of the anointing at Bethany once again makes it clear that to proclaim the gospel, both as Jesus’ message and as the story of his life and ministry, is first of all to proclaim “good news to the poor.” It is a short step from this story to the perspective of the parable of the Great Judgment (Matt. 25:31-49), where the enthroned and sovereign Christ is explicitly identified with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned, and where one’s case before the heavenly tribunal is resolved on the basis of one’s responsiveness to the human faces of Christ in the poor and the oppressed. (Sharon H. Ringe, Jesus, Liberation, and the Biblical Jubilee: Images for Ethics and Christology [Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], 63-64)