You’re Never Strong, Unless you’re Weak: Working out Salvation in a Human Style, in Weakness and Fragility!
Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Mk 14:1-15:47 or 15:1-39
While Russia, United States of America and China revamp the armed-race, and Iran and North-Korea flex their muscles as show of maturity for admittance to the list of killer countries in the world, countries of the global South, already tyrannized by poverty to which they can’t find solution, yet these same countries are now infested with the violence of Islamic radicalism of no mean proportions which continues to wreck havoc in human communities, but Christians, on their part, celebrate a Messiah and Savior not only riding on a colt, but also carrying the signature of rejection, dejection and condemnation for no crime of his. Today, Palm Sunday, the worldly rhetoric of power and dominance loses out on a Savior who opts for suffering, weakness and needs human assistance. What a contradiction, what a world!
The quest for power and abuse of power gladly succumb to a fundamental principle of history – “nations rise and fall,” no matter how powerful! Along these lines of history, our first reading today helps us to reflect on how we got here, why we need a savior! For, with military might and force Nebuchadnezzar deported the Jews into exile in Babylon; in shame, weakness and despondency Judah learned a vital truth about the God of armies, that he is also the God of the powerless and the defenseless. Years and years of hopeless desire for a return to their homeland from Babylon, the Jews learned to trust in an apparently slow-to-save God and wait for a divinely planned salvation from God, and they learned the power inherent in subjugation and meekness. Even though God never changes, a new perspective about the One God of Israel unfolded a new approach to God’s use of power, the power of virtues, the strength of faith, hope and love of God. God changes what is strength in human calculus to weakness and lifts up weakness and proposes it as the strength and force for salvation. What a contradiction, what a new world!
The shame of which Isaiah speaks in our first reading, “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting,” was not invented because Judah was living out those situations of ignominy at those material times of the prophecy. It was when all was thought lost that God makes goodness and liberation to rise up, once more, from evil, chaos and servitude. As far as God’s projects and plans are concerned, everybody has a place and a role to play, provided they are ready and willing to be part of God’s instruments for salvation. Not only was Judah in slavery in Babylon, Isaiah paints God in those same words of rejection, helplessness and dejection, but with a marked noted difference: there was hope in the tone of the prophecy; the prophecy made clear that the dark and gloomy days were numbered, God himself became the hope and future of the Jews. When human beings become powerless, God shows himself powerful, albeit, in a powerless form. What a contradiction, what a new world!
In the house of Simon the Leper, according to our gospel today, despite the negative connotation of leprosy in the time of Jesus, that was where Jesus the Savior found a welcome place to go for a meal. Non-lepers didn’t invite him to their home or their home didn’t make it into Jesus’ dinner party list. Yet, this was a Middle-East replete with all kinds of perfumes and spices, and it was the perfumes and spices that were reserved for the dead that Jesus’ living body was smeared with by a nameless woman, that is, a no-body; even at that, there were complaints of wastefulness, there were voices pretending to care about the poor they always had among them and failed to take care of, and wouldn’t even care for Jesus but just complained about the charity he received. Yes, Jesus shares perfumes with the dead and was housed in a tabooed-home, a leper’s home. What a contradiction, what a new world!
What more can we say other than compare the accommodation of Jesus and the hospitality he received with what actually awaited him, his path to death for human salvation and liberation from sin? First of all, a leper was always isolated, neglected and abandoned, up until his/her leprosy is cleansed and certified as healed. In the same way, Jesus will be isolated in his tomb, friendless and forlorn, like a leper, the symbol of Simon the Leper of today’s gospel. The ointment poured on himself and the woman who did the anointing point to the power of the resurrection to come; not only the healing of leprosy to restore Simon the Leper to wholeness and reintegration into his community as a member, it was also the ointment of incorruptibility and preservation from decay and death; this ointment reminds us of the women of the resurrection morning, “seeking the living among the dead”. But where were the men, the so-called friends and companions of Jesus’ journey, those who stood by him and watched his miracles and bragged about their companionship with him? What a contradiction, what a parody!
Isaiah challenges us, in our first reading today, to swing into action, to join Jesus’ mission for the salvation of the world, when he says, “The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.” What is your tongue for, what are your speeches composed for, if you have no place for the poor and the neglected? So, in our nothingness and emptiness like Simon the Leper who welcomed Jesus to his house and the “nameless woman” who anointed Jesus, each one of us still has something great and inestimable to give to humanity and the world; there is no one that is so poor that he or she is useless in God’s creation; that people are only as poor as they consider themselves poor on earthly standards and measurements, but no one is poor in heavenly scales; yes, everyone is good enough for salvation, and no one comes to it too late, especially when one hasn’t written off oneself; especially when God’s invitation to accept a salvation that comes at no price to human beings is accepted. Yet, so many reject and refuse the free gift of salvation, considering their personal interests of more value than the price placed on them and paid for them by God through the death of Jesus for human salvation. What a contradiction, what a world order!
O Lord, let the woman in me come out, when I see God in need of my help, even when all I have to offer is a house infested with the leprosy of my sins which isolate me from God; even when the only smell of the perfume I bear is that meant for the dead, Jesus is not perturbed. Let my joy be in the fact that Jesus can dine in a house of a leper and turn it into a restaurant and banquet hall for everybody, and a healing expedition for all those isolated and needing companionship; that when I am not recognized by my society and written off as useless, Jesus knows that I exist, he loves me, and he comes to me just the way that I am, a sinner in need of help. Indeed, the fellow I see daily on the streets, with no particular beauty to attract my attention; my neighbor’s children unable to eat, drink, go to school or pay their hospital bills; the low-class friend I abandoned because I have become high-class, high-degrees, high-job, high-neighborhood and high-maintenance, these are those Jesus comes for and those I should pay attention to and help.
Does it ever cross your mind to ask, who cares for those mothers, whose husbands have chickened out on them because of poverty, old age, ugliness and ill-health? What about their labors every morning, every day, every night? In the words of Isaiah, in our first reading, “Morning after morning God opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back”; is it true that I stand up for those in need of my defense and protection, do I not rather oppress them? The nameless woman in the house of Simon the leper wasn’t discouraged by the voices criticizing her hospitality; instead, she imitated Jesus as Isaiah prophesies in our first reading, “The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame”.
Remember that you’re never strong unless you’re weak, so that you may feel the power of God in your life. When the odds add up against us, then it is high time we contemplated the God of our second reading with his double debasement, “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance”. A God who substituted his divine nature with the form of a slave in order to save his people; a God who replaces humility and self-emptying with his power. Your nature, your form, are the vehicleS of your salvation, and they serve as your contribution towards the salvation of the whole of humanity. Now, rise up, dust yourself clean, and take up your seat around the table of Jesus’ banquet of salvation because he came for you and me, he brings salvation to you and me – Hosanna in the highest!
Assignment for the week:
Could you offer a nice meal to someone poor, neglected or abandoned this week, so that that person would enjoy what you’re giving up as Good Friday fast?