John 12: 1-11
The book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman was released in the early 1990s as a self-help book for couples. The book aimed to help couples understand some of the different ways that humans tend to express love between romantic partners. He calls these expressions, speaking “love languages.” Since then, the book and Chapman’s theory of “love languages” have been expanded upon to include platonic and familial relationships as well.
The five love languages are:
- Acts of service
- Spending quality time
- Gift-giving
- Physical touch
- Words of affirmation
After spending some time with today’s gospel reading, it became clear to me how love, or the lack thereof, was being expressed amongst Jesus and his friends in this story.
The scripture begins with Jesus and Lazarus (and probably some others) lounging at the table after having eaten dinner. Martha, being Martha, has served dinner and is now presumably busy cleaning up from the meal. Being of service seems to be Martha’s love language. Certainly, there were gendered cultural expectations for women to be responsible for the domestic work of the home. However, what we’ve learned about Martha from past scripture texts is that between her and her sister, Mary, Martha was the one out of the two who regularly took up these tasks.
Mary, on the other hand, we’ve learned prefers to opt-out of domestic work in order to spend quality time with Jesus. She enjoys learning from him and conversing with him when he is visiting her home. While the men are lounging and Martha is cleaning, Mary goes and retrieves a bottle of her (quite expensive) perfume to offer as a gift to Jesus. She pours what appears to be the entirety of her pint of perfume on to Jesus’ feet and uses her own hair to wipe off the remains. We see that not only does Mary express her love for Jesus by giving him this gift, but it is also in the way that she is giving it to him. It’s through her physical touch, her using her own hair to wipe off the excess oil, that she is delivering this gift to him.
If we were to follow the pattern of speaking love languages in this story, we might expect to hear words of affirmation next. However, seemingly the opposite unfolds. Judas begins to condemn Mary’s actions, stating that what she should have done with her expensive perfume is sold it and given the money to the poor. Here, Judas not only disrupts these expressions of love from the two sisters but juxtaposes them. Judas’ harsh condemnation juxtaposes love.
Jesus enters into the conversation and tells Judas to leave Mary alone. He then offers words of affirmation for Mary’s actions, claiming that the perfume that Mary is using was intended to be used to anoint Jesus upon his burial. Whatever the reason may be, it’s clear that Mary is offering what she has as an expression of her love.
Later on this week when we visit the story of the last supper, we’ll hear the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and using his own cloak to dry them. I can’t help but wonder if what has now become a ritualized act in our faith tradition was originally performed by Jesus because he was inspired to do so by Mary’s expression of love? An act of love that moved him so deeply, that he felt he did not want to keep it to himself.
Judas condemns Mary’s actions because he does not understand them.
Jesus affirms Mary’s actions because he understands her heart.
Jesus expressed his love for the world in his own unique ways, and so do each of us.
What love language or languages do you most often speak? And how do the expressions of your heart reflect the actions of Jesus?
As we move into this Holy Week, let us remember to not only reflect on the ways that Jesus expressed his love for the world, but also how we can express Jesus’ love for the world.