In Matthew's telling of this story, the woman does not even have a name. She simply walks in as Jesus sits with his disciples in Bethany. She walks in, goes straight to Jesus, kneels down and breaks open her jar of precious oil. She pours it extravagantly on his head as she anoints him. Anoints him with the oil. Anoints him with her love. Anoints him with her worship and extravagant adoration.

She could not have been wealthy. A wealthy woman probably would not have made her way to the house of a leper, which is exactly where Jesus sat-in the home of Simon the leper. So given her reality, when the disciples charged that her extravagant action was being wasteful in regards to the poor, I imagine she had to bite her tongue. She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew how much she could have gotten for that oil. She knew what it was worth. She knew that it could have been sold to buy food or whatever else was needed. This unnamed woman knew the cost that using that oil would exact on her own survival and livelihood. And that was exactly why she did it.

I believe that in Jesus, that unnamed woman saw extravagant love constantly being poured out for the world, for her. She saw that love being poured out, poured out as he ministered to people in ways that let them know each one of them mattered to God.

Drip, drip, drip.

Poured out as he bent down to welcome the children.

Drip, drip, drip.

Poured out as he called men and women into discipleship

--people who had not ever imagined such a thing.

Drip, drip, drip.

Poured out as he healed the sick and sat with the unwelcomed.

Drip, drip, drip.

She looked at Jesus and saw all that love being poured out drop by drop. And in the face of such extravagant goodness, how could she withhold her oil? How could she withhold her own response of extravagant adoration?

Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine about discipleship. My friend is wrestling with some vocational and faith questions. I made a remark about how changing the course of her career at this point was probably not the real practical thing to do and I understood her fear about even asking those questions. She responded, "True, but God coming into the world in Jesus was not very practical either. Jesus going the road to the cross was not practical either."

The disciples told the woman that she was not being practical by pouring out her expensive oil on Jesus' head. But she knew that already. She also knew that going to the leper's house was not very practical. Going up to a man in public was not very practical. Breaking open her precious oil was not very practical. Anointing Jesus for his death was not very practical. None of it was a practical thing to do. But this female disciple was not trying to be practical. Rather, she was trying to be extravagantly faithful.

She did it for one reason: pure adoration--an adoration not just for all that he had done in his three years of ministry, but for all that he would do in his three days of death. She knew that though she only had one jar of oil to use, he loved her no less than if she had been a woman who could afford jar upon jar of oil to pour on his head. She adored him and she took a risk of love. She threw practicality to the wind and dove down deep into the vulnerability of a love that risked everything.

And when she did, she gained her life. I imagine that when she left that house and her feet stepped back onto the dusty roads, everything looked different to her. She had opened herself so completely to God that she could no longer view the world or other people in the same way. And because her adoration ran so deep, so did her transformation. She had opened herself up to Love and Love had taken hold. For just as her adoration of Jesus had not been very practical, neither was God's overwhelming love for her: A love completely unveiled on the road to Jerusalem; a love completely poured out and emptied at the cross. 

by the Rev. Shannon Kershner
Pastor, Black Mountain Presbyterian Church, North Carolina