finding the doorway to our homeplace

 Mary Anoints Jesus

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (John 12:1-6)

Why was this ointment not turned into cash?

Don't the poor deserve it?

One of the anecdotes I heard from my mother, probably passed on from her father, was of the episode in Tortilla Flat when John Steinbeck's ne'er-do-wells find something good to do with their money beside pooling it for a dollar gallon of California red.

They buy a candlestick for the altar of the church.

What did they do that for? Poor deluded souls, misguided by the authorities. They could have spent that on themselves, maybe pulled themselves up out of the pot-swilling life they were leading.

They choose instead to do something beautiful for God.

And I think, now that I have reflected on it, they put something beautiful into their own lives. For them, the sanctuary of the church was the most permanent interior they knew. And it was therefore a refuge for them, a homeplace.

One Wednesday evening when I was volunteering as a counselor at the evening shelter for the homeless, it was movie night. So the screen was set up, and a movie chosen. I noted, and remarked to one of the patrons, that the videocassette said on it, only for home use, not for public display. And he replied, this is our living room.

Jesus finds us where we are, and makes his home with us. He becomes our living room. And if we find room in our hearts, they can be the doorway to the living room, the safe place in which to dwell, that has room for all of us to share, all of us to be in our homeplace.

An edited version of this article appeared in the Arizona Daily Star feature “Keeping the Faith” under the title “Finding the doorway to Jesus” on Sunday April 10th 2022 page E3.