TRANSLATION MATTHEW 26:1

Now when Jesus had completed all these teachings, he said to his pupils, “You know that in two days it will be Passover, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Then the chief priests and elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas; and they plotted together to arrrest Jesus by craft and kill him. But they said, “Not during the festival, to prevent a riot amongst the people.”

Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, when a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of costly perfumed oil and poured it over his head as he reclined at table.

When they saw this the pupils were vexed, saying, “What’s the reason for this waste? It could have been sold for a lot and the money given to the destitute.”

Jesus knew this so he said to them, “Why are you making trouble for this woman? She has done a lovely thing for me. The poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me. She has poured this perfumed oil upon my body to prepare it for burial. Amen I tell you, wherever the glad news is announced in all the world, what she has done will be mentioned, in memory of her.”

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After completing a vision of the Son of Man as cosmic King, Matthew reminds his reader that the same Son of Man will be crucified. In the section that follows Jesus’ physical self often appears as vulnerable and precious.

The meeting of the religious leaders is presumably not an eye-witness account, but it is shrewd nonetheless. The people are with Jesus and even power must proceed with caution.

The incident at Bethany is beautifully told and used to show how fragile Jesus’ life is, and therefore how precious. Detail is given – “as he was reclining” – to emphasise physicality. Jesus even at this juncture, defends the vulnerable woman, while prophesying her place in his story, using words which chime with those used by St Paul in his description of the last supper, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Pasolini in his great film, The Gospel of St. Matthew, saw a connection between Jesus’ approval of the woman’s devotion and Judas’s decision to hand over someone he regarded as allowing himself to become a cult. This is not Matthew’s suggestion, but it fits the pupils’ denunciation of waste.