Jesus lives an increasingly life of truth-telling to civic and religious authorities. All the while he enfolds the marginalized and oppressed into a just and merciful embrace of care and love, calling disciples to do the same. Up to his impending death disciples cannot grasp what this will cost him. A woman enacting honor and love provides Jesus’ followers, then and now, with an example of unbridled recognition of who Jesus is. What is imprinted on our being? How can we break alabaster jars to display open and prepared hearts?

Sermon begins at minute marker 5:09
Mark 12.13-17, 14.3-9

Resources

• BibleWorm podcasts: 528 The Parable of the Tenants, and 531 The Triumphal Entry and the Anointing at Bethany  
• Image by vicky_photographies from Pixabay
• Believers Church Bible Commentary: Mark, by Timothy J Gaddert, editors Elmer A Martens and Willard M Swartley; Herald Press, Scottdale PA 2001 
• Women's Bible Commentary, Third Edition: Revised and Updated, editors by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, Jacqueline E. Lapsley; Westminster John Knox, 2012  
• Hymn: Voices Together 320, My Song is Love Unknown. Music: John N. Ireland (England), Songs of Praise, 1925 Text: Samuel Crossman (England), The Young Man’s Meditations, or some few Sacred Poems..., 1664; rev. Hymns for Today’s Church.  Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.