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Monday, June 24, 2013

Mary Washes Jesus’ Feet – Putting long hair to use

This is just one more reason patriarchal men force women to maintain long hair: it’s for foot washing.

A week before the crucifixion Jesus went to visit his girlfriends Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. Martha was the hard-working responsible one, so she was working her ass off to make sure the dinner went well. Lazarus was sitting at the table chatting with Jesus and his apostles. Mary, bless her little soul, did neither.

Instead, Mary rummaged through Martha’s valuables until she found a pound of really nice ointment and rubbed it on Jesus’ feet. Then she wiped off his feet with her hair. Of course Martha was pissed. Not only was Mary not helping out in the kitchen but has also stolen her most expensive ointment and was using it to get extra attention from Jesus. Now Mary’s hair was going to smell like kick-ass ointment and magic feet for weeks!

Before Martha could intervene, Judas Iscariot piped up saying, “What gives man? If you’re so into helping the poor and everything, why wasn’t this ointment sold? You could have fed a whole bunch of people for a long time. Instead your girlfriend is rubbing it on your feet?” Jesus wasn’t very kind to Judas when he replied, which is probably understandable given Jesus’ anxiety over his quickly approaching trial date in Jerusalem. Jesus said to Judas, “Screw the poor! There will always be poor people around. You can take care of them anytime. I’m going to end up in jail, or worse, and then who’s going to fawn over me? I’m pretty sure Martha was saving this stuff in preparation for my death anyway!”

If Jesus’ contemporaries could just respect his anger management problem, the New Testament would be a whole lot less interesting.

Ref: John 12: 1-8

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