Holy Week: It was on the Wednesday

It was on the Wednesday
that they called him a waster.

The place smelled like the perfume department
of a big department store.

It was as if somebody had bumped their elbow
against a bottle
and sent it crashing to the floor,
setting off the most expensive stink bomb on earth.

But it happened in a house
not in a store.

And the woman who broke the bottle
was no casual afternoon shopper.
She was the penniless poorest of the poor,
giving away the only precious thing she had.

And He sat still
while she poured the liquid all over his head…
as unnecessary and extravagant as aftershave
on a full head of hair and a bearded chin.

And those who smelled it
and those who saw it,
and those who remembered
that he was against extravagance,
called HIM a waster.

They forgot…
that he also was the poorest of the poor.

And they who had much
and who had given him nothing,
objected to a pauper
giving him everything.

Jealousy was in the air
when a poor woman's generosity
became an embarrassment to their tight-fistedness…

That was on the Wednesday,
when they called him a waster.

adapted from Stages on the Way, Worship Resources for Lent, Holy Week & Easter by the Wild Goose Worship Group.