However, I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we have another parable, the last parable in Mark, and it's about some tenant farmers who work in a vineyard and don't want to give up the harvest to the master when he comes. The religious leaders (the people Jesus has been arguing with, mostly) know that this parable means something to do with them. What do you think?
I'm having an interesting thought about the little story of the widow and her one coin. It comes right after Jesus warning about the Pharisees taking advantage of widows, "devouring their houses." I'm getting pictures in my mind of widows writing checks to televangelists from their fixed incomes. What do you think this story is about?
After the arguing, Jesus warns about the coming times of destruction, persecution. Families will be torn apart, everyone ratting out everyone else. Believers will be put on trial, but they should rely on the Holy Spirit to put the words in their mouths.
It won't be long before Jesus is put on trial, both before Herod and before the religious court. Everything is set in motion, beginning with the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus for burial. She is the beginning of the story of Jesus'death. I do find it ironic that Jesus tells the disciples that everyone will remember this woman and her actions, because actually, when we usually tell the passion story, we don't start here: we start with the last supper. Then there is the prayer in the garden, where the disciples can't stay awake, there is the betrayal and arrest, the trials and Peter's denial.
But the real beginning, which we never remember, is the anointing by the unnamed woman.
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