Monday of Holy Week: Paradox and Reason

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 36:5-11
Hebrews 9:11-15

John 12:1-11

Almighty God,

whose most dear Son went not up to joy

but first he suffered pain,

and entered not into glory before he was crucified:

Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,

may find it none other than the way of life and peace;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In these next three evenings my hope is that we can continue using the day’s collect as a focus for reflection, but I would like to consider them within a central theme of Christian faith – paradox. As a word, paradox, appears in English sometime in the mid-16th century and originally denoted any statement contrary to accepted opinion. Its contemporary usage, as I have discovered it, defines it as “a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.” When you really come to think of it, so much of Christian faith and truth finds it expression in the form of paradox: if you want to receive, then learn to give; if you want to be forgiven, then forgive first; if you want to feel a part, invite someone in. And it is this paradoxical truth to which today’s collect alludes.

Of all the collects we have been considering, this is the first which finds it composition in the American Church. Its author, William Reed Huntington, inspired by words contained in the Visitation of Sick until the 1928 revision, composed and included it in his work 1882 Materia Ritualis written as preparation was for upcoming Prayer Book revision. The collect finally found its way into the 1928 Prayer Book. In our current Prayer Book we find it in three places. It is, of course, the collect for today, but we also would have heard it yesterday, as it is appointed to be used as a station collect in the proper liturgy for Palm Sunday. Additionally, it appears in Daily Morning Prayer under the heading “A Collect for Friday”. The Prayer Book provides so many opportunities for us to hear and pray this collect because, perhaps, it is so needful we come to terms with its truth; its paradoxical, counter-intuitive truth that the most commonsensically obvious path is not the one that gets us to where we may want to be going, or that the most obvious is not the most helpful, or even the most true.

Look at the figure of Mary in this evening’s gospel, and look at the figure of Judas. In her breaking open the costly perfume and anointing Jesus’ feet, Mary “wastes” possibly up to 300 denarii – remember a denarius was equivalent to a day’s wages for a common laborer and for some people 300 denarii might represent more than a year’s earnings. What could be more counter-intuitive – foolish even – than what she did? It makes no sense. And where is the voice of reason? In mouth of Judas – a traitor and a thief, at least as the evangelist represents him – who pipes up “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (John 12:5) Now, he does makes a lot of sense. Yet, whom does the evangelist depict in better light, and which of the two figures are held up as models of Christian discipleship? Mary, certainly, and in large part because she is able to interpret the events around her with a counter-intuitive reason and disern not the obvious, but the deeper reality. None of Jesus’ other followers have been willing to accept that he will suffer pain and crucifixion before he goes up to joy or enter into glory; only she, and by anointing him in this costly way she affirms the reality of his identity and of his mission. She affirms the truth of paradox.

I sometimes wonder if both Mary and Judas were bringing their proposals for the use of 300 denarii to one of our vestries, which of the two would get backing. How often are willing to make the counter-intuitive choice that draws into the truth of paradox? This doesn’t mean we ought to abandon reason or commonsense, but it does mean that sometimes while the shortest route from A to C is through B, it is not always the best, the most beneficial or even the most authentic, and that sometimes the most obvious or most simple or most convenient plan of action does not always get us to where we really want to be or need to be. Instead, we need the counter-intuitive vision; the understanding that encompasses paradox as the conveyor of some of the deepest truths me know. As we enter into these more sacred days of the Christian year, we enter also into Christianity’s most sacred mystery expressed in the disturbing paradox that new life is found only through death. Each year we are challenged – and every day we should be challenged – by this truth, and we are invited, counter-intuitively, to discover life and peace through the torturous and circuitous way of the cross. Pray that our common-sense or reasonable plans of action get not too much in the way.