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“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
- Aesop, Greek slave and fabulist (620–560 BCE), purportedly granted freedom because of his literacy and story-telling ability
One of the most poignant stories in the Gospels, of the many poignant Biblical stories, is the one recorded in Mark 14:3–9, Luke 7:36–50 and John 12:3–8 of the New Testament of Holy Writ.
Simon, a Jewish Pharisee, threw a dinner party.
It seems he had the means.
It would not dent his ability to toss, perhaps with ostentation, some shekels into the coffers of the synagogue the following Shabbat.
That act would be noticed by many.
And maybe that was the way he wanted it.
Jesus and others, including at least some of His disciples, were invited.
Judas was there.
Mary, a woman of ill-repute, came, too.
Maybe she was uninvited.
Perhaps she surreptitiously crept in.
Women were often treated as second-class citizens in antiquity.
It may have been easy for them to merge with the shadows.
Regardless her status, she treated the Master with great tenderness and love. Perhaps the greatest love someone can show another outside the bounds of matrimony.
