Leave her alone
Before you speak, before you make the next move, pause. In the pause, ask these two questions: Is what I am about to say or what I am about to do going to make me more loving? Is my next action going to transmit love to the person right in front of me?
For Christians the increase of love is everything, so these two questions are exceedingly relevant. If the answer is yes, then go for it. If the answer is no, then wait. Sit on your hands, bite your tongue, turn and walk away, just don’t say the thing you were going to say.
If we all (including me!) followed that directive the world would be a quieter place.
Jesus had a really close friend named Mary. Another of Jesus’ friends, Judas, sometimes picked on Mary. It seems to me that Judas resented Mary for her closeness to Jesus. Judas was a troubled guy in a lot of ways. The phrase hurt people hurt people may well have been originally coined to describe him. Bless his heart. One time Mary anointed Jesus’ feet extravagantly with a very expensive perfume. What she did would be strange in our day, but not back then. To Mary and many of the others it made sense. Anointing Jesus in this way was a wonderful gesture of love, reverence, and respect. Judas thought it was a waste of money and he said so loudly in hopes that he would embarrass Mary and she would slink off in shame.
What Judas said was quite simply not loving. His words did not add love to the moment it just made things instantly awkward. Jesus never sat idly by while bullies did their work. He spoke to Judas in a firm tone saying, “Leave her alone.”
Today that is my favorite line in the whole Gospel. What a generous and protective thing for the Good Shepherd to say about one of his beloved sheep. Leave her alone. The message is that she belongs to Jesus not Judas. Sometimes a person needs to be allowed to just live her life. Mary doesn’t need Judas telling her what to do. Who is he anyway? Who am I, who are you, who are we to be telling each other what to do? Sure, perhaps the money could be spent differently, but sometimes the best thing to do is just turn down the temperature and let each other be. We’re here to live and try to mine some joy out of the trials and tribulations of life. Mary is pouring herself out in love to our Lord as she pours the ointment on his feet. Leave her alone, indeed. It’s a crushingly beautiful scene. Come on, Judas, let it play out. Unless you’ve got something loving to say, leave her alone. It would help me to head that counsel sometimes too. How about you?
In the pause before I speak I want to hear Jesus say to me, Leave her alone. If I can’t be loving, then God help me be quiet until I can.
And should I ever hear someone bullying you, God help me to summon the courage to say to your accuser, Leave her alone, then stand by your side like Jesus did for Mary, so that you can live your life in peace. We’re all in this together. That’s the whole point.