An Aggada based Matthew 26:1-6 and others
by Ralph Milton

(IMPORTANT NOTE:

When presenting a soliloquy such as this one, it isn't really important for the actor to wear a “Jesus costume.” In fact, unless the entire costume can be very authentic, it is probably better to wear ordinary clothes.

What is necessary is that the actor thoroughly prepare the presentation by reading it over and over many times, listening for his own voice and the way in which he brings out the emotions being expressed. If this rehearsal can be done with another person acting as a coach, so much the better.)

Introduction:
Have you had this experience?

You've had an intense conversation with someone – or something really important has happened in your life – and it is only later, often as you lie in bed waiting for sleep – that you think the thoughts and experience the feelings all over again – sometimes even more intensely.

In the scripture reading, we heard the strange and beautiful story of the woman who came and poured expensive perfume on Jesus' head. And the even stranger, confusing response that Jesus gave to her action.

Remember that Jesus was a human being just as you and I are. Because he was human, he experienced all the confusion, the doubt, the fear that you and I know about. And he couldn't see into the future anymore than you or I.

So, what if you could hear what was going on in Jesus mind – what Jesus was thinking that night after those strange events. Here are some thoughts that might have been running through his mind, or perculating up from his heart, or stirring around in his stomach.

Jesus – a soliloqy:
I never thought it would come to this.

I thought I could bail out quickly if things got tense. I thought people would understand. I really didn't think I'd have to go all the way.

It was very pleasant, those days in Galilee*. It is such beautiful countryside, especially in the spring. This was home, and almost everywhere we went, we felt welcome.

People would come out to hear me speak. They would sit on the grass on the hillsides, and I would talk with them, tell them stories, parables. They seemed to enjoy it, and sometimes some of them would talk to me afterwards, and I could tell they had heard with more than their ears and their head.

Late at night, we'd sit around and talk. Usually, it was just with a few of the friends who became part of my small group. Mary and Susanna and Judas and Peter and the others. Together we talked and talked about what it would mean to live as if love were the rule of life, not power or money or wealth or status or knowledge. What does it really mean to love each other? What does it mean to love God? Does God love us?

Sometimes, you know how it is, you say something and then afterwards you think about it and you try and figure out what you meant?

We would pray together often, and we usually began with the traditional Jewish prayer, the Shema,* “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind.” And then I began to add another line from the prophets. “And your neighbor as yourself.”

When I told my friends about adding that line – “You shall love your neighbor as yoursel” – Peter shook his head and said, “Well, how can you love someone else like yourself?”

Mary really pushed me on it. “I don't always love myself very well. I really don't, Jesus. The more I follow you around, the more I hear you talk, the more I can love myself. In fact, every time I hear you talk, you seem to make the concept of love a little bigger than it was before.”

And Peter was getting worried. “There is talk going around,” he said. “You're too accommodating – too easy about the kind of people you show that love to. You should be a little more choosy about whom you are seen with, Jesus. It doesn't do your reputation much good if you keep hanging around with all that riffraff.”

I guess I was a bit annoyed at Peter for saying that. I knew what he meant, and so did everyone in the group. Peter doesn't like some of my friends. He calls them hookers and winos and I guess they are. But I like them. They are real people. They don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. “Peter,” I said, “can you believe that God loves those friends of mine as much as God loves you. Maybe even more.” That question got him really mad, and he sulked for several hours.

I traveled around Galilee talking to folks, and before I knew it, people began speculating about who I was, and what I was up to. When people start talking and imaginations start churning, you never know what they'll come up with. When we went to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast – that's when a few friends, like Martha in Bethany*, and Peter started wondering out loud if I was the Messiah*.

I told them, “Shut up!” In no uncertain terms. The whole idea scared the blazes out of me. But the more they kept saying it, the more I thought about it. So I went to the synagogue in to look at the scrolls of the Torah*. Some of those ancient writings said the Messiah would be a conqueror, would raise an army and wipe out all our enemies.

I knew that sure wasn't me. I didn't even like competitive games, much less fighting. And the God I encountered in my prayers and in the lives of other people, was not a military God. In fact, just the opposite.

But there was the prophet Isaiah*. He talked about the Messiah as if the Messiah might be like one of those hookers or winos that Peter was so upset about. Someone who was considered ugly, someone at the bottom of the ladder, someone you could easily write off as unimportant.

And then when I went to visit my friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus in Bethany, right near Jerusalem, they told me how the folks there were arguing about me, and wondering if I was the Messiah. Lazarus said he'd heard there had been some high-level government meetings to talk about me and what I was up to. My first instinct was to run as far and as fast as possible. “If you just lay low for a couple of years, it'll all blow over,” said Lazarus, and he was probably right. That's what I should have done.

It was that business with the perfume that really got to me. This woman came in – I have no idea who she was. We were having dinner together, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Judas, Peter, Mary of Magdala* and a few other friends – she walked right into the house and came up behind me. She poured perfume over my head – wonderful smelling stuff. It must have been worth a year's wages.

Peter and Judas got on her case right away. They called it a waste of money. “You could have used that money to buy food for the poor,” they said. And they were right of course. It was wasteful. Stupid, even.

I agreed with Judas and Peter, but I heard myself saying, “Leave her alone. Leave her alone!” From a well deep inside my soul I heard my own voice saying, “This woman has done something beautiful and good. Until we change the way we share the wealth of this world, you will always have poor people to help.

“Try to understand what she has done. She has prepared my body to be buried. She is preparing me for death.”

I didn't sleep much that night. Where did those words come from? How did I know that this woman was preparing me for death?

The next morning I felt really, really rotten. Mary of Magdala could tell right away there was something wrong. “What's eating you, Jesus?” she wanted to know.

I tried to tell her, but I don't think it made much sense. We talked about the woman who had poured that perfume on my head. Mary didn't know who she was either. I told Mary how I had prayed half the night – how I was worried and scared and confused. “I prayed and prayed, but I didn't seem to get any sense of direction. But the same words kept bouncing around inside me. “Love doesn't give up. Love is prepared to go the distance.”

“Are you prepared to go the distance?” Mary asked. I could see tears in her eyes.

“I don't know what that means, Mary.”

“Neither do I. But I know this. It won't be easy.”

And so here I am. It's the middle of the night. I'm praying my heart out, but I get no response from God. Nothing. Except those two phrases. “Love doesn't give up. Love is prepared to go the distance.”

I've tried to talk about it with my friends. But they have no idea. Especially Peter. He's all heart. He's all compassion. But he doesn't think very clearly sometimes. Mary is the same way, though she understands far more. And she asks the most penetrating questions, sometimes.

Judas understands and he doesn't like it. He thinks I'm the Messiah all right, and he's determined for force the issue. He thinks if he brings the military in here, I'll do some really spectacular tricks and generate an instant army.

O God, I don't know if I am the Messiah. All I know is that I love those stupid, wonderful people I've been mixing around with. All I know is that I am sure you love them too, and somehow you want me to show that love for you.

Would they know how much I love them, how much you love them, if I go into hiding to save my own neck? If Judas brings the army in here, they'll string me up for sure, and what will that prove, eh? What will that prove. God?

Where are you. God? Why have you forsaken me? Now that I need you most, God, why don't you talk to me?

* Pronounciations
Bethany = BETH-a-nee

Galilee = GAL-i-lee

Isaiah = eye-ZAY-ah

Magdala = MAG-da-la

Messiah = mu-SIGH-ah

Shema = shu-MA.

Torah = tor-AH

Ralph's list of readings and stories