.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
John, Luke, and the Bethany Siblings<\/b><\/h4>\n
The scene that opens this story echoes (and conflates?) various stories found in the Synoptic Gospels. Most notably, the cast of characters reminds the hearer of the story about Martha and Mary in Luke 10. Following the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke recounts a short story about Jesus visiting the house of Martha and Mary. In that well-known story, Martha serves while Mary sits at Jesus\u2019s feet, leading Martha to complain that Mary has left her to do all the work. Jesus responds by affirming Mary\u2019s place as a disciple at his feet.\u00a0 The story in John has significant differences\u2014Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, reclines next to Jesus, and Mary anoints Jesus\u2019s feet\u2014but the same dynamics are present. Martha serves while Mary gives her full attention to Jesus. In this story, even more than the story in Luke 10, Mary takes center stage with Jesus, even though the raising of Lazarus is the verbal thread that frames the episode (12:1, 9). Thus, with my facial expressions and shift in posture, I try to front Mary and her role in the story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Mary Empties while Judas Pockets<\/b><\/h4>\n
Of course, the story does quite well on its own\u2014without my gestures\u2014focusing the hearer\u2019s attention on Mary\u2019s actions. Indeed, the whole story establishes a comparison between Mary, who empties the expensive perfume on Jesus\u2019s feet, and Judas, who would prefer to pocket the perfume\u2019s worth for himself. I highlighted this comparison with repeated gestures. I use a cupped hand to imagine Mary bringing the pound of pure nard, and I turn my hand over to communicate Mary\u2019s choice to release her grip on the costly perfume as she empties it to anoint Jesus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nJudas claims that he also wants to release his grip on wealth for the benefit of the poor, but the narrative aside reveals his true motives. So, as Judas speaks, I repeat the gesture of a cupped hand being opened and emptied. He\u2019s claiming to want the same thing that Mary has just demonstrated, though his question indicates that he misunderstands Mary\u2019s action. He thinks Mary has selfishly wasted the value of the perfume. During the narrative aside, however, my gestures reinforce Judas\u2019s actual desire. I cup my hand to symbolize the common purse that Judas keeps, creating a visual link with the vessel of perfume. But, whereas Mary emptied the perfume to anoint Jesus, Judas pockets the purse for himself. He\u2019s the selfish one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI repeat the gestures one more time as Jesus speaks to Judas. He affirms Mary\u2019s ownership of the perfume (\u201cshe bought it\u201d), creates narrative tension by briefly introducing doubt about Mary\u2019s motives (\u201cso that she might keep it\u201d), and then resolves the tension by reaffirming Mary\u2019s choice to relinquish her hold (\u201cfor the day of my burial\u201d). She makes a different decision than Judas; she does not keep the perfume for herself; she empties it in order to anoint Jesus for his impending burial. The repetition of the cupped hand connects Jesus\u2019s words to what has just happened and highlights his words as an affirmation of Mary in contrast to Judas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The Lazarus Roller Coaster<\/b><\/h4>\n
During the last scene of this story, I used a repeated gesture to emphasize the chief priests\u2019 faulty planning. First, I repeat the \u201craising hand\u201d gesture when the narrator repeats the description of Lazarus\u2014the one \u201cwhom he had raised from the dead\u201d (12:1, 9)\u2014in order to visualize the verbal frame for the story. Then, I lower my hand to visualize the chief priests\u2019 plan. They want to put to death the one who has already been raised. (They are grasping at the Judeans who are deserting them just as Judas grasps for the monetary worth of the perfume.) What do they imagine will happen? Will he stay dead this time? Or, will they inadvertently create the sign (a dead person being raised back to life) that they are trying to silence?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe narrator reminds us that Lazarus is not the only person the chief priests would like to kill. They plan to put Lazarus to death \u201cas well.\u201d Although their earlier planning is not included in this story, the phrase \u201cas well\u201d points the hearer back to the end of John 11. After news of Jesus raising Lazarus spreads, the chief priests and Pharisees convene and, convinced by the \u201cwisdom\u201d of the high priest, they decide to put Jesus to death (11:53). Now, in our story, they plan to do the same to Lazarus. As John ironically foreshadows, however, their plans to hide the \u201csign\u201d by violently removing Lazarus and Jesus will actually bring about the greatest sign in John\u2019s gospel: Jesus\u2019s own crucifixion and resurrection. To hint at this foreshadowing, I raise my hand one more time. The executed one will rise again, and on account of that sign many will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Performance Notes:\u00a0 I first told this story in a Zoom session of the Network of Biblical Storytellers Scholars Seminar (a group of \u201cstorytelling scholars\u201d and \u201cscholarly storytellers\u201d who gather to explore Scripture through biblical performance criticism). You can learn more about the Scholars Seminar here.\u00a0\u00a0 John, Luke, and the Bethany Siblings The scene that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[198184,198157],"tags":[198162],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john","category-performances","tag-cliff-barbarick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8023"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/storiesforthesojourn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}