Cognitive Dissonance (Guest Blog by Emma Clarke)
For just over a year now, I have worked as the Public Engagement Assistant for Presbyterian World Service & Development (PWS&D)–the development and relief agency of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. As part of the organization’s communications team, in this role I seek to inspire volunteers who, in turn, help their congregations learn about and respond to needs around the world.
It’s an interesting thing, being part of an organization like this during a global pandemic. How do I write about Fatuma, who almost lost her two-year-old daughter to malnutrition, after I have just eaten a large breakfast of bacon and eggs, and even scraped some of it into the trash? How do I respond to jokes about ‘maskne’, when every day I see photos of communities for whom sanitation and hygiene facilities provided by PWS&D are literally life-saving? How do I reconcile the very valid annoyance of my friends over being stuck at home too long (a feeling I myself am having) with the knowledge that fully 79.5 million people around the world are displaced from their homes, many living in refugee camps where they can’t practice social distancing, and can’t find work? How do I live with both these realities, and have grace?
The first musical I ever played in a professional context was Andrew Lloyd’s Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. One night, as I sat in the dark pit, hands on the keyboard, I was caught off guard by a line sung by the character Jesus, after Judas had criticized the woman washing Jesus’ feet with a precious perfume (or, perhaps, criticized Jesus for allowing her to do it!). The actor playing Jesus sang, “Surely you’re not saying we have the resources to save the poor from their lot. There will be poor always, pathetically struggling, look at the good things we’ve got. Think while you still have me, move while you still see me.”
“Pfft,” I thought, “that’s not what the real Jesus is like.”
Imagine my surprise when I later found this story in my Bible.
“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.
When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”
Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you...”
I was more than disappointed to learn this. I was heartbroken. “But isn’t God making all things new?”
Then, I read the rest of the story. Jesus continues,
“… but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.””
In this scripture, Jesus isn’t trying to convince the disciples not to care for the poor–in fact, he just got through with telling them they’d better continue caring for people who are hungry or thirsty, who are strangers or prisoners, when he’s gone from their midst!
“Truly I tell you,” he says, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Primarily, in this passage Jesus is calling out the disciples on their impure motives–Judas, among those who started the debate, is on his way to betray Jesus, after all. Your motive, Jesus seems to be saying, should be to honour me above all. Know what happens naturally–sincerely–as an outpouring from hearts centered on Christ? The very things the woman emulated (and Judas pretended to emulate): humility, generosity, self-sacrifice.
Keeping my eyes fixed on Christ and allowing him to work in me so I become more humble, more generous, more self-sacrificing–this has been the only way I can make it through these tough, cognitively dissonant days.
The woman in this story anointed Christ in preparation for His upcoming death which, as the sacrifice for our sins, provides us with life. That is making all things new. If we value the things of Christ, we can expect to see Heaven alongside the choir of angels, where there will be no more tears or pain from hunger or disease, no more persecution with its terrible result of people losing their homes, jobs and, often, families.
In the meantime, we ought to ask how we might be the bringers of some part of Heaven to Earth, in the here and now. Can I send a card to someone who is sick with the coronavirus, in order to bring them joy? Can I share what I have to help bring personal protective equipment and other essential resources to a community where many can’t afford it? Can I advocate by sending a postcard to the government, asking them to respond to the global food crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic? Can I pray for a world where justice rolls, where people face compassion instead of persecution, where communities are more resilient, and incomes more sustainable? Where all people, everywhere, have abundant life?
You can read about the work of PWS&D and how we are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic at covid-19-response.