Dinner Party

I’m remembering a smart dinner party I went to not long ago, today in fact.  A collection of very important, if somewhat mismatched individuals were there; MP’s and the odd bishop, a few key financial men, some hard edged powerful women. Money in spades. It’s the kind of gathering where everyone tries to impress, well made-up and well dressed. But it’s also a gathering of the needy, those needing to get something from someone, ego and confidence reinforcement at the very least, the kind that comes with a good word in the right place, the assurance of status advancement, given in the wordless raising of a glass, the nod and the wink.

You go to such gatherings because though you’d rather be at home watching a good tv drama, it’s important to know you’re safe in your job, that embarrassing conversations or events (like the expedient termination of an inconvenient relationship, professional or otherwise, that happened not so long ago), are safely out of sight and out of the minds of those who matter.   

Some of the guests are there largely out of curiosity. They want to see the magic healer who’s also been invited, and who is probably a trickster but at least it will be something to laugh about with friends at the Club or the office the next day – which is why he was invited in the first place. Even so, they are already a little embarrassed and on edge. He looks a mess. What’s he doing here? Maybe it was a mistake to have asked him.

There’s no telling what he might come out with. He seems to know an awful lot about people he’s barely or never met. They’re all feeling the need to be guarded, to keep their distance from him, to avoid eye contact, (they barely greeted him when he arrived) but they do want him to perform, so they flatter and patronise while egging him on by appealing to his vanity which, also embarrassingly, he doesn’t seem to have much of. This is causing the jokes to wear a bit thin for them. They are running out of banter and by now they are all a bit drunk. Some of the women are embarrassed by the more raucous guests. Embarrassment combined with alcohol makes people loud. The women are starting to feel a bit protective of the miracle healer, as he’s come to be known.

One of the women there gets really carried away and starts pouring expensive scented oil all over him. She’s crying and saying things which only he seems to understand. She’s wiping his feet with her hair. All a bit gross and over the top really. There is a tense silence. It’s all so embarrassing, as religion always is. None of them are religious. Why is he doing this? What right has he to behave like this? It’s offensive. They’ll definitely make that clear to him, but not right now, as the host, for some reason (Oh yes, he was raised from the dead by this chap. Ha.) likes him.

The silence stretches out. One or two people are visibly disturbed, beginning to shed a few tears. Perhaps they’re just sympathising with this woman who’s clearly going through some kind of mental crisis – the menopause probably. It makes you emotional. And then he says something odd, that the reason she’s doing this is that she’s preparing him for his burial. No idea what he’s talking about. But one or two of the prelates are looking different. Not so much embarrassed as wanting to be different people in some way. You could almost say that they sympathised with the woman, that they wanted to be like her, and to have done to them whatever it was that the miracle maker had done, or said, to her that caused her to behave in the way she’s behaving now.

And they’re not the only ones. One or two others are suddenly wanting this ‘whatever it is’ to happen in them, so that they can be different, no longer a part of this ‘scene’, or any ‘scene’, no longer needing to take refuge in tribal belonging, or needing that first whisky of the day in order to feel OK about themselves, no longer only partly human. The cynical and embarrassed muttering has ceased. For some reason, they all want this thing that he, and only he it seems, has to give. They need it, whatever you might call it, more than they’ve ever needed anything in their lives. If you want to know what it is, read the story John 12:1-11.