Hygge & Social
Scripture Matthew 26: 6 - 13
Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’
Jesus is in Bethany. I think it’s his favorite place. This is the place where he laughs and the place where he weeps over his friend. It is the home base for his incursions into Jerusalem. It’s a safe place in his final days of ministry. It is the home of the people he loves like Mary and Lazarus and perhaps Martha. These are the friends he made into family and they get him. He can roll his eyes at Peter’s questions or shake his head as he recounts James and John’s debate about who gets the best spot and his friends get it. I believe it is the place where he can really just be himself. It is the place he weeps and the place he must laugh, the place where he can really take a deep breath and just be. He loves Bethany so much, except for one Fig tree. Everything is amazing in Bethany, and this tree should be more amazing. At the end of the Gospel of Luke, he spends 40 days re-teaching the same folks and they travel with him to…Bethany. It's the big ending and he takes them right back to the place he loved to hang out.
This scripture comes at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew. Jesus is in Bethany and for this telling, he is in a place he probably shouldn’t be, the home of Simon the Leper when a woman who probably shouldn’t be there enters the room. She brings a costly ointment in a costly vessel to anoint Jesus. Anointing is a sacred act. Her presence is extravagant and strange, the perfume filling the air, the intimacy of anointing, the woman’s generosity and love poured out. It’s so much that for the male disciples, it's toooooo much. They start to pick her apart; they pick the moment apart and name all the ways she could have used this money better. They are just shy of saying, “Foolish girl, don’t you know how to manage money.” Like it was an accident or an impulse decision, like this woman doesn't know about investing or strategic plans. “What kind of woman is this?”
This is when the ‘come to Jesus meeting’ starts and he ends the debate by naming his deep gratitude for this woman’s gift. That abundance and generosity are a part of showing love. She is anointing him, this is an act of naming someone as a royal leader or a prophet. Anointing is sacred. It happens at weddings and funerals. It happens as a practice of healing. It’s an act of care-taking and she knows where his path for justice will lead so she pours out everything before he faces capital punishment at the hands of The Roman Empire. She gives an extravagant gift and the men at the table struggle because the cost is higher than they would like to pay.
Jesus ends any debate, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed it will be done in memory of her. (The fact that they lost her name…is a story for another day.)
The anointing happens in Bethany. It’s the place where Jesus is loved and named, cared for and centered. It is his brave space, his sacred space and it is the place where he will make the final march of his ministry complete.
Think about Jesus and Bethany for a moment. And ask yourself, where is your Bethany? Where are you at home, where are you brave, where are you most happy and most inspired? Where do you laugh and weep without fear? I imagine Jesus knowing this about himself and Bethany got him through hard days and part of living how he taught might just require us to figure some of that out for ourselves.
Meik Wiking says that when asked, people name their happiest moments as experiences that happened while being with other people; EVEN INTROVERTS. He talks about how Danes tend to go deep in friendships rather than wide, but no matter the relationship, it matters.
This instinct towards community increases our happy hormones, and in a season when the long hours of the night can lead to the blues, a little burst of oxytocin matters a lot. The Danes are among the happiest in the world because they are mindful of how to spend their days and structure their community.
They do not leave happiness to chance. And they don’t leave relationships to chance either. They spend time tending those connections, and they structure their work life around having time for family and friends. Most Danes spend one evening a week in a shared meal, soaking in the community. These cozy Hygge gatherings are not extravagant or costly. The emphasis is the shared experience. The togetherness. Imagine dear ones gathered at a crowded table, food prepared with care and love, served on dishes that don’t need to match.
You may have some of these traditions in your life already, or maybe you’re missing these gatherings if commitments have caused you to let them go. When we get busy and it feels like something needs to give, understanding friends are often the first people we cancel on. It’s easy to get out of the habit of spending time together and tending relationships. Friendships feel like a luxury instead of a necessity contributing to our emotional well-being. In stressful times, under the darkness of winter, it can be easy for the fabric of those relationships to unravel without prioritizing those moments together. And the long season of winter, when the days of sunlight are short, we need that shot of good hormones most of all.
Danes expect families to spend time together. They expect parents to get out of the office before others. They expect people to have plans and commitments with friends and family beyond the work week.
Our culture celebrates hard work and often equates that with extraordinary hours at the expense of ourselves and our community. We admire people with a side hustle, and we have our kids in so many activities that we’re always on our way to the next event, grabbing fast food on the way ensuring we don’t miss out on any of our commitments.
There are times in winter when you can’t go fast. The snow slows the drive, opens our eyes to the glittering reflection on every surface, postpones events, cancels school, and sometimes shuts us in. But even in the cold, or especially in the cold, Hygge draws people together in some of the coldest countries. This season filled with cozy reading nooks, relaxing light, and nature-filled spaces has a twin intention of time with people. Hygge calls you to think about how you want to spend your time and who you want to spend it with.
We may not be able to change the entire work-life balance culture around us, but we can approach our time and focus on community with greater care. Perhaps we trade scrolling for a board game night. Or a cozy night in with Netflix becomes an invitation to catch up with an old friend. Perhaps we think about the people we want to see and make the effort to actually see them, even if it's just for a cup of tea in the house that isn’t perfectly clean. It means thinking about how you spend your days and inviting others to connect with you.
Spending time with people you enjoy may not seem very spiritual, because somewhere we might have decided that spiritual practices have to be hard and not enjoyable. But this is a cruel trick played by some church fathers who frankly aren't here anymore to tell us that laughing with friends isn’t spiritual or essential.
We are relational beings and so tending relationships is sacred work. In Wintering, Katherine May speaks of the way ants and bees model community for us. They are a communal organism, where they all play a part and do their job.
“In the eurosocial hive, just a single wintering would result in being driven out for the greater good. And it may well be true that a bee can’t recover. But a human can. We may drift through years in which we feel like a negative presence in the world, but we are capable of coming back again. We can return to friends and family not only restored but capable of bringing more than we brought before: greater wisdom, more compassion, an increased capacity to reach deep into our roots and know that we will find water. Usefulness is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don’t think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us. We keep pets for the pleasure of looking after them; we voluntarily feed extra mouths and scoop up excrement in little plastic bags, declaring it relaxing. We channel our adoration towards the most helpless citizens of all-babies and children-for reasons that have nothing to do with their future utility. We flourish on caring, on doling out love. The most helpless members of our families and communities are what stick us together. It’s how we thrive. Our winters are social glue” (May 208-209).
We flourish on caring. The web of relationships we weave matters. Think about the people you want to see; need to see. Make an appointment to meet them for coffee or tea and give yourself a much-needed, whole-hearted boost.
When I think of Jesus and some of his most relaxed moments, I think of his time with friends; the kind of friends who became his family. Bethany is often his home base, possibly the home of close friends like Mary and Lazarus. It’s the place where he seems to be most relaxed and open. It’s the place of laughter and tears, grief and fear. I imagine he could process and even vent a little with his truest friends. Imagine him recounting his stories of grief and gratitude, of near misses, or HR issues, or how James and John were debating for the best seat, or how Peter just doesn't get it but then Jesus smiles as he recalls how much “rocky’ tried. Bethany is the home base for his work, the seedbed for his final days of ministry and the comfort he needs to make it through. Bethany is so great, even the fig trees should be fruitful or he might curse them.
Jesus makes space for community in his life and his practice of faith. He shows us the importance of making and tending to, relationships a priority and not an afterthought.
Questions for Reflection:
Do you find you isolate more in winter?
What does community look like to you?
How can you create space for small moments of community?
What easy invitation can you extend to someone to add nourishment to your life?