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February 04, 2007
What About the Poor Always with Us?
Exodus 23: 1-11 / John 12: 1-8
February 4th, 2007
Let me distract your thoughts for a few moments from the Super Bowl.
In fact, let me direct our thoughts to an event much less conspicuous, but far more memorable. We just read together of one of the most remarkable moments in Jesus’ life. It was a moment He enjoyed. All four Gospels describe one such moment. Two of them tell us Jesus said, “wherever this Gospel is preached what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Of HER, not of HIM.
Luke’s Gospel tells us she was a woman of the street. She intruded at a respectable dinner uninvited. Jesus reclined with good people. In she came. She risked censure, perhaps even violent dismissal from the house. Call the cops. But, since Jesus did not pull back from her neither did anyone else. All watched as, apparently oblivious to all others there her tears flowed as they poured out mingling with the precious ointment on His feet. She tenderly massaged His feet.
We know something about Mary of Bethany of whom we read shortly ago. She was seemingly a good person in an upright family. She was a close friend of Jesus, along with her sister and brother. Mary was anointing Jesus for His burial. It was as though she was already sorrowing for Him. We’re also told something about the unnamed woman in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus had forgiven her in some unforgettable way. She was overwhelmed with gratitude to Jesus.
But of the woman mentioned in Matthew and Mark we know little. Jesus said of the woman in Matthew that she had done something beautiful for Him. How did this woman happen to have this ointment? Was she too a woman of the street like the one mentioned in Luke? Maybe she had bought the ointment to make herself smell good for her tragic career serving the lust of men. It was a business investment for her. She used that costly perfume, all of it, on Jesus’ feet instead.
When we tell the Gospel when do we get right to this part of the story? “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” one presentation of the Gospel rightly says. But when do we get to hear about this woman, or maybe these women who so loved Jesus? Do we let it be known that it is appropriate to feel great gratitude so that a lavish act of thanks is OK?
I sense that when we lead people to Jesus we don’t make it clear that lavish gratitude is appropriate—perhaps we are so reserved in our own gratitude that the inference is never made. But look at how we eulogize the magnanimity of Jesus—that He should stoop to our lowly estate and die for us. The rich gift need not only be for Him to give. Indeed—we need to give grandly or we may not give at all—and be left in the shadows of a poorly spent life.
Rather than recognizing the gratitude of the women the disciples responded oddly. Each woman’s deed is paired with a hostile response from Jesus’ disciples. Matthew tells us it was not just Judas but all the disciples that chided the woman. Such injudicious use of all that money. “This ointment might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor.” Jesus replied, “You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
What? Most unlike Jesus as we think of Him—the Man for others. Jesus sounds so callous. Did not Moses tell us in our Old Testament reading today—care for the poor!!
Did Jesus not say in the chapter just before this in Matthew’s gospel “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brethren you did it to me.” Not “as unto me,” but “to me.” This woman’s deed was as good as though she were visiting someone in prison, or feeding the hungry, or clothing the meagerly clad that were out in the cold.
Mother Teresa would say when she picked up the starving skeleton of a person, racked with disease, from the slums of Calcutta, that she was caring for Jesus. This was her way of pouring ointment on Jesus’ feet. And the world so admired her for this that she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
We admire, even if from a distance, great acts of mercy to the suffering. But, like the disciples of Jesus, we’re not sure what to do with the uninhibited generosity of these women to Jesus—or, for that matter, too magnanimous care of the poor—since poverty is everywhere and people might be taking advantage of us.
This is an odd section of the Gospels to apply. We are rightfully cautious about great expenditures on beautiful buildings to honor God. Instead of constructing a multi-million dollar cathedral with an expensive pipe organ such as Notre Dame Cathedral, let’s give the money to the poor. Was Jesus telling us that it’s maybe OK to spend a lot on a lavish place of worship even though the poor desperately need our care? When we put this side by side with the Parable of the Sheep and Goats are we to see that it is a both-and proposition and not an either-or proposition. Do both—worship grandly and give generously.
But maybe we are not to think of this dichotomy at all. Perhaps the lesson you and I are to hear very privately in our hearts is there is great value in maverick love for Jesus. Deeds of love for Jesus have two benefits. First, they are good for the soul of the one who pours out a lavish gift for the love of God. Second, deeds like this, because they are rare, are like good seed that may fall on fertile ground. Someone who needs to make a generous offering, a life-outpouring act, may hear and recognize this is what her heart longs to do.
Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon many years ago, “The Hope of the World in its Minorities.” He preached this in the large, affluent Riverside Church in New York City. In his flock were the movers and shakers of society. He said to them, “History has depended, not on the ninety-eight per cent, but on the two per cent [both for good and for ill]. Jesus has use for good seed, “though but a few kernels, which if carefully sown, might multiply itself.” The example of generous hearts, generous out of gratitude catches on with other hearts prepared.
I thought of what a tiny fraction of all the responses to Jesus is represented in these women’s response to Jesus.
Many people came to listen to Jesus. We do that too. He had wise lessons to teach. Many thronged to Him to get their diseases healed, to get their tummies filled with food—to get something from Him. We are not to think ill of these needy folk. After all we come to Jesus for healing and for God’s supply.
Then there were twelve men who left their homes and livelihoods to follow Him. And they did well. They provided the foundation for “The Church of the Apostles and Martyrs.”
But there is only this one woman whose deed Jesus said would be included in the Gospel story. Talk about a minority! One woman, or maybe it was three women who threw caution and modesty to the winds. They lavished on Jesus their affectionate devotion. And Jesus said this would be told wherever the Gospel would be heard.
Why did Jesus say this? Jesus teaches us, “Let your light so shine that others will see it and glorify God” Jesus says to all of us with our tiny candles. Few of us have great gifts. All of us have something. What this woman had was a jar of expensive ointment. But we still smell its fragrance.
Jesus tells us, “Remember this woman who anointed my feet and wiped them with her hair.” Let’s let her deed serve as good seed in us. What if this smaller than two-percent minority-deed were the leaven that leavened the dough of this congregation, and of each gathering of Christians that listens to the Gospel story?
Now it is happily sometimes the case when an idea grabs hold of people that great movements begin. Some of these movements do a lot of good. I think of the great good World Vision is doing in impoverished nations. Thank God for Bob Cook’s vision for digging wells in parched lands, supplying clean water to drink as well as for irrigation—and so much else.
I think of Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship that got going when he was in prison and recognized how badly people in prison are often treated. He has given hope to many people around the world in prison as his vision has spread. Dan Taylor’s wonderful work at Trinity Mission. How many folk in our town have been rescued from lives enslaved to drugs and alcohol through Dan’s disciplined vision. I am grateful for the good done by World Vision, and Trinity Mission, and Joe Micon who so long served LUM, and of Dana Hobson at Life Care Services, and the many other noble ventures that serve humanity in Jesus’ name.
But when you come right down to it these movements gather in few of all the millions of people who claim to be followers of Jesus. You and I may send periodic donations to this or that effort. We may even volunteer some time to serve with LUM or other worthy ventures. But we live our lives as individuals much more than we live them as participants in great movements.
I wonder if Jesus calls our attention to the lavish, solitary act of this woman in order to grasp the imagination and the heart of particular people who will be infected with her kind of devotion in the small place where they live. Thus they will turn small opportunities into major moments of personal love for Jesus.
The things we do already, the Vacation Bible School, the Sunday School, the choir, the work of deacons and elders, the maintenance of our facilities, the outreach to the jail and to the retirement communities and nursing homes come to life when this person or that is aflame with the love of Christ. What a difference there is between going through the motions and doing one’s task filled with the love of Christ.
Ponder this with me. Do you see a place where your own passion for Jesus is needed? What costly ointment do we have to pour on Jesus’ feet?
Today as we take the elements of Jesus’ body, the bread and the wine, we remember how lavish was His gift to you and me. Well might we sing with Isaac Watts, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” But we’re not asked to measure our response by some standard of large or small. Let that other song move us: “Take my like and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee.” And then find our way to do it.
I remember that Jesus did not tell His disciples or anyone else that they should do as she did. It has to come from within us. He did tell us to love one another as He loved, but not to love Him in this way. But maybe if we recognize the love of Jesus we will find a way to love Him lavishly.
Lord grant us so to love you that the impulse that moved the women that anointed Jesus feet will find a place in our hearts. Amen.
Pastor Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at February 4, 2007 09:28 AM