Pastor Dave Ginter
Money, The Church, And Changing The World 02/09/2010
Read John 12 1Six days before the Passover ceremonies began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. 2A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with him. 3Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with fragrance. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples—the one who would betray him—said, 5“That perfume was worth a small fortune. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” 6Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief who was in charge of the disciples’ funds, and he often took some for his own use. 7Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did it in preparation for my burial. 8You will always have the poor among you, but I will not be here with you much longer.” We are told that Jesus arrived at Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus. Automatically we have assumed this was Lazarus’ home. Mary is present and Martha is doing what we always find Martha doing – she is serving! But if you examine the parallel passages in Mark 14 and Matthew 26 we find out the home belongs to Simon the former Leper whom Jesus healed. He is throwing the party for Jesus and apparently the Lazarus gang has all been invited. In the midst of the festivities, Mary takes a pint of Nard, a terribly expensive perfume made from the oil of a root, and imported from Southern Arabia or perhaps India. The pint contained about 12 ounces. Now most normal flasks would hold about 1 ounce. Mary demonstrates a costly act of unexpected love through her extravagant gift. The perfume was worth about $65 (US). But it represented at least 1 years wage for the common laborer in Jesus’ day. It was probably an heirloom, handed down from one generation to the next. It was Mary’s security, her retirement fund. That’s how much this act of love cost her! We are told it was sealed in an alabaster jar, the favored container for perfume. Once the seal was broken, and the perfume spilled out the contents could be used with their full freshness only once. All of this adds to our understanding of the costliness of Mary’s demonstration of love on behalf of her Lord and Master. Mary further embarrasses herself by her hair, not just to those seated, but most especially to her favored Rabbi. Again, in Middle Eastern culture even today, much less back then, a woman’s hair was considered sensuous and private. She did not go around without her hair completely veiled…unless she was drumming up business. I experienced this for myself while living in Cairo, Egypt. As I was driving home one Sunday evening and slowed down to cross that universal car destroyer, the “speed bump” I couldn’t help but notice a veiled young Muslim woman standing fairly far into the road. I would have normally paid no attention to her (since in a Muslim Country a man is expected to avert his gaze from a woman). But as I was about to pass her, she stooped over, looked into my window and gave me one of the most lecherous smiles I have ever seen on a woman. She smiled like a Muslim version of a Playboy Bunny. I was shocked! Now I had seen lots of prostitutes when I was working in Chicago. Their business district began 2 blocks from my home there. But I had never encountered anything like this in Egypt. I thought to myself, “Maybe your just overreacting, Dave”. So, feeling somewhat guilty, and looking as innocent as I could, I circled the block and came back for a second glance…BIG mistake! The woman, sensing she had a “live one” here revealed her true intentions to me. How did she do that? As I drove past her the second time, she lowered her veil and shook her hair out at me. I, sensing the danger, put the pedal to the metal, got home and locked my door. We have a saying in English that has come down to us from this cultural taboo. If you want to be less rigid or formal you “Let your hair down”. Well Mary really let hers down. She not only anointed Jesus’ head but his feet. Then she proceeded to wipe them with her hair, an amazing action of self-revelation. I’m certain it demonstrated to Jesus how much she trusted him. She knew he would not read anything dirty or smutty into her actions. She was confident he would understand and give the correct meaning to her selfless action of love – LOVE, not sexual innuendos. She was completely comfortable with Him and apparently, He with her. But others were not so comfortable. I’m sure a few righteously incensed eyebrows were raised. Interestingly, however, it wasn’t those incensed morals the crowd decided to pick apart. It was the waste that bothered them. John tells us specifically about Judas’ anger at this wasted finance, not because Judas particularly cared for the poor but because he regularly pilfered the cash box, a fact that makes his later betrayal doubly painful. But Mark and Matthew let us in on a dirty little secret: it wasn’t just Judas who was angry, it was all the disciples. Matthew 26:8 tells us, “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.’” If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice how he acts when he loses money – Jewish Proverb. Remember the conditions of first century Palestine. Poverty was rampant, unemployment high. These were middle class people whose limited means made frugality a way of life. That they were shocked is easy to understand. But their failure to see within this act of love anything but waste showed their inability to use any measurements but those of the marketplace. As George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “It is true that the world is governed to a considerable extent by the considerations that occur to stockbrokers in the first five minutes.” Mary’s actions, at any rate, are soundly condemned on the basis of considerations that occurred to the disciples within the first five minutes! Jesus’ disciples may not have been stockbrokers, but they weighed life on a broker’s scale – MONEY! They were blinded to issues where the last word was not the clink of a coin. Many condemn the church for asking you to contribute to its coffers systematically and sacrificially. It is rumored that we churches have ways of making you pay! I heard about a strong man who traveled with a circus. One of his most impressive stunts was to take an orange and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. Then he would offer one thousand dollars to anyone who could manage to squeeze as much as one additional drop from it. He went from city to city all over the world making his offer, but no one was able to win the one thousand dollars from him. Then one day he came to my town and made his demonstration of juice-squeezing prowess and his challenge. A wonderfully, wizened, financial type man came forward and said he’d like to take a try at the challenge. He didn’t appear exceptionally strong. But he took the crushed orange and proceeded to squeeze six more drops of juice from it. The strong man was amazed. He could hardly believe his eyes. He asked how he was possibly able to do this. The man shrugged and said, “Oh, I’m the Treasurer down at Pastor Dave’s Church and we do this all the time.” MONEY! Workers earn it, spendthrifts burn it, bankers lend it, people spend it, forgers fake it, taxes take it, dying leaves it, heirs receive it, thrifty save it, misers crave it, robbers seize it, rich increase it, gamblers lose it... I could use it. -- Richard Armour “This perfume could have been sold at a high price.” they said. They were shocked. They couldn’t believe their eyes... or their noses! This could have been cashed. Instead of wasting it on something dreamy and unreal, it could have been substantial and beneficial. After all, the real world is made up of gold, silver, pesos, quetzals, pounds, deutche marks, dollars, investments, real estate and bonds. This could have meant big bucks instead of blowing it in a vain gesture of devotion, instead of substantially wasting it on that which pays no dividends. So reasons the marketplace. Whatever does not produce a profit when put on the balance is worthless. Don’t waste your time on it! And that, friends, is how much of the world views the church. Many of these well-meaning people are eager to reform the world and improve its standard of living. To them the church seems an unnecessary nuisance, an irritating irrelevance. But to them, we distract people from what really needs to be done. They think we incite the poor to ignore their poverty and waste their time upon things that don’t really matter one way or another. Remember what Marx wrote” “Religion”, he said, “is the opium of the poor...To suppress religion, which provides an illusory happiness is to establish the claims of real happiness.” Well, unfortunately, Marx and other short-sighted critics of the church have not done their homework. It has been the followers of Christ who have often been first to bring relief and development to certain poverty smitten areas the rest of the world ignored. On several continents, hospitals exist because Christ’s followers started them. Many of the great learning centers of the world for higher education were founded by churches. Thousands of smaller but no less significant educational centers have been initiated by mission agencies to alleviate the poverty of the mind. Mother Theresa’s legacy of work among India’s orphans has now spread world-wide. None of the charitable work I’ve just mentioned produces much by way of profit. To the marketplace mentality, most of these organizations would be considered a poor risk. Their success at alleviating the devastation of poverty and disease? Minimal. Mother Theresa, herself was once criticized by a visiting cynic who observed, “Why Mother, you’re not even beginning to meet the needs of a fraction of all the orphans in Calcutta”, to which Mother Theresa made this insightful comment: “I am not called to be the Messiah (Messiah means the anointed One, like what Mary did to Jesus, remember?).” Her inference was clear. She was responsible to do only that which she could. She would not be immobilized into inaction due to the extent of a need she was unable, unqualified and not responsible to meet. Examine Jesus response to Mary’s extravagant action and discover support for Mother Theresa’s statement. In Mark 14:7-8 Jesus says to her detractors, “The poor you will always have with you” (a veiled reference to Deuteronomy 15:11 which urges generosity to the poor) “and you can help them anytime you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could.” Jesus was not recommending as some have suggested he was, that we cease all efforts on behalf of the poor. Indeed, much of his teaching would need to be thrown away were we to adopt such a crass interpretation of our Lord’s words. Rather, note his emphasis on the phrase, “She did what she could.” Those five little words contain more power than all the arsenals of the world’s military might combined. You see, doing what we can is frequently the last thing we want to do. As a general rule, it is unexciting and unspectacular. Often it goes unnoticed. How much more romantic to think of ourselves accomplishing greater things, daydreaming of tremendous feats worthy of tumultuous praise, the world bowing at our feet in gratitude and awe while we humbly sit back and say something inane like, “Oh, it was really nothing ...really.” Or, we sigh and think of all the causes we would like to help if we had just an extra $50,000, that’s all it would take. And we ignore giving the 500 pennies we do have. Many people would prefer to preach like some world renown pastor, something few of us can do, but refuse to teach a Sunday school class, something most of us can do. She did what she could. And that’s what God asks of us. I am asking you to make this commitment with me this right now: I cannot do everything…but I will do what I can. Commentsbritt 02/09/2010 11:13
That was AWESOME!!! brian 02/17/2010 08:07
Nice blog post pastor dave, I hadn't taken good heed of that point of the scripture before. God bless Your comment will be posted after it is approved. Leave a Reply | AuthorPastor Dave Ginter. When commenting, please add your Country of Origin. Thanks. CategoriesArchivesDecember 2010 |
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