“Practicality Is Overrated”

John 12:1-8

During an episode of the television series M*A*S*H, Major Frank Burns, a hypocritical fuss-budget if there ever was one, was preoccupied with penny pinching. This prompted his nemesis Hawkeye Pierce to tell him, “Frank, you can’t bring the war in under budget.”

Sometimes I’m tempted to say something similar to church folks who are obsessed with pinching pennies. The truth is that we will never bring the Kingdom in under budget. A certain amount of frugality is necessary to responsible stewardship. We are not free to waste God’s money. At the same time we are not free to be stingy with God’s money, especially as we budget for mission and ministries of compassion.

This is also true of the church building. It belongs to God, and we must be good stewards of it. But it is God’s building not ours, meant to be used for ministry, mission, evangelism, and outreach. A couple of stories from my past: The treasurer of one of my former churches was a pit-bull when it came to guarding the church’s money and facilities. We were having some painting done on the church exterior. She got upset because we let the painters go inside to use the bathroom. She thought they should use the one at the gas station across the street.

One time our volunteer youth leader moved the thermostat up so that the building would be warm for the youth fellowship’s evening activities. Guess who came along and turned the heat back down? She thought she was being frugal when in fact she was being stingy. Her obsession with protecting the church’s purse and property was a severe hindrance to its ministry, not to mention its reputation in the community.

There must have been something in the makeup of that congregation that made some of its members push practicality and frugality to absurd lengths. The church had a manse. While they were between pastors they rented it out. Not long after I moved there and began living in the manse one of the elders was moaning and groaning to another of the elders about how much income the church was losing by having the pastor live in the manse. The church had been searching for a pastor for a long time, but instead of celebrating the fact they now had one at least one elder was unhappy about how much having one cost.

In today’s text Jesus was having dinner with his close friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This dinner was in celebration of Lazarus having been raised from the dead by Jesus. Dinner was moving along nicely. And then Mary did something that raised some eyebrows.

What did she do? She took a pound of expensive perfume, anointed Jesus’ feet with it, and then wiped his feet with her hair. This was scandalous. First of all a proper lady of that time never let her hair down. Only prostitutes did so. Secondly the perfume she poured over Jesus’ feet was worth a year of an average working man’s wages. Her behavior was extravagant to say the least.

Judas was offended. He said that the perfume should have been sold and the money given to the poor. That would have been a very practical act of compassion. But Judas had a hidden agenda that had nothing to do with ministry to the poor and everything to do with his own greed. He was the keeper of the disciples’ treasury. It was bad enough that he was such a tightwad, but even worse that he was embezzling their funds.

Jesus played it straight. He said nothing about Judas’ embezzlement. Instead he took the high road and dealt with Judas’ opinion about what to do with the perfume. He told Judas to leave Mary alone. Instead of saving the perfume for his burial she had anointed his feet with it while he was still living. She was ministering to the one who had ministered so often to her and her family. Maybe she was showing Jesus her thanksgiving for raising Lazarus. Whatever, she was serving - and worshipping - Jesus with the very best of who she was and what she had.

And then Jesus said something that far too many Christians have misinterpreted. Using The Message, “You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have me.” Christians over the centuries have used these words to justify their lack of compassion toward the needy. Their reasoning goes something like this: “Jesus said that the poor will be with us always. Why address it; it isn’t going away? Let’s be practical and not waste our time, energy and resources on a problem that will never end.”

Let’s take a moment here to be honest with ourselves. Is there not always in the back of our minds the thought that the more we give away the less we have for ourselves? Refusing to address poverty because it will always be with us is simply an excuse we use to justify spending more on ourselves. Not only is that morally wrong, it is biblically incorrect. Donald Kraybill addressed this issue in his book The Upside Down Kingdom. Wrote he:

“In light of his continual plea on behalf of the poor, it’s hardly conceivable that Jesus now contradicts himself by telling us to neglect the poor who, after all, will always be around and there’s not much we can do about it. Such a sarcastic sense of fatalism flies in the face of everything he says about caring for the poor. He’s likely suggesting that as long as greed and ambition govern the lives of people, there will always be [the] poor. His observation of this fact does not justify its perpetuation. Rather than excusing us from social obligation, Jesus is reminding us that alleviation of poverty is a never-ending struggle.”

But even that reality misses the main point of the text. Mary had options. She could have kept the perfume for herself. How many times had she and Martha fed Jesus? She could have rationalized her selfishness by telling herself that those meals were more than enough of a thank you for saving her brother. However, nowhere in the text is there even a hint that she was so tempted.

She could have done what she had originally planned to do: use the perfume to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. That would have been a lavish gift. That would have been an amazing act of love and devotion. But for her that wasn’t enough. It would have been too little too late.

She needed to display her love for Jesus right then and there. She needed to serve – and worship - him generously, lavishly, and extravagantly. This need pushed her to act in ways that flaunted the prim and proper expectations of the women of her day, ways that invited criticism and censure. This need pushed her to give her Lord an unimaginably lavish gift, one that would be interpreted by many as ridiculously impractical and wasteful.

I’m pretty sure that others were thinking the things that Judas blurted out. Somewhere in the back of their minds there was probably an Aramaic version of a quote from N. T. Wright: “… whenever people worship Jesus with everything they’ve got, there’s always someone in the background muttering that there’s no such thing as a free jar of ointment.”

That jar of perfume that Mary poured over the feet of Jesus was a gift freely given. It was not free. It cost a lot of money, a whole lot of money. It cost Mary her dignity and respectability. More than likely it damaged her reputation and made her the subject of catty gossip for the rest of her life. But just like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal she didn’t give a rip what Judas, the other disciples, her “oh-so-properly-dutiful” sister, or the neighbors thought. She wanted to love Jesus with the very best of who she was and what she had. So that’s what she did.

I try to imagine how some of the other churches I’ve served would have reacted to an invitation to be a host church for the week-long Warm Nights ministry we so recently concluded. At least one of them would have jumped in with both feet, assuming that the necessary funds would have been providentially provided. A couple of them would have run the other way screaming because it would have cost too much, been highly inconvenient, and required too many volunteers.

And there would have been those deeper, darker objections: they’ll mess up or smell up the building; what if they steal or damage our precious stuff; the neighbors will complain about us allowing such people in the neighborhood; we might lose some members. And even some deeper, darker thoughts: it’s not our responsibility to take care of them, that’s why they have families; most of them choose to be homeless, let ‘em deal with the consequences. There would even have been some scripture quoted out of context: if they don’t work, they don’t eat; Jesus said that the poor would be with us always: not to mention that old unbiblical saw that so many folks believe comes from the Bible: the Lord helps those who help themselves.

Warm Nights is costly; it does require time, energy, and money; there is wear and tear on the building; there are times when we are inconvenienced. It is impractical. But in the end it is a wonderful way to serve and worship the Lord who will one day say to us, “I was hungry and you fed me.” From his perspective practicality really is overrated. Amen.