SCANDAL: Jesus Accepts Lavish $30,000 Gift!!
The Bishop is Coming, The Bishop is Coming!
At a church I once worked for, our pastor had arranged for the bishop to come and lead worship for us on a Sunday. In the Methodist church, the bishop is the spiritual leader for all the Methodist churches in our conference and is the ultimate authority to who I and my senior pastor at the time reported to. But as important as that may seem, she’s just another person, right? Our bishop is human just like the rest of us. So when we knew she was to come and lead us in worship one Sunday, we simply welcomed her the way we would any guest coming to worship with us, right?
No, not hardly. We totally freaked out in the weeks ahead of her visit.
Furiously deep cleaning the church. We arranged for lots of creative lay involvement in worship, to ensure good attendance that Sunday. I buffered up my children’s sermon and I created a slide show of images to go along with our morning congregational prayer. We had a reception for the bishop during Sunday school. But, this was too important of an event to leave up to the randomness of a potluck breakfast. My pastor and I couldn’t risk having average church people bring some mishmash of food in. We didn’t just prop up a couple of folding tables and set the food on it the way we might ordinarily do for a casual breakfast at church. In fact, we usually had this sort of thing in our church kitchen, but we moved it to the newly finished ministry center, in this case. We had our Food and Fellowship Team really class up this event. Hors d’oervres: neatly trimmed tiny little sandwiches, cocktail nuts, carefully formed powdered sweets. All set out on doilies and silver platters and the like.
My pastor and I had crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s. We were ready for the bishop’s arrival. In fact, this was the first Sunday I wore my new clergy robe, which I had arranged to get in time for this bishop’s visit. The bishop arrived and the proverbial red carpet was rolled out. And we were ready for her to be wowed by our extravagant hospitality.
Thanks for Bringing My Brother Back from the Dead Gift
In our Scripture this morning, Mary and Martha play hosts to a very, very special guest. Their brother, Lazarus, had been dead and Jesus had resuscitated in the previous chapter. Now Lazarus wasn’t “mostly dead” as they say in the great move, The Princess Bride. He was good and dead. Four days gone. And Jesus brings him back to life. And Jesus, this man who had performed such a miraculous act and given Mary and Martha their beloved Lazarus back, was coming to their house for dinner.
I don’t know if they had something like Emily Post’s book of etiquette in those days. What do you give someone as a thank you for bringing your brother back from death? In the gift hierarchy — there’s simple thank you gifts, housewarming gifts, gifts for birthdays and holidays are a little more significant than those. Wedding gifts are even more substantial. Gifts between lovers on significant anniversaries are even bigger still. But way off the chart is a gift for bringing back a family member from the dead. That’s not even in the manual. And so Martha and especially, Mary, went to extremes to roll out the red carpet for Jesus. They wanted everything to be just so. To overwhelm him with a sense of gratitude through an extravagant dinner. And to do this, Mary breaks out some perfume. Now, I’m not sure today’s finest perfume designers would consider naming their fragrance “Nard,” but back in these days. Nard was THE name, the key ingredient in luxurious fragrance.
Now even this expensive sign of opulence wasn’t enough to communicate Mary’s gratitude. And so she uses this costliest of substances in the most humble of ways — to wash Jesus’s feet and does so with her hair. Their finest luxury is suitable only for the dirtiest and most ordinary rituals of sanitation.
Like my pastor and I had arranged at my previous church, they made every effort to roll out the red carpet, to make everything just so, to spare no expense, and treat their guest with the highest of honors. Everything had to be perfect.
An Unfortunate Turn
And that’s when both stories take an unfortunate turn. And the best laid plans spin out of the control of the anxious party planners.
Judas Iscariot, who seems to have a knack for being a nitwit, starts asking how much stuff costs. “Why, you could have sold this nard on eBay for $30 grand. And then given the money to the poor. Don’t you think people eating is more important that wiping someone’s feet with perfume?”
And it’s not hard to see where Judas is coming from. If I had some dignitary come and visit my church and I suggested to the congregation that we spend 10% of our annual budget on really rolling out the red carpet for them, I imagine there might be some naysayers. Think of all the ministries we could do with that money instead. And we could.
And Mary could have done some remarkable things with the proceeds from her Nard. She could have even given the money in honor of Jesus. I have to say, I kind of find myself agreeing with Judas here.
But Jesus says, no, leave Mary alone. What she’s done is a beautiful thing. The poor will always be here for you to give to — and you should — this is not as is sometimes interpreted a license not to give to the poor. Jesus is saying — they are always going to be around so that you can give to them. But today, Mary has chosen to give extravagantly to me, in a moment not of strategic calculation about how each penny could be maximized, but rather as a sign of her passion, an outpouring of her love and gratitude. It wasn’t given out of obligation, but out of pure joy.
Judas was talking about obligatory giving. Giving because you think you should. Guilt based giving.
I Get Woke on Church Flowers
As I read this passage, I couldn’t help but think about my attitude about church flowers. I have long thought, why do churches spend good money each week buying flowers when that money could go to missions. Or at least something more important than what seemed to me to be superficial — just decorations for the sanctuary. Those who know me have probably heard me grumble about this.
In our hyper-partisan era, it seems that everyone has strong opinions. We believe what we believe and we tend to judge other’s beliefs and actions based on what we hold to be true. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have much trouble doing that — having opinions about where others are wrong.
But sometimes when I read the gospels, I run across something Jesus says or does and think, hmm…I don’t know about that. That’s not the Jesus I have in my head. But see, if we are to truly be disciples of Jesus Christ — to be shaped by him, rather than the other way around, when we start to question what Jesus said or did and get to thinking that he got it kind of wrong there, we need to let that be a big red flag to us. Maybe there’s something in our worldview that needs to change.
And so I started to think about how church flowers really isn’t any different than what Mary does with her perfume. In fact, it’s no where near as extravagant — Mary’s perfume likely cost about a thousand times as much as the average church altar flower arrangements. At the church I serve, I’ve noticed how important the altar flowers seem to people. Early on in my pastorate at this church, I did not think to mention that the flowers were given by so and so for such and such reason. And people gently suggested to me that I might consider calling attention to this in my announcement time. At this church, I’ve heard that there has been some kind of long standing rule that flowers on the altar must be real flowers and not fake flowers because “God is a God of life and not of death.” And while I wouldn’t quarrel with the claim that God is a God of life, I had never made the connection between that theological truth and the flower arrangements. I think it was just God’s sense of humor that I, of all people, was sent to a church that seemed to take such pride in flowers.
Now, unlike Judas, I think this came from a part of me that is responsible for moral reasoning. But it is the parts of us that we are convinced are right and moral that are the hardest parts of us to change. And I simply can’t justify my moral outrage about altar flowers in light of what Jesus says here.
Yes, Jesus loves gifts to the poor. But Jesus is working on transforming all of us. And life is better when it is lived out of a sense of joy and not a sense of obligation. We need moments and experiences, when we spare no expense, as a sign of our joy to honor and celebrate important things in our lives. And most of all, what a beautiful thing, when we can extravagantly pour ourselves out for God from a true sense of joy and not obligation.
I’m convinced that when we give to others, when we serve others out of a sense of obligation, instead of joy, in some small way, resentment begins to build in our hearts towards the one we give to or serve. And as much as it might seem like the right and moral thing to do to give and serve even when we don’t want to, in the end, it separates us from others and it separates us from God. Much better to work on your own heart first. For when we give and serve out of a sense of joy, of truly wanting to, we don’t spare any expense. We don’t hold back. Because there isn’t some unconscious part of ourselves wanting to hold back. There’s no resentment pulling us in an opposite direction.
An Anxious Party
Now, Judas tried to be a party pooper, shaming the best laid plans of Mary and Martha. And as I mentioned, our carefully planned and extravagantly orchestrated welcome for the bishop at my previous church, also hit a road block.
You see, our excessive adornment and culinary spread, wasn’t done out of a pure sense of joy, a celebration of our episcopal leader coming to lead worship and witness our ministries. The truth be told, I think the effort was driven by anxiety to impress our boss.
And that anxiety seemed to emerge at an awkward moment. When we had all made it back into the ministry center for the bishop’s reception. My pastor, the bishop and I stood on one side talking. And the rest of the congregation stood on the other side of the room, talking to themselves. And that persisted for an uncomfortable period of time. Everyone was on pins and needles because our anxiety was contagious. No one dared to start to dine before the bishop had approached the spread herself. It felt like a middle school dance where everyone was afraid to make a move. Everything to that point had been an obligation. And so no one was putting their full self forward unreservedly.
It wasn’t until we started making fun of ourselves about this that the tension in the room started to fade and people began to relax. That bit of playfulness, making fun of our overly careful and cautious selves introduced joy into the room. And pretty quickly, everyone seemed to slip back into being themselves. We could celebrate, converse, and dine out of a sense of joy.
I’m convinced that living out of a deep sense of joy is part of God’s design for us to experience an abundant life, here and now. And so when Judas got up on his moral high horse, Jesus knocked him down. Living out of a sense of obligation is a miserable way to live life. And we know that misery loves company. When we act out of a sense of obligation, we tend to try to drag others along with us, we start to judge others who we think aren’t pulling their weight.
A Church of Joy
It’s no secret that the church has been in numerical decline for the past few decades. There’s been a cultural shift in our country and the church has lost its privileged place within society. But I want to suggest another way of seeing this.
Some theologians and pastors are actually celebrating the thinning of the church and see it as part of the Holy Spirit’s movement. Why? A generation ago, it was expected that you go to church. It was part of the social fabric. Certainly, many came to church out of a deep sense of joy — and those tend to be the people who have stuck around through the decades. But, in many ways, there was a cultural obligation to go to church. Even today, some yearn for that cultural obligation to attend church of yesteryear. But now, the cultural expectation that you should attend church has pretty much faded away. I hope you see where I’m going with this. Though the ranks of the church may be smaller, what a beautiful thing that in our present day, people come to church because they choose to come to church. More so than ever, it is done out of joy. And when the rest of the world is commenting on the church’s decline, I can’t help but wonder what the Holy Spirit can do with a group of folks who live, serve, give, and worship out of a sense of joy. A people who don’t hold back, because they really and truly want to be the body of Christ for the world. A church that will pour out the expensive perfume for one who comes in Christ’s name, a church that will roll out the red carpet, not just for important dignitaries, but for a broken person simply searching for a better way to be, a church that doesn’t take itself so seriously that it can’t splurge a little on flowers, and a church that is so in love with Jesus Christ that it assembles together not because of some nagging voice in the back of our head, but because we truly want to be the living, breathing body of Christ.
