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Sermon Text: Mark 14:3-9
An Extraordinary Offering to the Lord
Criticized by Some
Commended by Jesus
Remembered by Many
(Mark 14:3-9)
3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
“Can’t you find something better to spend your money on?” That’s what a Mount Olive member once told me was her attorney’s reaction to her decision to direct the sizable portion of her estate to the church. He said, “Don’t you want to use that money to do something nice for yourself. Or give it to your relatives, or some other charity? Can’t you find something better to spend your money on than a church?”
My friends, you realize, those are questions that are raised by more than just estate planning attorneys. They’re raised by people all around us. Whether they come right out and say it or not, they may well be thinking, “Why do you give your hard-earned money to the church? Isn’t there something else you’d rather spend it on?” In fact, maybe it’s not just the voices out there. Maybe it’s a voice in here saying, “Yeah, why do I give so much of my money to church? Certainly there are plenty of other things I could spend that money on. Why am I doing what I’m doing?”
Our scripture reading today gives us the perfect opportunity to reflect on what an offering to the Lord really means. What it means for us, what it means for God, what it means for others. And we’ll do that by turning our attention to the gospel of Mark, where we find the account of a woman who gave, what we might call:
An Extraordinary Offering to the Lord
We’ll see that it is an offering that was:
Criticized by Some
Commended by Jesus
Remembered by Many
Mark sets the scene for us. Mark writes, While Jesus was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. From the parallel account in John’s gospel, we learn that this woman was in fact, Mary the sister of Martha and the sister of Lazarus. All three of them this dinner at the home of Simon the leper. And what does Mary do? She brings out this alabaster jar of pure Nard. Alabaster was a translucent stone used to make containers that were beautiful in and of themselves. This jar was filled with a pint of pure nard, a fragrant oil made from the root of a plant that grows in the mountains of India, thousands of miles away. Nard was regarded as one of the most precious commodities in the ancient world. In fact, Mark tells us that this pint of nard was worth more than a year’s wages. In modern terms, what would that be? 30 or 50 or 80,000 dollars? That little bottle could have represented Mary’s entire life’s savings. She could have chosen to dole it out a little bit at a time, as needed. But she doesn’t do that. Instead, she breaks the jar open. In other words, she’s intent on using it all up at once. She pours it all on Jesus. She pours it on his head and his feet. John tells us she then wiped his feet with her hair. And the reaction she got from the people who were around Jesus? They criticized her.
Mark tells us, 4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. Think about that. They rebuked her harshly—not because she was so cheap toward God, but because she was so generous. They didn’t agree with how she was spending her money. They thought that at the very least, she could have sold the perfume and given the proceeds to the poor. Of course, John’s gospel reveals that some of the people who said these things had ulterior motives. John writes, Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. (John 12:6) The point is this, in our world, yes, in our own hearts, there are sometimes voices that say, “Why would you spend your money on that cause, or that project or that organization? That’s such a waste!
And yet, what some consider to be a waste of resources, our Savior sees in a little different light. What some regarded as a foolish action, Jesus said was a beautiful thing. Or to put it another way, Mary’s Extraordinary Offering to the Lord, yes, it was (I.) Criticized by some; but more important, it was (II.) Commended by Jesus. Listen to how Jesus comes to Mary’s defense. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “What Mary has done was good and right. It’s an expression of her faith. It’s an expression of her love and devotion toward me. She didn’t do it because she had to, but because she wanted to.” As Jesus puts it, “That’s a beautiful thing.”
Now, does that mean that Jesus doesn’t care about the poor? Absolutely not. Jesus still calls on Christians to be his hands and feet, caring for the less fortunate, providing for their physical needs. But notice what Jesus says, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them anytime you want. But you will not always have me.” In other words, when it comes to helping the poor, it’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and. Yes, continue to help the poor, but recognize that every once in a while, an opportunity comes along to do something really special, something that honors God in a unique way. Something that some might consider to be unnecessary, even wasteful. But something that Jesus would say is a beautiful thing. That’s what Jesus said about Mary’s gift of love. How did Jesus put it? Jesus said, “She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.”
What does that mean? It means that Mary had come to a conclusion that Jesus’ own disciples had not yet reached, namely, that Jesus would soon be dead. Mary had heard Jesus say that the Good Shepherd must lay down his life for his sheep. She’d maybe heard Jesus specifically say that he would be delivered into the hands of his enemies, be killed and on the third day rise again. Mary knew that the opposition to Jesus among the Jewish leaders was growing stronger every day. In fact, by this time, what had happened? John tells us, The chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him. (John 11:57)
Mary saw the writing on the wall. She sensed that the end was near for Jesus. So, what did she do? She acted proactively. Jesus said, she did what she could, while she could still do it. You might say, she broke open her piggy bank. She tapped into her retirement account. She knocked the top off the alabaster jar and anointed Jesus’ body with the fragrant oil in preparation for his burial. Isn’t that right? Mary didn’t know whether she would be around to assist with Jesus’ actual burial. In fact, she wasn’t. Those were actually two different Mary’s who brought spices to anoint Jesus’ body on Easter morning. But that’s okay, because Mary had already offered her gift to her Lord. She had already showed how much Jesus meant to her. She had already given to the Lord her very best. And understand, it’s not like Mary was looking to get some kind of return on her investment. She wasn’t thinking, “You know, if I give this extraordinary offering to Jesus, then he’ll love me even more. And my life will be so much better.” No, what was it that motivated Mary to make this extraordinary offering? It was Jesus’ sacrificial love for her first, that prompted her sacrificial love in return. Or to put it another way, because Mary knew that Jesus was about to do something beautiful for her, she wanted to something beautiful for him—while there still was time.
My friends, isn’t the same thing true for you and me and the offerings we bring to the Lord, while we still can? We don’t give in order to get. We give because we’ve been given. God has given us his very best. He’s given us his Son to die in a cross so that we can know that God is not holding our sins against us. He’s given us freedom from guilt and shame. He’s given us the freedom to live our lives in service to someone other than ourselves. He’s given us the freedom from the unending quest to acquire more stuff. In Christ, we get to see that everything we have is God’s. Every penny in our checking account is God’s money. He’s lending it to us so we can take care of our needs and the needs of others, both physical and spiritual. We do that when we buy groceries for our kids or put gas in the tank. We do that when we pay a doctor bill or send in our taxes. But God also wants us to use some of his money to provide for people’s spiritual needs, yes, their eternal needs. Whether that’s by paying pastors and teachers to bring the word of God to us and our children, or by supporting the work of training and sending missionaries to bring the word of God to others—these are all good and God pleasing ways to use the resources God is entrusted to us.
But every once in a while, God gives us an opportunity to do something special, to go above and beyond. To, in effect, do what Mary did, that is, break our jar and pour it all on Jesus. Not because he needs it, but because we want to show what he means to us. We want to honor him. In fact, we want to honor even the house where we worship him. Isn’t that what the God’s House, Our Home campaign is all about? Tell me, could we worship God in a tent? Absolutely. The children of Israel did it for 40 years in the wilderness. But, if you remember, when the time came to build a temple for the Lord, they didn’t build it out of plywood. They use the finest cedar and stone and lots and lots of gold. Why? Because they were not building a house for themselves, they were building a house for their God. And they wanted it to reflect how they felt about their God.
Isn’t the same thing true for you and me today? First and foremost, this is God’s house. Whatever we do to it, whatever improvements we propose to make to it, they should be an expression of what we think of our God. They should be an expression of our desire to honor God, yes, to worship him, just as Mary did with her jar of oil so that in the end, Jesus will say of us, what he said of Mary, namely, “She has done a beautiful thing for me.”
Oh, there is one more thing that Jesus said about Mary’s extraordinary offering. He said it will be…III. Remembered by Many. How did Jesus put it? “Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” It’s true, isn’t it? For 2000 years, this account of the woman who made this extraordinary gift to her Lord, a gift that was criticized by some, a gift that was commended by God—that gift, and the woman who gave it, has been recounted to generation after generation. Think about it. Mary’s gift of love is still impacting our hearts and our lives today. When we look at what she did, and more importantly, why she did it, and most importantly of all, who she did it for, how can that not affect how we think about our relationship to God and how we use our treasures to honor the One who is our greatest Treasure.
If you think about it, the story of Mary’s gift back in Jesus’ day had an impact on future generations. Isn’t the same thing true for the story of our gifts? When God’s people give gifts to the Lord, it impacts future generations. When the people who came before us at Mount Olive spent their hard-earned money to build this house of worship for the Lord, it became a blessing to us. We are the beneficiaries of their gifts. Their gifts have helped to create our spiritual home, the place where we come together to meet the Lord through his Word and sacraments, the place where we gather as a family of believers to offer to him our thanks and praise.
But now the roles have changed. Rather than us being the beneficiaries, we are the benefactors. What we do with our gifts today will have an impact on the generations to follow. You and I have a chance to help our children and grandchildren see and love this place for what it really is. This is God’s house and now their spiritual home. The generations to follow may not remember our names, but they will see what we have left for them, what we’ve refreshed for them, a place where they can offer to their savior God the same prayers and praise and thanks that we offer today in this place that we call…God’s House, Our Home. To Him be the glory. Amen.