The Wasted Ointment
Sermon
An Idle Tale Becomes Good News
Messages On Lent And Easter Themes
One of Abraham Lincoln's most famous speeches was his "House Divided" speech in which he declared that the nation could not continue forever half slave and half free. Because of that speech, he was called a radical and an agitator and other uncomplimentary names. Even his friends thought he had gone too far. But he said: "If I had to draw a pen across my record and erase my whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased."1
If that choice were yours in regard to the record of your life, what would you leave to the world unerased? There may be plenty you would like to blot out, but what, above all else, would you want to leave unerased?
Jesus made a prediction once about something one person did that would make her immortal in history. She herself had no idea she was acting for posterity. It was not to be remembered that she did what she did. She had other motives than that. But Jesus said about her deed, "Truly, I say to you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her" (Matthew 26:13).
Jesus' own disciples, however, did not value her deed that highly. In fact, it seemed to them a foolish, wasteful act. In an extravagant expression of affection, this woman had come bursting into the home of Simon of Bethany where Jesus and his disciples were guests at a meal, and had poured an alabaster jar of expensive ointment on Jesus' head (the Gospels of Luke and John say she anointed Jesus' feet). The cost of the ointment represented nearly a year's wages for the average laborer. Transferred back into money, the ointment could have put bread in the mouths of hungry children and clothes on their backs. But it couldn't now; it was gone, poured out in an instant, never to be recovered again. The disciples were indignant at such waste.
But Jesus reacted differently. He reproved his disciples for their criticism of the woman. He saw beauty in her act, and predicted that her extravagant deed of love would be known in all ages and all places where the gospel was proclaimed.
If you had been there, which side would you have taken on this? Would you have commended or condemned the woman? Would you, like the disciples, have called this ointment "wasted" ointment?
An Expression Of Self-Forgetful Love
It was a deed of beauty in Jesus' eyes, because it was an expression of self-forgetful love. There was nothing calculating about this act. The woman had nothing to gain by it. Indeed, she was not interested in gaining by it. She had already been on the gaining side (see Luke 7:47). Her life had been lifted to a new plane, filled with new meaning and purpose, infused with a new joy. And Jesus was responsible for this. She had gained enough! Now she wanted to give something. She wanted to express in a visible and tangible way the gratitude she felt. So forgetting herself and the things she might have secured with that expensive ointment, she poured it all out in a burst of affection and gratitude. And Jesus did not miss the beauty of what she did.
Do you know O. Henry's beautiful story about a young couple just getting started in their lives together? It is Christmas time and they have no money to buy gifts for each other. The young wife's most precious possession is her long, beautiful hair, and on a sudden impulse on Christmas Eve, she sells her hair for $20 to get money for a present for her husband. His most treasured possession is a lovely watch, and she finds a splendid platinum fob chain and purchases it as his gift. In the meantime, he too is shopping. He knows she has often looked longingly at some expensive combs in a store window. They are pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims, just the shade to wear in her beautiful hair. He buys them as her Christmas gift, but to get the money for the purchase, he has to sell his cherished watch. Each then is unable to use the gift the other gives, but it doesn't matter, for they know the joy of self-forgetful love.2
So often what we do is calculated to benefit us in some way. We place such a high value on our own welfare, our own interests, our own desires, and the result is one calculated act after another. There is little beauty in that kind of living; it has no claim to commendation. But every now and then some person pours out the "alabaster jar" of self in the interests of another, and his or her life takes on a beauty it has not shown before.
That's why Jesus commended this woman! She was acting in love, uninterested in gain for herself. She was pouring out, not just expensive ointment, but selfless devotion and gratitude as well.
A Defiance Of The Market Mind
The thing that bothered the disciples about this was that they saw no value in it. The woman was giving expression to her feelings, but what good could come from that? What kind of return could be expected from poured-out ointment? It just didn't pay to waste expensive products like that.
But their trouble was that they were possessed by the "market mind." The market mind is concerned about dollars and cents. It is interested in sales and profits. It has no tolerance for waste. Everything must pay. If it doesn't, it must be stopped.
The market mind has its place. Its importance must not be discounted. Commerce would not function without it. It is due the credit for numerous good things in our society. But Jesus, in his rebuke of the market mind on this occasion, was saying that there are times when the principle of the marketplace just does not apply.
This is true, for one thing, because we are not mere flesh and blood, but mind and spirit, too. So it is not enough to be concerned only about the most obvious needs. One can be well-fed and yet be starving. One can be warmly clothed and still be cold. One can be surrounded by people and yet feel lonely. One can have everything money can buy and still be miserably impoverished so far as meaning and purpose and joy are concerned.
In other words, it is essential to look for a different kind of dividend than the market mind ordinarily expects. And sometimes what appear to be useless and even wasteful actions can contribute to the creating of that dividend.
Another reason why the principle of the marketplace does not always apply is that it is too easy to be short-sighted. Then one thinks something has no value if it does not immediately produce the effects one desires. In addition to the possibility that one may be looking for the wrong kind of effects, one may also be in too big a hurry to see them.
On the surface, for instance, it may seem wasteful to invest money in a church building, and worship may seem irrelevant in the face of the desperate cries of a needy world. But who can measure the influence of that building and what takes place inside it and because of it? Who knows how much meaning is given, how much purpose is created, how much comfort is imparted, how much courage is inspired, how much generosity is motivated, how much love is expressed because of what takes place there?
The market mind has its place, but that wasted ointment defies its tendency to pervade every area of society and every aspect of life.
A Testimony To Arrested Opportunity
It is also a testimony to arrested opportunity. Some might call it a reminder of the permanence of poverty. "You always have the poor with you," Jesus said (Matthew 26:11). The disciples were more than a bit impertinent to be reminding him of the poor. He knew about them, and he never intended that anything he said should make their needs seem less pressing to others. In one of his parables, he even made the way one responded to the needs of others the basis of final judgment (Matthew 25:31-46).
But when he said, "You always have the poor with you," it was not the perpetuity of poverty that was uppermost in his mind. It was his own brief remaining time with his disciples. "You will not always have me," he said (Matthew 26:11). Here they were, mouthing a pious platitude when they could have been doing something to lighten the heavy load he was bearing. Soon the opportunity to do that would be gone, and it would not come again. But there was one person who did not let this opportunity slip by, and that wasted ointment is witness to that fact.
Saturday Review once carried a cartoon showing a knight in full armor riding his horse toward the desert and past a sign that read, "Leaving populated area ... Last chance to do a chivalrous act."3 This was perhaps this woman's last chance to shower Jesus with love and gratitude, and she was not letting that chance glide by. She was arresting it, stopping it.
The only way to arrest an opportunity is to seize it. If it is not touched, it passes on; if it is not used, it fades away, and what it offered is lost.
Van Wyck Brooks wrote once, "My political creed is based on the assumption that everybody ought to be given a chance. My literary creed is based on the assumption that few will ever take the chance."4 This woman's wasted ointment testifies to the fact that she took the chance; she showed her love and gratitude for the One who had so immeasurably enriched her life.
A Call To Devoted Action
When you look at her deed in a rational way, it is not too impressive. Its physical effects could not have lasted very long. But it meant something to Jesus that could not be explained in terms alone of the outward actions and elements involved in it.
He was living at that time in the shadow of the cross. He was already feeling the sting of his rejection by the world. He knew his disciples well enough to know that even they, his closest friends, would desert him when the going got toughest. Perhaps what he needed then more than anything else was the fellowship of those who loved him. So he was strengthened by this woman's extravagant and unrestrained expression of affection and gratitude. Not much could be done for him, but what she could do, she did, and Jesus was pleased. He said, "She has done what she could" (Mark 14:8).
Christ is always pleased when one does what one can. For many of us, that is an unexciting and unspectacular thing to do. We'd like to do something else. Something else would be so much more interesting and useful. But that poured out ointment should encourage us to do what we can instead of complaining of how little we can do or waiting for an opportunity to do something big and significant.
The world owes most, not to those who sought to do great things, but to those who were faithful in little things. The truly useful people are the ones who devote themselves to doing what they can even when it is not what they would like to be doing.
Waste has been characteristic of modern American society. Yet we, too, think it strange that a person should become immortal in history for an act of wastefulness. But this was only because Jesus saw the true nature and value of her deed and called it a thing of beauty. He knew her deed was a defiance of the market mind that thinks primarily in terms of dollars and cents. He knew she was arresting an opportunity that would not be hers again, and was doing the little she could do to ease his own hurt and sorrow. And he saw that she was doing it out of gratitude and self-forgetful love.
It is not for waste that we should desire to be remembered or to receive Christ's commendation. But it may be that if the kind of outlook and desire that motivated that woman long ago could possess us, we too might have the thrilling experience of hearing Christ say of us that we have "done a beautiful thing to (him)" (Matthew 26:10 RSV).
____________
1. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925, 1926), Vol. II, p. 106.
2. O. Henry, "The Gift of the Magi," in Great Short Stories (New York: Award Books, Inc., n.d.), pp. 14-18.
3. Saturday Review, October 9, 1971, p. 27.
4. Van Wyck Brooks, From a Writer's Notebook (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1958), p. 129.
If that choice were yours in regard to the record of your life, what would you leave to the world unerased? There may be plenty you would like to blot out, but what, above all else, would you want to leave unerased?
Jesus made a prediction once about something one person did that would make her immortal in history. She herself had no idea she was acting for posterity. It was not to be remembered that she did what she did. She had other motives than that. But Jesus said about her deed, "Truly, I say to you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her" (Matthew 26:13).
Jesus' own disciples, however, did not value her deed that highly. In fact, it seemed to them a foolish, wasteful act. In an extravagant expression of affection, this woman had come bursting into the home of Simon of Bethany where Jesus and his disciples were guests at a meal, and had poured an alabaster jar of expensive ointment on Jesus' head (the Gospels of Luke and John say she anointed Jesus' feet). The cost of the ointment represented nearly a year's wages for the average laborer. Transferred back into money, the ointment could have put bread in the mouths of hungry children and clothes on their backs. But it couldn't now; it was gone, poured out in an instant, never to be recovered again. The disciples were indignant at such waste.
But Jesus reacted differently. He reproved his disciples for their criticism of the woman. He saw beauty in her act, and predicted that her extravagant deed of love would be known in all ages and all places where the gospel was proclaimed.
If you had been there, which side would you have taken on this? Would you have commended or condemned the woman? Would you, like the disciples, have called this ointment "wasted" ointment?
An Expression Of Self-Forgetful Love
It was a deed of beauty in Jesus' eyes, because it was an expression of self-forgetful love. There was nothing calculating about this act. The woman had nothing to gain by it. Indeed, she was not interested in gaining by it. She had already been on the gaining side (see Luke 7:47). Her life had been lifted to a new plane, filled with new meaning and purpose, infused with a new joy. And Jesus was responsible for this. She had gained enough! Now she wanted to give something. She wanted to express in a visible and tangible way the gratitude she felt. So forgetting herself and the things she might have secured with that expensive ointment, she poured it all out in a burst of affection and gratitude. And Jesus did not miss the beauty of what she did.
Do you know O. Henry's beautiful story about a young couple just getting started in their lives together? It is Christmas time and they have no money to buy gifts for each other. The young wife's most precious possession is her long, beautiful hair, and on a sudden impulse on Christmas Eve, she sells her hair for $20 to get money for a present for her husband. His most treasured possession is a lovely watch, and she finds a splendid platinum fob chain and purchases it as his gift. In the meantime, he too is shopping. He knows she has often looked longingly at some expensive combs in a store window. They are pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims, just the shade to wear in her beautiful hair. He buys them as her Christmas gift, but to get the money for the purchase, he has to sell his cherished watch. Each then is unable to use the gift the other gives, but it doesn't matter, for they know the joy of self-forgetful love.2
So often what we do is calculated to benefit us in some way. We place such a high value on our own welfare, our own interests, our own desires, and the result is one calculated act after another. There is little beauty in that kind of living; it has no claim to commendation. But every now and then some person pours out the "alabaster jar" of self in the interests of another, and his or her life takes on a beauty it has not shown before.
That's why Jesus commended this woman! She was acting in love, uninterested in gain for herself. She was pouring out, not just expensive ointment, but selfless devotion and gratitude as well.
A Defiance Of The Market Mind
The thing that bothered the disciples about this was that they saw no value in it. The woman was giving expression to her feelings, but what good could come from that? What kind of return could be expected from poured-out ointment? It just didn't pay to waste expensive products like that.
But their trouble was that they were possessed by the "market mind." The market mind is concerned about dollars and cents. It is interested in sales and profits. It has no tolerance for waste. Everything must pay. If it doesn't, it must be stopped.
The market mind has its place. Its importance must not be discounted. Commerce would not function without it. It is due the credit for numerous good things in our society. But Jesus, in his rebuke of the market mind on this occasion, was saying that there are times when the principle of the marketplace just does not apply.
This is true, for one thing, because we are not mere flesh and blood, but mind and spirit, too. So it is not enough to be concerned only about the most obvious needs. One can be well-fed and yet be starving. One can be warmly clothed and still be cold. One can be surrounded by people and yet feel lonely. One can have everything money can buy and still be miserably impoverished so far as meaning and purpose and joy are concerned.
In other words, it is essential to look for a different kind of dividend than the market mind ordinarily expects. And sometimes what appear to be useless and even wasteful actions can contribute to the creating of that dividend.
Another reason why the principle of the marketplace does not always apply is that it is too easy to be short-sighted. Then one thinks something has no value if it does not immediately produce the effects one desires. In addition to the possibility that one may be looking for the wrong kind of effects, one may also be in too big a hurry to see them.
On the surface, for instance, it may seem wasteful to invest money in a church building, and worship may seem irrelevant in the face of the desperate cries of a needy world. But who can measure the influence of that building and what takes place inside it and because of it? Who knows how much meaning is given, how much purpose is created, how much comfort is imparted, how much courage is inspired, how much generosity is motivated, how much love is expressed because of what takes place there?
The market mind has its place, but that wasted ointment defies its tendency to pervade every area of society and every aspect of life.
A Testimony To Arrested Opportunity
It is also a testimony to arrested opportunity. Some might call it a reminder of the permanence of poverty. "You always have the poor with you," Jesus said (Matthew 26:11). The disciples were more than a bit impertinent to be reminding him of the poor. He knew about them, and he never intended that anything he said should make their needs seem less pressing to others. In one of his parables, he even made the way one responded to the needs of others the basis of final judgment (Matthew 25:31-46).
But when he said, "You always have the poor with you," it was not the perpetuity of poverty that was uppermost in his mind. It was his own brief remaining time with his disciples. "You will not always have me," he said (Matthew 26:11). Here they were, mouthing a pious platitude when they could have been doing something to lighten the heavy load he was bearing. Soon the opportunity to do that would be gone, and it would not come again. But there was one person who did not let this opportunity slip by, and that wasted ointment is witness to that fact.
Saturday Review once carried a cartoon showing a knight in full armor riding his horse toward the desert and past a sign that read, "Leaving populated area ... Last chance to do a chivalrous act."3 This was perhaps this woman's last chance to shower Jesus with love and gratitude, and she was not letting that chance glide by. She was arresting it, stopping it.
The only way to arrest an opportunity is to seize it. If it is not touched, it passes on; if it is not used, it fades away, and what it offered is lost.
Van Wyck Brooks wrote once, "My political creed is based on the assumption that everybody ought to be given a chance. My literary creed is based on the assumption that few will ever take the chance."4 This woman's wasted ointment testifies to the fact that she took the chance; she showed her love and gratitude for the One who had so immeasurably enriched her life.
A Call To Devoted Action
When you look at her deed in a rational way, it is not too impressive. Its physical effects could not have lasted very long. But it meant something to Jesus that could not be explained in terms alone of the outward actions and elements involved in it.
He was living at that time in the shadow of the cross. He was already feeling the sting of his rejection by the world. He knew his disciples well enough to know that even they, his closest friends, would desert him when the going got toughest. Perhaps what he needed then more than anything else was the fellowship of those who loved him. So he was strengthened by this woman's extravagant and unrestrained expression of affection and gratitude. Not much could be done for him, but what she could do, she did, and Jesus was pleased. He said, "She has done what she could" (Mark 14:8).
Christ is always pleased when one does what one can. For many of us, that is an unexciting and unspectacular thing to do. We'd like to do something else. Something else would be so much more interesting and useful. But that poured out ointment should encourage us to do what we can instead of complaining of how little we can do or waiting for an opportunity to do something big and significant.
The world owes most, not to those who sought to do great things, but to those who were faithful in little things. The truly useful people are the ones who devote themselves to doing what they can even when it is not what they would like to be doing.
Waste has been characteristic of modern American society. Yet we, too, think it strange that a person should become immortal in history for an act of wastefulness. But this was only because Jesus saw the true nature and value of her deed and called it a thing of beauty. He knew her deed was a defiance of the market mind that thinks primarily in terms of dollars and cents. He knew she was arresting an opportunity that would not be hers again, and was doing the little she could do to ease his own hurt and sorrow. And he saw that she was doing it out of gratitude and self-forgetful love.
It is not for waste that we should desire to be remembered or to receive Christ's commendation. But it may be that if the kind of outlook and desire that motivated that woman long ago could possess us, we too might have the thrilling experience of hearing Christ say of us that we have "done a beautiful thing to (him)" (Matthew 26:10 RSV).
____________
1. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925, 1926), Vol. II, p. 106.
2. O. Henry, "The Gift of the Magi," in Great Short Stories (New York: Award Books, Inc., n.d.), pp. 14-18.
3. Saturday Review, October 9, 1971, p. 27.
4. Van Wyck Brooks, From a Writer's Notebook (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1958), p. 129.
