8/25/57

Scripture: Mark 14: 3-9.

The writer of the gospel of Mark tells, in brief simplicity, the story of an extravagant deed. This story, which was read as this morning’s Scripture passage, is also told in substantially the same detail in the gospel of Matthew. Luke has a story not unlike it, though some scholars doubt that it is an account of the same incident.

But our concern, at this moment, is to notice what an unreserved act of devotion took place there in the home of a man named Simon. He was not Simon Peter, but is simply identified as Simon the leper. Apparently Simon was host, on that occasion, to a company of people, one of whom was Jesus of Nazareth. While host and guests were eating at the table, possibly reclining on the couches which those Oriental folk used in place of our dining room chairs, a woman came into the room. In her hand, she carried an alabaster box of pure nard, or spikenard, a very expensive, fragrant ointment. The woman went to the place where Jesus was eating at the table. It might, perhaps, have been noticeable, though not astounding, if she had carefully opened the box and sprinkled a few drops of the nard upon Jesus’ head. There were numbers of people who, by that time, wished to honor him and to show their esteem for him.

But this woman broke the alabaster box above Jesus’ head, and poured all of its contents on Him. Almost immediately, there was a surprised murmur, which mounted to actual disapproval on the part of some of the men there present. They became indignant, and some were heard to remark on such a waste! Why, this ointment could have been sold for a tidy sum; and the money could have been given to the poor. And they actually reproached the woman.

Then Jesus spoke up. He did not agree with them. Neither did he chide the men for begrudging him an unusual favor. He had never courted favor. But he did speak of the woman’s spirit in what had been done. “She has done a beautiful thing to me,” said he --- “and it will be remembered wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world.” Further, he said: “The poor you have always with you --- and whenever you will, you can do good to them.” But “you will not always have me” here. Well, that is the substance of this briefly told story. And a great deal is said in it.

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It might be interesting to assemble, from the gospels, a list of the things or people or occasions that moved Jesus to high praise. On that list would be (1) the centurion who showed such great faith in the power of Jesus to bring healing to his daughter; (2) the widow who put what proved to be her whole living into the temple treasury; (3) and certainly this woman who broke the box of perfume. He seemed to recognize this act as high self-forgetfulness, genuine self-denial, a mark of the kingdom of God in a person’s soul! He was visibly moved by the unmeasured, uncalculated generosity of her giving.

Perhaps we Americans would like to sit with the objectors at least long enough to ask: “How much was the stuff worth?” Well, scholars vary in saying, some, that it might have represented about $240 in purchasing power; or others, that it would be worth nearer $500. But that seems to have been no concern to Jesus. He took no more notice of the expensive character of the gift than he did at another time, of the insignificant mite that a poor woman put into the temple treasury. It was the unselfish wholeness, the loving abandon of each, that impressed him and to which he insistently called the attention of his hearers.

This unblocked impulse of a woman was so very different from that of most folk who might have poured out a few drops and then replaced the cover, thinking, “Well, I guess that ought to be enough for this occasion.” No caution or prudence had characterized her act. She had been lifted out of arithmetic into loving abandon. Her personality, for the moment, precious like perfume, was unmeasured in friendship, devotion and sharing. No reserved little medicine dropper could possibly express her regard for this Master of Life.

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But if Jesus noticed, in joyful approval, the loving abandon of this woman’s gift, he noticed with accurate understanding, the disapproval of his fellow diners at that table. They clung to a “market” mind. Perhaps it is too harsh to use such a term as “market mind” of these men who were probably middle class people whose limited means makes frugality a necessity. It is easy to understand how shocked were their prudent souls. I gravely fear I should have been one of them had I been present. Maybe you would have thought as they did, too. After all, anybody could use $500! “O, of course, not for myself, but --- well, you know it is a religious duty to look after the poor. And it’s not easy, with money so hard to get and so many in real need! That would buy a lot of bowls of soup, a good many coats and shoes, a really impressive number of loaves of bread!” “When it could have been sold and turned into all that relief --- what a pity!”

Jesus could have argued: “Sold --- to whom? What would the buyer do with it?” Or he might have put to them some such direct question as this: “Now really, men, some of you have been inclined to regard me as a potential king. Don’t you honestly think that a king is worth more than quite a number of the poor in his realm?” I doubt that such an argument ever occurred to Jesus. It is more likely to be found among us, folk who, like those murmuring men at the table there, think: “Well, anyway, it was just too extravagant.”

For the moment, Jesus rebuked them, and condemned their calculations. Here they were in the presence of a genuine act of worship. Without asking for, or expecting, a thing, or even being conscious of aught save the worthiness of this Master upon whom her gift was lavished, she poured out all of her treasure of substance and regard. Maybe that kind of worship doesn’t butter any parsnips. But a lot of life isn’t just parsnips!

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Perhaps we get indignant at the sort of thing those fellow-diners saw because it violates our accustomed ways. We respond with face-saving indignation when we meet ideas and actions which oppose the finalities of our settled minds. And it becomes the harder to learn anything new!

And maybe our own limited and carefully-calculated generosity seems reproached by such a reckless and loving gift! What is it that makes us indignant? Is it our self-esteem? Our fears? a sense of challenge to our status and opinion? Are we indignant along with those other men about that table?

Or do we share the indignation of Jesus? He did not say, nor surely did he think, “My, I wish she had given me the money instead.” He was not even willing to have any calculation made as to what could be done for the poor with it. What he said was a rebuke to his rebukers. “Let her alone! She has done a beautiful thing to me.” And he reminded them that anytime they wanted to help the poor, they would not have to look too far or too hard.

His saying that “the poor you have always with you” is by no means to be interpreted as a justification of, or resignation to, poverty. Indeed, it was a rather pointed observation that most of us well-meaning people can find something constructive to do about it whenever we want to. There is no gainsaying the need for generosity of the alms box and the subscription paper. But that can not take the place of the generosity of friendship, the celebration of love, or the compassion of sacrificial help. Jesus recognized spontaneous movements of the heart as great events, not quickly to be forgotten!

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One of the phrases toward the end of this brief story deserves a little careful attention; “She has done what she could,” said Jesus. What a prosaic way to put it! Why praise a person for doing “what she could?” Often doing what one can is not at all spectacular, and it is frequently terribly obvious, and thoroughly unromantic. We easily sink into a blue reverie with the thought of what we could accomplish with the 50,000 dollars which we do not have, instead of going to the prosaic business of doing something genuine with the 5 dollars or 50 dollars that we do have.

Perhaps someone wishes he could preach like Spurgeon or Phillips Brooks, which he can’t do, rather than teaching a Sunday School class, which he can do. If I could only write a book -- a really good book -- a best seller, or at least a real contribution to the knowledge or literature of my time --- that would be thrilling! -- (and perhaps easy compared to writing that helpful letter that I really can get written!) Perhaps Jesus spoke high praise, in that prosaic phrase, when he said of the woman and her perfume box, “She has done what she could.” There is much to be learned from this simply told story, if we read it with the deliberate willingness to be taught!

But I suspect that one of the most significant lessons is the notion that there are deeds of love that just won’t fit the ordinary rules of judicious charity. This woman’s act was extravagant; perhaps a bit indecorous, too. And what shocking waste! Yet Jesus called it beautiful.

Why beautiful? Because herein we can see the abandon of worship. Much of our life seems to be governed by prudence; by careful, and even shrewd calculation; or it had better be so governed! We learn this through experience that is sometimes painful and humiliating. And until we do learn it, we are apt to find ourselves the sucker on somebody’s fish hook, or the victim of our own carelessness and inefficiency. Even the circumstances of this story suggest the value of circumspect considerations. After all, had not Jesus instructed followers of his to share their worldly goods with those in need? Was he not himself an example of voluntary poverty? Was he not, at that very moment, eating in the home of a probably poor man, eating poor man’s fare? It would be passing strange if the meal served in this leper’s home were any palatial banquet! The ointment incident can hardly escape appearing a rash deed. But now and then, that which appears rash turns out to be sublime!

For two years, my theological education was pursued at a school in Chicago which was just occupying a new building. Dominating the entire quadrangle was a magnificent tower over which there had been much debate. Some held, sturdily, that it was a foolish and sinful waste of money to put thousands of dollars into a tower, when the money could be put to use in furnishing more classrooms, more dormitory space, bigger libraries and so on. And there was real substantial point to that argument! But still, there is a symbolism in the strong, steady, confident, faithful up-reach of that tower that can not be lost upon student or visitor. Perhaps that tower is not the foolishness of some money-squanderers! Perhaps it does have a place in the aspiring lives of growing young ministers.

You could feed a lot of poor people with the money that has built cathedrals. But must mankind wait for cathedrals until no one is any longer poor? I am not sure that I really know the answer. But I am fairly sure that the abandon of worship is more profitable than the economy of duty. Not even the poor live by bread alone.

At any rate, this act of a woman can not be tested by the ordinary standards of practical goodness. It was worshipful appreciation. It rose out of the fullness of her heart. It was better for her to know her Lord with joy while he was living there, than to wait and anoint his corpse with regret after he was dead. Her action was a work of art, a thing of beauty. It was beautiful because it expressed the “intemperance of love.” And if it broke some sensible rules, it was magnificent!

Far be it from me to advise the careless indulgence of affection. It is safer for me to say “be sensible.” Yet how brilliant life becomes with even the little excesses of love! Consider the young man who has decided to buy a ring for his betrothed beloved! He even thinks the ring should have a diamond or two. Suppose his father, being wise, experienced, level-headed, should give him some practical advice on the matter. “Son,” he says, “it’s silly to spend a third of a summer’s wages on a diamond for a ring. If your lady expects it, you’d better think twice about this marriage you are considering. It is even unfair to her. Later on, there will be something she really needs -- maybe a washing machine. And then you won’t have the money. Let me give you some advice. Just forget about any diamond! Or perhaps get her a less-expensive sapphire instead. It will cost far less and nobody will know the difference.”

Sound advice! Right down to the clay a fellow has to walk on! But what does the young fellow do? He goes out and buys the diamond, anyway. And the girl says, “O, Joe, you shouldn’t have.” But no matter how practical she may be, you can be sure of one thing -- she wears that ring. And even if she is reduced to poverty she still won’t take it off, nor think of parting with it so long as its extravagance represents to her one of the seals of her husband’s love.

I have long loved a story that Carl Pattan has told about a couple of young Norwegians. They met in the old country. The young man went to America, but not before he had talked earnestly with the young lady about their future, and she had made him a promise. When he had made enough money in the new country, he would send for her, and she would come, and they would be married.

He came. He had a rough, long hard time getting started. Work was scarce; men were plenty; nobody seemed to need him. Prospects for the girl in Norway didn’t look good. Finally the young fellow got a job with a maker of telescopes and other scientific instruments. He lived in a little room over the shop, and boarded himself. At the end of that first month, when he got his first desperately needed money, he didn’t put it in the bank; he didn’t get a new pair of trousers, nor buy a beef steak. He spent the whole month’s wages for a locket and sent it to the girl in Norway. Pattan doesn’t say how he bought bread or soup until the next pay day. But he did buy, and send, that locket.

Then he saved his money, and by and by the girl came. He was promoted; became a partner in the business; and finally became the owner. He became well known among scientific men; built telescopes for some of the greatest observatories; grew rich; traveled all over the country and took his wife along. He never went to college, but al least one important college gave him an honorary degree.

He died at a good old age. And after he was gone, his wife got out that locket he had sent to her in Norway and began wearing it all the time. She got old, and feeble, and finally almost childish. But even when she couldn’t remember her own daughter’s name any longer, nor anything much else of her long and happy life, she never forgot one thing. That was the locket. Every day she wore it. Every night, when her daughter helped her to bed, she said, as if she had not said it before: “This is the locket your father gave me. He bought it with the first money he ever earned. Put it right there.” And the next night, and the next, and always, “This is the locket your father gave me. He bought it with the first money he ever earned. Put it right there.”

There is something that we recognize as genuine love that is sometimes expressed in extravagant abandon. Recognize it! It may be that the extravagance is “foolish.” But the abandon of love is not.

The same one on whom a whole alabaster box of nard was lavished in the Bible story of today, soon gave the most costly gift of all -- his life -- for you and for me. And he didn’t have to! He could have said, in the garden of Gethsemane, “This is foolishness. The human race is not worth it. I’ve told them and told them. I’ve showed them for three, long, hard years. Let them face the bar of judgment and be destroyed. Are all these ornery sinners worth the giving up of my life?”

By the account book of prudence we simply are not worth the sacrifice that He made. But by the grace of God, he poured that precious hope of redemption upon us, anyway.

Would that our hands might anoint the brow of his head in the beauty of complete devotion and dedicated service!

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, August 25, 1957. (Union service).

CTS Minister’s Week, January 21, 1958.

Wood County Infirmary, January 29, 1958.

Wisconsin Rapids, May 19, 1963.

Kalahikiola church, January 26, 1969.

Moravian Church, Wisconsin Rapids, June 13, 1971.

Moravian Church, Rudolph, June 13, 1971.

Babcock Congregational Church, UCC, July 4, 1971.

Nekoosa United Church of Christ, July 4, 1971.

Marshfield United Church of Christ, August 1, 1971.

Stratford United Church of Christ, August 1, 1971

Delta, WI, St. Paul’s UCC, October 24, 1971.

Cable, WI, Congregational UCC, October 24, 1971.

Spider Lake, WI, UCC, October 24, 1971.

Waioli Hui’ia Church, April 30, 1972.