Calculations
Pastor David Hansen
5th Sunday in Lent - March 25, 2007
John 12:1-8
“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
You know, it’s not really a bad question. For everything that was wrong with Judas – a thief, a traitor, and an informant – he seemed to have it right with this question.
I mean: how much are we really talking about here? Most people say that a denarius equaled about a day’s wages. That means that three hundred denarii would be about a year’s salary – say thirty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand dollars, poured on to Jesus’ feet.
Think about the number of mouths that could be fed with thirty thousand dollars.
Think about the work that Habitat for Humanity could do with thirty thousand dollars.
Think about all the good that could be done with thirty thousand dollars that was spent on Jesus’ feet, and ask yourself if you don’t agree with Judas’ question:
Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?
As far as Judas was concerned, that money had been wasted. There was no return – no benefit – to the money spent on Jesus’ feet. It did not help with the spread of the Gospel message, it did not help the poor – it was just wasted.
The fact is, we live in a world that is governed by counting the cost and calculating the benefit of everything we do. We love to reduce things to numbers, and ask if we are getting the best bang for our buck.
Even with things that seem impossible to assign a dollar value to – we find a way.
Ask any parent of a college student what the cost of an education is, and they will tell you twenty to thirty thousand dollars a year.
Ask any college student about the value of education, and they won’t talk about becoming a well-rounded person or learning about the world around them – they will tell you all about how much more money they can earn with a college degree.
We love to reduce things to the numbers – to count the cost and calculate the benefit. And we all fall victim to this common affliction.
As I quickly approach the end of my first year as the pastor of Saint John Lutheran Church, I have found myself sitting down and looking at the numbers.
How has our worship attendance changed? How many home visits and hospital visits have I done? How many classes have I taught? How can I put my ministry into numbers – measure it, weigh it – and use those numbers to justify the cost of my ministry?
In the middle of all this I received an email from a member of this congregation, thanking me for being present with them at a time when they needed it most – and I realized that this … well, there was simply just no way to measure this, no way to count it.
You see, we have to be careful about this tendency we have to reduce everything to the numbers, to count the cost and calculate the benefit of everything, because when we do so, we often pay attention to the least important things and forget the most important. Someone commenting on today’s Gospel once said about our tendency to reduce everything to cost-benefit:
On this basis you would have to say
that Francis of Assisi wasted his life.
He might have been a lord of the manor
instead of an impecunious beggar.
Martin Luther’s life, who could have been a
bishop or a cardinal...was a waste.
Mother Theresa … a waste .…
And so, of course, with the life of Jesus.
The King of Jews, a power to have made Rome tremble ––
instead an itinerant teacher dying the death of a criminal.
And so, in response to Judas who counts the cost, Jesus says “Leave her alone.” And he goes on to give on of the most quoted and abrupt saying from the Gospels, “You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”
This verse has been used to justify people refusing to give to the poor and hungry, and it has been used to justify garish multi-million dollar church buildings. So what does Jesus mean by this awkward turn of phrase?
One afternoon three children, two boys and a girl, entered a flower shop. They were about nine or ten years old, raggedly dressed, but clean. They gazed around the store and nervously approached the owner. One of the boys said: “Excuse me, we'd like something in yellow flowers, please."
The man immediately realized that this was a very special occasion. He showed them some inexpensive yellow spring flowers. The boy who was the spokesman for the group shook his head. "I think we need something better than that."
The florist asked, “Do they have to be yellow?” to which the boy answered, “Yes, please. You see, Mickey would like 'em better if they were yellow. He had a yellow sweater. I guess he'd like yellow better than any other color.”
Catching on, the florist inquired further, “Are they for his funeral?”
The boy nodded, suddenly choking up. The little girl was struggling to keep back the tears. “She's his sister,” the boy said. “He was a great friend … A truck hit him while he was playing in the street.” The boy's lips were trembling now, and the other boy jumped in to finish the thought. “All his friends took up a collection. We got a buck fifty together. Would roses cost an awful lot, sir -- yellow roses, I mean.”
The man smiled. "It just happens that I have some nice yellow roses here that I'm offering special today for a dollar fifty a dozen." The man pointed to the flower case.
"Yeah, those would be great! Yes, Mickey'd sure like those."
The florist fixed the spray of flowers and accepted the dollar fifty and then watched the youngsters trudge out of the store weighed down with a hundred and fifty dollars worth of flowers.
I challenge you to count the cost of those flowers; to calculate the benefit. The money could have been spent to put food on someone’s plate … It could have been given to a scholarship fund … go ahead and weigh the benefit of that act. The most important things, can’t be counted.
As I stop and look at this story of Mary’s wasted money, again and again I come to the conclusion that it is not about money at all. Yes, it talks about money – but we spend so much of our lives obsessing about money that maybe the only way to get through to us is to talk about money … but the point is not the money at all.
The point is to get us to stop and put down our calculators.
The point is to encourage us to look at Mary’s example of exuberant, wasteful gratitude.
Maybe, as Judas points out, Mary does go overboard in showing her gratitude. But that’s not really the problem we have, is it? If anything, most of us are in danger of underdoing it – giving a well-calculated response to God’s generous love.
Mary’s gift was costly … it was lavish … it may even have been prodigal. But it was a response in kind to the God who loves us lavishly and extravagantly … even prodigally. Jesus gave life to Mary’s brother, Lazarus, and she was overcome with thankfulness and gratitude – the kind of gratitude that cannot be counted, weighed, or measured.
“You will always have the poor with you.” There will always be opportunities for service, for helping others, and for spreading the Gospel. But there is also a need for genuine, extravagant gratitude.
One Friday afternoon, Jesus offered his own costly and extravagant gift to us … gave to us a costly and a wasteful love. How will we respond? This Lent, how will we show our gratitude?
Jesus brought life into Mary’s world … and she responded with overflowing gratitude.
Life itself has been given to each of us …
And it is now our turn.
