Reckless Generosity

John 12:1-8 (NRSV)

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

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I wonder when the last time was you and I did something extravagant and wasteful – without apology, without guilt, without justifying it to our neighbors, our spouse, our kids, our Pastor, our selves. Maybe it was a vacation we needed and that we felt like we had earned… Maybe it was a gift for someone we love… Maybe it was spending more than seemed wise or responsible on something we wanted, rather than on something that was a real need – a new pair of shoes, a new car, a really great meal on date-night, perhaps.

We’ve all been there and done it, I suspect. And there’s nothing wrong with it. But, unless you’re lucky enough to live without a budget – or broken enough to live without a conscience, I guess – wasting money… spending extravagantly… using more than our fair share isn’t always easy; it doesn’t come without second thoughts; it doesn’t happen without regrets, on occasion, either.

And when Mary pours all of that perfume – a year’s salary worth of nard, some have said – onto the feet of Jesus, and then wipes them with her hair – Judas plays on all of that – those second thoughts, that good, old-fashioned guilt, and on those kinds of regrets when he asks – with all of us ulterior motives – “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for money that could be given to the poor?” “How can you be so wasteful?” “Isn’t there something better and more faithful you could have done with that abundance?”

And Jesus, knowing about Judas’ evil ways and selfish, ulterior motives, shuts him up and tells him to forget it: “Leave her alone. She bought [the perfume] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”

“You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Jesus knew something Mary had apparently picked up on, too: that his crucifixion wasn’t far off. That the time for his death was near. Mary wasn’t thinking about the budget. She was thinking about his burial. And she wanted to worship and honor and love him with this humble act of reverence and service.

“You will always have the poor with you,” Jesus says, “but you do not always have me.”

Now, I’m used to reading this bit from John’s Gospel and thinking that Jesus is simply praising Mary for the way she honors him with the sacrificial anointing of all that expensive perfume. Like Jesus is saying, “forget about the poor for a minute, they’re not going anywhere. I, on the other hand, am about to hit Jerusalem – where I’ll be crucified, killed and buried. I’ll take this anointing, this love, this honor, this worship, while I can get it. And maybe the rest of you will finally realize who I am and what I’m about to do, which Mary obviously understands.”

In other words … the poor could wait. This was Jesus’ last hurrah.

Well, something about that just didn’t sit well with me, this time around, and I may be taking a theological leap here – conflating two Gospel stories like I’m about to do.

But have you ever read – or do you remember – that parable Jesus tells in Matthew 25? The one where Jesus says, “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me?” And then he says, “…whenever you did – or did not – do these things to one of the least of these … you did – or did not – do these things to me.” Do you remember that?

And today he says, “You will always have the poor with you. But you do not always have me.”

“Whenever you did it to one of the least of these [fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, visited the prisoner], you did it for me.”

What if, in receiving Mary’s anointing over dinner that night, Jesus isn’t drawing a distinction between himself and the poor, but he’s identifying with them because of it? What if Jesus is the poor we have with us and around us, even now? What if Jesus receives Mary’s faithful, loving, generous gift that night at dinner in humble, hopeful solidarity – as one with – the poor and the suffering?

“You will always have the poor with you. But you will not always have me.”

And what if we sacrificed – like Mary must have – to give more of our best… more of our abundance… more extravagantly… more recklessly to the people around us who need it most, because we recognize them as living and suffering and struggling in humble, hopeful solidarity with Jesus?

I think it could change the world.

I had a conversation with Linda Sevier and Mary Hubert about our Mission Sunday in May where we’ll collect money and bras – yes, bras, people! – for a ministry connected with the Women of the ELCA. This ministry collects and sends used bras – yes, used bras, people! – to women who are poor in other parts of the world with the goal of giving them opportunities in the second-hand clothing industry, and to save them from human trafficking. It sounds like a beautiful, worthwhile thing and I’m sure it is.

But used bras? A gently-worn shirt, sure. A pair of shoes you’ve out-grown, fine. But a used bra? What kind of a gift is that, really? What sort of sacrifice does that represent? Besides the fact that none of us wants me to handle your old bras, no matter how “gently used” they might be – we can do better … and these women – whoever they are – deserve better. So we will be collecting money and NEW bras, only, thank you very much. I hope you’ll play along when the time comes.

And the same goes for our “Groceries of Grace” food pantry. Let’s not give our leftovers – the last of what we can dust off from the back of the closet, for the “least of these.” I’d bet 300 denarii Martha wasn’t serving stale bread or expired figs or leftover fish that night when Jesus showed up for dinner. So let’s not pretend hungry people should take what they can get and be happy – even if humiliated – to receive our leftovers. Let’s honor them, like we would honor Jesus, if he showed up for help one day soon.

What if, in giving generously to the poor, we are giving generously to Jesus, himself? What if, when we sacrifice for the sake of another, we’re sacrificing for the sake of our God? What if we are honoring God when we honor the least among us? What if it’s not a waste at all when we give generously, abundantly, without fear, with nothing but love for those who are hungry or hurting or dying or despairing – in our midst and around the world?

And what if we gave that way to the Church – which is the body of Christ, after all – and which is doing the work of Christ, for the sake of the world? 

I recently read that – in order to make up for recent cuts in the new federal budget that would otherwise help poor and hungry people – every religious organization in the United States – something like 350,000 churches, mosques, and synagogues – would have to raise an extra $400,000 a year for 10 years. An extra $400,000 a year for 10 years to make up for federal budget cuts that would otherwise do that, just in our country. That’s a lot of nard. And I’m sadly realistic about the odds of that happening.

But what if we gave our offering to the church’s work in the world – to Cross of Grace, to places like Love, Inc. which we’ll hear about in a moment, to ministries like Bread for the World which you heard about if you were here during the Sunday school hour this morning – what if we gave to the poor with the same extravagant generosity that Mary showed – like it mattered; like it was first in our hearts; like it was of utmost priority and importance and devotion; like we were grateful for the opportunity and like LIFE depended on it – the new life promised to us all – rich and poor, faithful or not, saint and sinner, and everyone in between.

What if we gave like we were giving to Jesus himself? I think it could change the world – which has been God’s plan, in Jesus Christ, all along.

Amen

Seeking the Sacred – Blessing Each Moment

Matthew 6:31-33

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

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In a nutshell, for me, the practice of blessing each moment, which we’re called to engage this evening – and I hope, for some number of days to come – is just what it sounds like: it’s about finding a way, daily and often, to be mindful for each moment in our lives and to bless them; to consecrate them; to revere them; to honor them; to see each moment as holy, somehow, and useful to the big picture of our lives.

In practice, it could mean taking a breath before beginning a new task. It could mean saying a prayer as a task or chore is completed. It could mean minding the clock and pausing on the hour or at even hours or every three hours at 6 o’clock, 9 o’clock, Noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m. or 9 p.m., and so on.

Blessing each moment is about being mindfully and spiritually present – not just physically in the room – for whatever we’re up to, whether that’s doing the dishes or doing our homework or doing our job.

For me, then, this practice of blessing each moment is very much about practicing gratitude.

Now, I decided – in thinking and praying and planning for tonight – that I had to come to terms with a new way of understanding gratitude in this context. And I decided, at the risk of making all of this too much like some kind of standardized test, that “gratitude is to thanksgiving as joy is to happiness.”

GRATITUDE : THANKSGIVING : : JOY : HAPPINESS

Please bear with me here. I think this is going to make sense in a minute.

Maybe you’ve considered the difference between joy and happiness before. I think I’ve even preached about it in the past, but I’m not sure when or just exactly why. The notion is that we sometimes confuse or dumb-down the definition of “joy” so that it just means happiness – nothing more or deeper than the simple emotion of something that brings a smile to your face or laughter to your lips. (As in “happy, happy, joy, joy.” Or that old camp song, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart – hey; down in my heart to stay.”) It’s cute and fun and like an ear-worm you can’t get out of your head even after a few decades – so I’m sorry for that. And that simple understanding of joy – as nothing more than happy – is shallow and unsatisfying and incomplete once a fuller understanding is offered up.

I think a fuller, deeper, wiser, more valuable understanding of joy is that it abides even in the face of and in the presence of – in the midst of and in spite of – sadness and struggle and even suffering. In other words, we can be joyful even when we’re not happy, in any given moment. And I believe this because I’ve seen this kind of joy in people of great faith in moments of sadness and struggle – on their death beds, even – when illness or hardship or despair might crush someone with less wisdom or self-awareness or faith.

For example, I have a friend whose family was in the midst of more struggle and bad luck than seemed fair for a season. There was a son struggling with addiction, a daughter hospitalized with cancer, a niece who died by suicide, a brother who died from some crazy combination of addiction, sickness, and mental illness – all three. And in the midst of her very real, justified grief and anxiety, stress and fear, she said to me, “I’m so grateful for my own struggle with addiction and work through recovery and the 12-steps because I’m able to know what I can control in all of this and what I can’t; where I need to step away and where I’m able to help; And I know when I need to leave things up to my higher power so that I can be at peace.”

My friend wasn’t smiling, for sure. She wasn’t happy, by any stretch. And she isn’t naïve, either. But she had a mindful joy about her, in the midst of more struggle than I ever hope to deal with at a clip. She had a peaceful kind of joy within her that was abiding and sustaining and hopeful and life-giving, when so much around her was the opposite of those things.

And this is how I want to consider the Celtic Christian practice of blessing each moment – finding, experiencing, expressing a joyful kind of gratitude – in all things, I mean. And remember, I’m suggesting, for the sake of our purposes here that “gratitude is to thankfulness as joy is to happiness.”

And what I mean is gratitude is not merely… simply… just… “being thankful.” I wonder if we can give to “gratitude” a deeper, fuller, more mindful understanding. I wonder if we can be grateful – like my friend – even when we’re not so thankful for what’s going on in our lives. I wonder if we can be grateful with our hearts, even when our heads tell us we have plenty of reasons not to be. I wonder if we can learn to bless each moment – even when each moment may not lend itself, at first blush, to thanksgiving and happiness.

And it’s what I think Jesus is getting at in this little ditty from Matthew’s Gospel. Instead of worrying about “what we will eat, or what we will drink, or what we will wear;” instead of worrying about our next test or about those lab results or about whatever it is that gives us plenty of really good reason to doubt or stress or despair; instead of letting our troubles and trials win the day, Jesus tells us to strive first for the stuff of the Kingdom; to strive first for the stuff of righteousness – to find joy and gratitude in spite of, or in the midst, of our worries.

In the book, The Soul’s Slow Ripening, that’s inspiring so much of what we’re up to on these Wednesday nights, John Valters Paintner says it this way: “I sometimes complain so much about the rain that I miss the rainbow.” That sounded a little simple and cheesy to me at first, like something you may have seen on a refrigerator magnet or on a poster in a church nursery.

But remember… God’s rainbow stands for hope in the midst of great despair. God’s rainbow is a sign of promise in the face of great reason for doubt. God’s rainbow is a shining light in midst of supreme darkness. So, sometimes we do complain so much about the rain that we miss the rainbow, right?

Which is why I like that we’re calling this a “practice” – this “blessing each moment” – because that’s what it takes for most of us to be good at it, if we’re honest – to make this kind of gratitude a lifestyle; a discipline; a way of life, I mean. We aren’t wired this way, frankly. And the world doesn’t encourage it, either. It’s hard for some of us to pay attention to the rainbow when we’re stuck in traffic or get behind some knucklehead with 11 items in the express lane, let alone find ways to bless the moments of our lives when the real stress and bad news and hard days come.

I know someone else who had a come-to-Jesus moment, once; a reality-check; when a friend of his lost his wife to cancer. They were all too young – my age, and this was three or four years ago: This wife and mother who lost her battle with cancer… There was a nine-year-old son in the mix… an only child.

Anyway, this guy attended the funeral for his friend’s wife, saw all of that grief, and decided on the way home from the funeral service that he needed to be more grateful for his own wife and kids. So, starting the next day – and for each day of the year that followed – he wrote down one thing about his own wife for which he was grateful. He wouldn’t have called it that at the time, but it was a discipline and a faith-practice, I think. It became a daily, year-long exercise of “blessing each moment” – or at least searching each day – some days searching harder than others – for some nugget of gratitude, to put into words… to record… to reflect upon… and ultimately, to share with his wife, as a gift on her birthday the following year. He says it changed the way he understood his relationship with his wife over the course of those 365 days of counting his blessings – of blessing each moment.

And that’s something like what I believe God can do – for us and through us – if we make “blessing each moment” a regular, if not daily, practice in our lives of faith. We will grow to see opportunities for gratitude more often – and in spite of all the reasons we have to complain or despair.

We will grow to count the rainbows around us – God’s everlasting promises of presence and love and covenant – not just in spite of our struggles, but as more powerful and more steadfast than whatever irritates, or worries, or even threatens us, most.

And we’ll grow to be blessings ourselves, in the process – blessings of that abiding kind of peace and joy, that patient kind of love and mercy which surpasses all understanding… which guards our hearts and our minds and our lives, when we let it… and which each of us longs for, it seems to me, and what the world needs, in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen