1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. " 6 He 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.
7 "Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."
My thoughts -
I've always had trouble with verse 8 here. You go through the Gospels and Jesus consistently shows great concern for the poor and implores his followers throughout his ministry to care for the needs of the poor. When I read this passage I find myself often on agreement with Judas. And yet, Judas was clearly wrong and rebuked by Jesus.
Part of that can be explained by Judas's motivation. Verse 6 informs us that Judas's primary concern in saying this was not the poor but himself. He wanted the money that selling the perfume would have brought in. But I wonder, too, about what this passage tells us about worship.
"You will always have the poor among you" seems harsh, but 2000 years later it is, unfortunately, still true. Our churches have finite resources. Some have more than others. We can use those resources for different things. Sometimes they go into missions. We can feed the poor. We can take care of their needs. We can do this on a local and a global scale. We do so because Jesus commands us to. But we also use our resources on our building and for our worship services.
I'm conflicted on this. I don't like spending money and am pretty pragmatic about it. I don't care much for wireless mics, in ear monitors, projectors, lighting, effects, etc. It's odd because as the person responsible for the "contemporary" music in the service you would think that I'd be all about that. But, frankly, I'd rather see any money that would go into "stuff" for the service go to missions instead.
And yet, without the worship would we be a church or just an idealistic non-profit trying to help people? We do need to invest in the worship service. We do need to create a space where people can worship God. We do need to be intentional about it. I am conflicted and unsure of how to best do this. Some "stuff" that churches have and employ for worship just seems ostentatious to me. We need to have balance.
I have no idea how to do that. I'm not sure this passage helps. I'm not sure what to make of it, still. I am grateful for it, though. It has inspired thought and hopefully that thought will lead to action and that action will be in accordance with God's will. There's a lot of work to be done in both missions and worship.
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