Blowing the Budget for Jesus: a sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

John 12.1-8

Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. ² Lazarus and his sisters hosted a dinner for him. Martha served and Lazarus was among those who joined him at the table. ³ Then Mary took an extraordinary amount, almost three-quarters of a pound,h of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She anointed Jesus’ feet with it, then wiped his feet dry with her hair. The house was filled with the aroma of the perfume. ⁴ Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), complained, ⁵ “ This perfume was worth a year’s wages!i Why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor? ” ( ⁶ He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He carried the money bag and would take what was in it.)

⁷ Then Jesus said, “ Leave her alone. This perfume was to be used in preparation for my burial, and this is how she has used it. ⁸ You will always have the poor among you, but you won’t always have me. ”

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

Sometimes nard is referred to as a perfume used in preparing a body for burial. That makes for a nice bit of foreshadowing by John, and it would have been an odd example of foresight by Mary, but that’s not the only use of nard. In fact, the mentions of it in the Song of Songs is in a quite - let’s say, “enlivening” - context. There’s nothing particularly morbid happening there.

So I would hesitate to talk about Mary’s anointing Jesus’ feet as foreshadowing.

I should probably also hesitate to make any correlation to Mary uncovering Jesus’ feet like Ruth did for Boaz, too. It’s sure too bad I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut.

What I think we can safely point out is that Mary is investing a fortune in Jesus’ feet.

A year’s wages.

Let’s pretend that minimum wage is going to bump up to $9.00/hour. That’s $360/week. Assuming somebody takes two weeks of vacation in a year, that’s $18,000/year.

An $18,000 pound or so of perfume.

Yeah. Let that sink in.

I have to think really hard about luxuries that range in the tens of dollars, not the tens of thousands of dollars.

In fact, it’s often what Jesus mentions last in this passage that gives me pause to spend on things that aren’t absolutely necessary:

You will always have the poor among you

I’ve heard that argument used in regard to budgets of all sizes, in fact.

Well, I could buy a six-pack, or I could buy a day or two’s worth of healthy meals for my family.

Well, we could build one more fighter jet, or we could create 7,000 of those aforementioned minimum-wage jobs.

Not saying the federal government should be a job creator. I’m just pointing to a difference in priorities.

I think our priorities have to be contexualized.

I think that’s Jesus’ point.

The poor are always here, but you have a unique opportunity right now. Martha, maybe you ought to shift your priorities a bit, too.

I keep reminding myself of that at home, by the way.

I could stress about keeping a house up to my mother’s standards, and probably some of yours, or I could just make sure it’s safe and healthy and spend that time with my family.

What’s the right thing to do in a certain context?

Let me pull out an example for which I have personal interest.

In a public school, the right thing to do is going to differ if I am a teacher, if I am a student, if I am a volunteer, or if I am a staff member. Each has different expectations. Each represents different interests.

For example, if I am a teacher, I represent the state. That is the essential body that has hired me. Certain things are appropriate to teach, to say, to do. Certain things aren’t.

Should I pray in public? No. Should I evangelize? No. Why not? Because I could lose my job. My best evangelism, just like anybody’s best evangelism, is to live a life that shows Christ is in me.

I hope you hear me saying this, because I’m not just giving us an excuse to avoid following Christ in our public lives.

In fact, what I have observed in a quarter of a century of following Christ myself is that this “evangelism” thing we claim to do isn’t much more than an excuse.

Words are easy. Actions are hard.

It’s easy to shout at other people, to threaten or condemn or whatever.

It’s much harder to show people how to live, to live a life that shows Christ is in us. It’s much harder to make those choices that aren’t what we want to do, but what we think Christ would do in our situation, in our context.

More toward the example of the Gospel lesson, how do our choices differ from our lives at work or in the marketplace as opposed to our lives here in worship?

That’s much closer to the difference between Mary and Martha.

How do we recognize those times when Jesus is right there in our midst?

Well, let’s begin by recognizing that Jesus is always right there in our midst.

³⁷ “Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? ³⁸ When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

⁴⁰ “Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

Jesus is always right there.

So I suppose the question isn’t, How do we recognize those times when jesus is right there in our midst? The question is, How do we recognize where Jesus is in this moment, in this place, in this interaction?

And if we can learn to recognize that, we will start to really re-sort our lives. We will find that all our priorities get reset. All our stuff gets in order. Even the stuff we didn’t realize was out of order.

Like Paul, who

was circumcised on the eighth day,

[was] from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin,

[was] a Hebrew of the Hebrews,

With respect to observing the Law, [was] a Pharisee,

With respect to devotion to the faith, harassed the church,

With respect to righteousness under the Law, [was] blameless.

But Paul considered all that loss compared to knowing Jesus.

Instead, Paul considers himself in pursuit of the resurrection. In pursuit of perfection.

That’s where we are. In pursuit of perfection. In pursuit of knowing Jesus right where we are, in each moment that we spend.

And in each moment, we have to decide how to be Mary and how to be Martha.

Sometimes the important part of that is determining when to do each.

Sometimes we know exactly what to do, though, and we need to decide that we are actually going to do it. We have to decide to give everything we have when we recognize that the time with Jesus is at hand. We have to decide that nothing is too luxurious, nothing is too hard to hold on to. We have to decide to blow the budget for the sake of Jesus. To give everything.

That’s the choice.

The choice is to give up everything.

Then it will have been

like we had been dreaming.

² Our mouths were suddenly filled with laughter;

our tongues were filled with joyful shouts.

The joy of a life in God is ours to claim today, and it’s the most precious, priceless, amazing thing we can claim. And it’ll completely blow the budget. So the choice is ours to make.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prodigal; a sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Luke 15.1-3,11b-32

All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. ² The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, “ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

³ Jesus told them this parable: 

“A certain man had two sons. ¹² The younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the inheritance.’ Then the father divided his estate between them. ¹³ Soon afterward, the younger son gathered everything together and took a trip to a land far away. There, he wasted his wealth through extravagant living.

¹⁴ “When he had used up his resources, a severe food shortage arose in that country and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ He hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to eat his fill from what the pigs ate, but no one gave him anything. ¹⁷ When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have more than enough food, but I’m starving to death! ¹⁸ I will get up and go to my father, and say to him, “ Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I no longer deserve to be called your son. Take me on as one of your hired hands. ” ’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father.

“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion. His father ran to him, hugged him, and kissed him. ²¹ Then his son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ ²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! ²³ Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it. We must celebrate with feasting ²⁴ because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life! He was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

²⁵ “ Now his older son was in the field. Coming in from the field, he approached the house and heard music and dancing. ²⁶ He called one of the servants and asked what was going on. ²⁷ The servant replied, ‘Your brother has arrived, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he received his son back safe and sound.’ ²⁸ Then the older son was furious and didn’t want to enter in, but his father came out and begged him. ²⁹ He answered his father, ‘Look, I’ve served you all these years, and I never disobeyed your instruction. Yet you’ve never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours returned, after gobbling up your estate on prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’ ³¹ Then his father said, ‘Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.’ ”

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

We like to think that, when we read parables, when we hear Jesus say, “The Kingdom of God is like…”, that means that one of the characters must be God.

But Jesus doesn’t say that. Jesus doesn’t say, “God is like…”. Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is like…”.

It would be easy to assume that one of these characters is God. And it’s relatively obvious which one gets it. It’s not the runaway. It’s not the jerk of a homebody brother who can’t handle the younger’s attempt at reconciliation. We like to think it’s the father, that God welcomes us with opened arms like that and tries to help the older brother understand that’s a better way to be, or something.

Now, the argument is, “Jesus doesn’t say, ‘The Kingdom of God is like…’. There’s no intro”.

Fine.

I think the rule still applies. Parables don’t show us one character of give us a moral or something. Parables aren’t foils or fables. Parables are stories. Word pictures.

Stories told by the most brilliant storyteller in history. A storyteller of infinite imagination and cosmically complete knowledge.

And the Storyteller doesn’t give us a rulebook. It’s a storybook.

Do we know the difference between a storybook and a rulebook?

Rulebooks have to keep getting updated because they have to keep addressing a changing game, a changing environment, a changing economy, a changing politic. 

Storybooks keep stories. Stories well told don’t change. The better a story is told, generally, the more broadly it is told, and the longer it lasts.

Can’t say that about rules. They don’t last longer because they’re better rules. Rules always get outdated.

Stories do sometimes. The best don’t.

A story like the Prodigal doesn’t. Or it hasn’t yet. And because the Storyteller is the most brilliant in all creation, I should imagine that it won’t.

The Prodigal is a story. A story about a prodigal.

Or maybe a story about more than one prodigal.

We assume that the prodigal is the younger brother, who wasted his 50% of his father’s fortune on prodigal, or wasteful and extravagant and reckless, living.

We read that and see how what happens to him and realize that what he has done is a bad idea. It impoverishes him. It slanders his father’s name and blows half his fortune. It devalues his older brother’s fortune, which was more valuable because of the half paired up with it.

But prodigal is:

Spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.

Is there only one character being prodigal in this story? I don’t think so.

Watch how the father initially allows the younger son to take what he desires. He must know what the son will do. Maybe he has a hope that the son will make a wiser choice, but a father knows his son. A parent knows the child. We have a good idea, most of the time, what the outcome will be if we allow the child a certain amount of liberty.

The father knows that the son will destroy his half of the inheritance.

But he gifts the inheritance to him, anyway.

And then, watch how the father welcomes him back after he had wasted his fortune. He lets go of any sense of dignity he has and runs out to meet his younger son. He prepares a glorious feast for the son, a feast fit for royalty for this young man who has defiled his father’s name and fortune.

The son did not deserve either gift. But the father gave it anyway.

Reckless extravagance.

How often do we see that kind of generosity, that recklessness, in our stories, in scripture?

Isn’t that what’s going on in our reading from Joshua? In what way did the children of Israel deserve to ever come out of the wilderness?

But God promised them a future, a land. And God gave them a feast.

Isn’t that what the Psalmist is celebrating?

The one whose wrongdoing is forgiven,

whose sin is covered over, is truly happy!

What is forgiveness but reckless? It’s not like forgiveness is a natural reaction. The natural reaction is vengeance. The natural reaction is to strike back at who has hurt us.

But that’s not what God does.

And so it’s not what we’re called to do. We are called to step out in faith and forgive. And it’s painful and it’s unnatural and it’s against our better judgment. And typically, we just won’t do it. We neglect that expectation. We neglect God’s calling to be God’s people, a Body marked most prominently by forgiveness.

No wonder so many people turn away from the Church. What do we have to offer that’s better than what they can get elsewhere? We look and act just like everybody else. We don’t even try to be like Jesus.

What’s the point of being Christian if we’re not going to act like Christ?

Christ is passionate and extravagant and, by human standards, mortally reckless.

How is Jesus anything but prodigal?

How is Jesus calling us to be anything but prodigal, anything but recklessly extravagant with our love, with our forgiveness, with the gifts with which we are blessed?

And how do we get so selfish with them?

I mean, seriously, the best-loved propositions in Christianity all involve making me better, improving my relationship with Christ, how I connect better with the Holy Spirit, all about my salvation, my reward in heaven.

That’s not reckless extravagance. That’s conservative selfishness.

Have you heard it? Think about how we typically react when we’re trying to improve our relationship with Christ? What do we do?

Maybe we come to church more, where we hope something will inspire us, but we can’t stop thinking about what our neighbor thinks about what we’re doing and thinking and how they’re judging us and so we can’t still ourselves long enough to listen and let our souls breathe in the life-giving breath of God.

Or maybe we read the Bible more, but we assume that the people of the Bible live in the same kind of world that we live in today because we’re too lazy to imagine a different world or to do our homework to see why Paul would scold the chatterboxes in Corinth

 or what God was actually reacting to when he rescued Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

. And you don’t need me to point out what’s going on there, by the way. You just need to find a few decent commentaries. Bestseller and wealthy entrepreneur Max Lucado doesn’t count, by the way.

Or maybe we pray more, but we get so frightened by the concept of silence (maybe God isn’t really there!) that we fill the time with our own noise, creating nothing but a narcissistic mess of the time when our focus is supposed to be on the Divine, not on the flesh.

Then, when we ought to be focusing on God, when we ought to be God’s hands and feet loving on God’s beautiful creation, we instead focus all on ourselves. And the best we can do is slather makeup over the perfect image of God we are created to be like a three-year old who found mom’s Kaboodle and doesn’t know what the purpose of a mirror is.

God calls us to be child-like, not childish. Child-likeness is open-eyed and amazed. Childishness is selfish and full of tantrums.

Do you see the difference?

How do you think God sees you? Is God constantly judging you, shaking a divine head and wondering why you’ve gone wrong again? Or is God watching you and praising your every victory, nurturing and nudging you gently into better choices, into means of grace, beaming like a parent whose child is taking those first couple steps before crashing back down onto a perfectly-padded rumpus?

Open-eyed, beaming, amazed.

That’s how God sees us, and that’s how God is calling us to see each other.

So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now.

So we are ambassadors who represent Christ. God is negotiating with you through us. We beg you as Christ’s representatives, “ Be reconciled to God! ”

God is running out to us with opened arms. In fact, God has never left us alone. God has always been with us, even in our darkest, most God-forsaking moments, there was grace, dwelling, calling from the depths of our being; the very love of God dwelling in us and waiting for us to respond.

Showering on us extravagant, abundant forgiveness and mercy.

Reminding us that the Kingdom is right now, right here, in every act of reconciliation and love.

All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and who gave us the ministry of reconciliation. In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.

Like the ancient family of Israel, God is still promising us a future. And not some distant, far off specter in a cloudy realm, but a future that is blossoming into the present every time we allow God in.

Today, friends, be prodigal like God. Love relentlessly. Give extravagantly. Show the world fathomless forgiveness.

And the Kingdom of God will be with you, bursting out from you today.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.