Irresponsible Adoration

Mark 14.3-9

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. . .

. . .and the liberal politician said, “What a waste! We will never be able to provide universal, single-payer health care if the one percent are allowed to spend extravagantly like this!”

. . .and the conservative politician said, “Could have funded many important senate campaigns. Sad. Loser!”

. . .and her pastor said, “Doesn’t she know what kind of shape our budget is in? That much money could have paid off most of our building debt!”

. . .and Dave Ramsey said, “That jar of ointment was an investment. If she had held onto it, even figuring for a moderate increase in value, in ten years she could have paid her kids’ college tuition and still given far more.”

. . .and the Baptist college president said, “Darn! I’d been courting her for months to donate that oil to our endowment. Now we won’t be able to offer nearly as many scholarships to train young ministers. I hope she’s happy.”

. . .and the deacon said, “The preacher keeps telling us we have to tithe, and then she wastes money like that. I don’t see why I should have to give when other church members seem to have money to burn.”

. . .and the seminary professor said, “It’s clear that she lacks a good overview of the life and teachings of Jesus. Otherwise she would know he approves of simplicity, not luxury. I wish she’d consulted someone like me who has really studied Jesus.”

. . .and everybody posted about it on Facebook and argued back and forth and ended up unfriending each other.

. . .and the victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma said, “We still don’t have clean water and we’re living in tents. That money really would have helped.”

. . .and folks living in the Colonias said, “What kind of people have money like that just to throw away?”

. . .and orphans in South Sudan said nothing, because they were too weak from hunger to speak.

But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.

For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."