Being a Fool with Your Money for all the Right Reasons
3 And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. 4 There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. 9 And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Mark 14:3–9 ESV
When it comes to this story, I think that more of us are like Judas than we think. Our scorecard has more “Why did they waste money on that?” at church than it has “I was so happy to blow that fortune on the Lord!” We might not be arguing with money-waste because we are stealing it for ourselves, but because we don’t like the decision of how to spend the money we donated.
That is a tricky area, because while there should be financial accountability in the church, motives can be very very difficult to maneuver. Look at the lady that brought this nard in and dumped it out on Jesus: she looks like a fool. She looks like a fool even to the people that are the closest to Jesus! This is late in the Gospel, too. Jesus has already done so many miracles and proven Himself to the disciples, it is a surprise that they would tell anyone to hold worship back.
What if we’ve disguised our own greed as “financial wisdom” to the point of stealing gifts from Jesus to fill our bigger barns with stuff? What if the stuff we’ve saved our money for is a bigger waste than a bottle of nard?
To turn it another way, husbands, what if you blew money on a date like you did before you got married? (My wife would kill me!) but look at the mood and perspective at that time. 2 Corinthians 9 says that “God loves a joyful giver.” The pharisees and the disciples were not very joyful when this lady dumped out this expensive perfume, but she did it out of her joy.
The point of all of this could easily be money, but it isn’t. The point is that we would be transformed into joyful lovers of Jesus instead of righteous & wealthy managers with a fine perfume (nard) collection. It’s not the giving, but the heart that does the giving that counts. And Jesus was right, here we are at the end of 2016 talking about the Gospel and this lady too.
You can get the Daily Bible Readings via email every day by visiting Feedburner and clicking ‘Get Daily Bible Readings delivered by email’ over on the right side of the screen. You can also see them on Facebook or Twitter.