Sunday,
May 2, 1999
Rev. James
A.Todhunter
"DOING SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL"
PSALM 31:1-5, 15-16;
MARK 14:3-9
There are many good reasons for you to pledge generously to the mission of Christ Congregational Church and to the wider ministry of the United Church of Christ. These are familiar to you and would include: making possible a ministry to our children and youth (how urgent that now seems!), outreach to our own community, caring for the needy and marginalized, advocacy for issues of justice and peace, worship the touches the deepest yearnings of the soul, music that uplifts the spirit, and a shared ministry of caring which guides us through the important passages of life. Your giving makes possible a community in which we know, love and accept one another as we are, created in the image of God and growing into what God intends us to be. To make this happen costs money, requires that you have critical input in the preparation of a budget and sound assurances that the money is wisely used. Other reasons include the biblically based injunction to give of the first fruits, off the top, as it were, as a thoughtfully arrived at percentage of income. And, of course, the abiding truth that giving to what you believe in brings deep satisfaction to the soul and provides for a sense of participation in something that truly matters.
I believe that all of the above is true. But I want to dwell briefly this morning on another thought. And that is this: generous and heartfelt giving is an act of beauty - a beautiful thing to do.
In Mark’s Gospel, we hear one of the most charming stories of the New Testament. Jesus and some of his followers are having dinner in Bethany at the home of a man named Simon. A woman comes among them and anoints Jesus with very expensive ointment called nard. Who she is and where she got the nard appears to be irrelevant. To all appearances, it is a bold act of great generosity.
This is followed by an immediate reaction for those present, one of anger and suspicion. What a waste of resources! What good could have been done with the money spent on this? What about the poor? What perhaps goes unsaid is suspicion about who this woman is and where she got the money to begin with. Predictably, alas, tradition has assumed that this woman was a prostitute, for which there is no evidence. Jesus’ response is to rebuke them. Let her alone, he says. What she has done is beautiful.
What this woman has done, Jesus seems to be saying, is a spontaneous, generous, exuberant, uncalculated act of generosity and appreciation. And, as such, deserves to stand on its own. As such, it is a thing of beauty. What do we make of the disciples’ reaction? Their reaction has the odor of religiosity about it. They start with the assumption that there’s got to be a problem. Someone’s being irresponsible. Not so fast about feeling good! Is this not a kind of ingrained uneasiness about feeling happy about anything? I was at a clergy gathering that took place around the time that Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa. We were awash in exuberant high hopes for dramatic change and the end of apartheid. Some in that group had worked for many years, long and hard, for that cause. In the midst of our joyousness, one of my clergy colleagues rose to his feet and proceeded to dourly lecture us on all the problems that remained for South Africa and told us not to get our hopes up too high, for much hard work remained. Well, yes. We all knew that. But I said to myself, what’s wrong with letting a beautiful moment alone?
Of course what my colleague was saying was true. And, of course, what the disciples said was true as well. To spend money on expensive ointment only to dump it over someone’s head, when such money could provide fifty meals for the hungry, invites criticism. How many fund raising appeals do you receive which include examples of the many needy children who could receive inoculations if you and I would forgo eating out once a month? Yes, yes. That is true. And Jesus clearly understands this, too. He says the problem of poverty is going to be with us for a long time with plenty of opportunity to help.
But what Jesus is saying, I think, is that the disciples are not so much motivated out of their concern for the poor, as their discomfort with spontaneous acts of beauty. Jesus is saying that a spontaneous act of generosity is a thing of beauty. Such giving is a beautiful thing to do.
Now, speaking as a kind of fifth-rate esthete, I am tempted to rhapsodize a bit about recognizing and appreciating beauty in our world, a world replete with images of ugliness, whether it be the beauty of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins or a late quartet by Beethoven. True beauty has a kind of stand-alone freedom from causes or consequences; it is reality itself. But I think the beauty that Jesus is talking about goes beyond this. It is the beauty of a style of generosity that is totally devoid of strategic calculation of impact or reward. It simply wells up from the heart and overflows outrageously. The woman’s act an unpremeditated, even scandalous, prodigal, wasteful eruption of love. Giving for the disciples was the result of stingy, picky calculation. Their point was to wring the spontaneity and passion out of it entirely. Whereas, for the woman, spontaneity and passion was the point.
Why does Jesus lift up this woman as an example to emulate? Because Jesus says repeatedly that God loves us in exactly this same way. God loves us outrageously, excessively, and with a kind of reckless abandon. Does that sound strange? I think, frankly, when most of us think about God’s graceful giving to us, we don’t imagine this woman. We are more likely to think of God as someone like John D. Rockefeller handing out dimes to little children - contrived and controlled, parsimoniously teaching us a lesson for our own good (Doesn’t the language of so many of our prayers convey the vision of a God to whom we beg? And this God has to mull it over privately for a while and get back to us on it). I say not at all! God’s love for us is like this woman’s love for Jesus, only even more so.
Years ago the church parsonage where I lived was not far from the railroad tracks, a major north-south route that was a favorite for hobos whose lives were spent riding the rails. A number of these folks became familiar to me over the years. Most, I would say, suffered from some form of mental illness, but were gentle and harmless. One particular chap was named Gordon. Twice a year or so, he would appear at the back door looking for something to eat and permission to spend the night on the church floor. There was never a problem. One time, we invited Gordon to join our family barbecue in the back yard. We sat and chatted about such theological matters as how the devil can get into your life and wreak havoc. Gordon knew that well and made some rather sound points, as I recall. The next morning there was a knock at the front door. I opened it to find Gordon standing there. "Reverend," he said "you and the missus has always been kind to me and I do appreciate it. So I wanted to give you this." Then he took from behind his back a large carton of Hostess Twinkies. He thrust it into my hand, said good-bye and was on his way. I then noticed across the street, a big bakery truck unloading in front of Dan and Whit’s General Store. I walked over and returned the box, adding it to a large stack of identical ones on a cart next to the truck. Was what Gordon had done wrong? Yes. Is such light-fingered behavior to be condoned? Certainly not. Is dealing in stolen goods of any kind excusable? No. But was this an act of spontaneous generosity and a thing of true beauty? I think so. Why? Because it was so heartfelt.
When we so give, we are saying, "Your heart has touched my heart." What is more beautiful? It is heart-felt. Heartfelt gifts have little to do with calculating amounts, analyzing circumstances, or really "figuring out" anything. And, of course, what this woman did was profoundly spiritual. Jesus observes that her gift was for the anointing of his body. She understood something the disciples didn’t. It was a gift in anticipation of the sacrifice he would soon make. In other words, she was the only person there who fully appreciated who Jesus really was. That insight did not come from her religiosity. It came from her generous and appreciative heart.
Consider the pledge you are about to present. Is it from the heart? Is it heartfelt? If so, it will truly be a beautiful thing to do. AMEN.
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