March 25, 2007                                       

  Chris Kambish,                                                

  Director of Youth & Family Ministries

 

"Nothing Is Wasted on Jesus”

John 12:1-8

 

         As we read in the passage this takes place six days before the Passover festival. There are many similarities between the Passover and Easter, if you remember a couple of weeks ago we learned about the Passover so I won’t go into it now except to say the Passover was the celebration of deliverance from Egypt. Easter is our celebration of deliverance from sin and death.

            All that is to say there is an atmosphere of excitement for the coming celebration. Preparations are being made for the masses of people coming to the area and people are getting ready for the celebration.

            The house they are at is in Bethany. This is a town located just 2 miles East of Jerusalem, and the last stop on the road from Jericho.  Mark’s gospel tells us that they are in the house of a man known as Simon the leper. This man is no longer leprous (otherwise it gives the phrase eating with your fingers a whole new meaning). Simon, a man healed by Jesus, no longer suffers from the disease. One way he can show that he is thankful is to hold a dinner in Jesus’ honor (vs.2).

            At another spot around the table among the disciples was Jesus’ friend Lazarus who, a few days earlier, was dead. Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus were also present.

            Then we have the perfume. This perfume called Nard, came from the mountains of India. John tells us that there was about a pint of it, and Judas says that it was worth a year’s wages. The amount of money it cost to buy this bottle of perfume would have fed a family for a year. It would have come in a jar of Alabaster. The way that it was sealed it would have to be broken open to be used.

Now that we have the background, let’s focus on the players in the story. As we know, Jesus is the center of the gospels, they focus on him. So we know that Jesus is the main character. I want to look at the characters that surround him in the house. I want to look at the characters in light of the people in the church. When we come to church we do so in honor of Christ, so who surrounds the table.

You hear the question all the time, “What is the meaning of life?” Well, in my opinion, to put it simply, it’s to honor and glorify God. In Jn. 5:22-23 we read, “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.” In regard to theses verses Bible commentator, Leon Morris says, “What is done to one is done to the other.” Every Christian has the privilege and duty of choosing how they will honor Christ. The characters in this story all have different was of serving and honoring Christ. What I want us to look at is how we honor Christ. I am not saying that the examples we hear tonight are the only ways, but they cover a good percentage and I think that we will all be able to find ourselves in one or a combination of the characters.

First let’s look at Martha. The only thing we read about Martha is what we read in verse 2, “Martha served”. Martha was the one who was bringing the food to the table, filling the cups with the wine (or grape juice if they held their finger up), making sure that everyone had what they needed.

Martha’s of the church love to serve, they want to use their time, their gifts, and their talents to serve and uplift God and others. To a healthy Martha it doesn’t matter if they are teaching Sunday school or taking out the trash, they love what they are doing because they are doing it for Jesus and for the church.

I have discovered that some of the happiest workers in the church are the custodians. You might think that their job stinks because they have to empty garbage, scrub toilets and clean up after everyone. But they are always happy. It might be because they work alone, but I think it’s because most custodians are Martha’s. It doesn’t matter if they are throwing away the brand new folding table that the youth group used for a game and broke, or if they are cleaning the crayon off the wall in the preschool room, or if they are setting up and taking down chairs for the seventh time that week. They love to serve.

In a healthy Martha, service is never wasted. No matter how big or little the job may seem, with the right heart and attitude it’s not wasted it doesn’t go unnoticed. I remember when I started here last summer, that there was a group that worked with Habitat for Humanity. I don’t know for sure but I doubt they got their name on a monument out side the home they worked on. There probably wasn’t a slot in the local news cast that night that honored and thanked them. But I know for sure that their effort, their service did not go unnoticed. It wasn’t done for recognition, it wasn’t done for money; it was done because of their heart to serve. It was not wasted.

But there can be a bad side to Martha too. Some Martha’s serve with the wrong attitude, because “No one else is going to do it”. They are stressed out, reluctant; they grumble the whole time they are working, and they are no fun to be with while cleaning up. They feel they need to be recognized for what they do. This is not a healthy Martha. I saw a skit once that depicted this event, and just before Mary is about to pour the perfume out on the feet of Jesus Martha comes bursting out of the kitchen and screams at Mary to help her. I worked at a church with an unhealthy Martha, she was in charge of keeping the kitchen clean and stocked. Her attitude was so bad that by the end of my time at that church there were several people, myself included, that wouldn’t even go in the kitchen because we didn’t want to be reamed for leaving something out of place. That is not the Martha of this story, this Martha saw a way to help and she was happy to do it, there was no burden.

The church needs Martha, the good one. God has given all of us gifts and talents and he wants us to use them for him. In this story there is no evidence of a bad or unhealthy Martha, she is doing what she see needs to be done, and she does it with joy. She does it in honor of Jesus. We need healthy Martha’s. Done out of joy, no effort is wasted.

Next we have some silent players, the disciples.

In John’s account they are not even mentioned as a group. I struggled with whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Who are these people in the church?

As I thought more about it I think that these people make up a large group in every church. These people may not quite know where they fit in with the work of the church, so they fill in the gaps for now. They are always here, they attend every thing that they can, and they participate in whatever capacity they can be helpful. These people are seeking, growing, learning, and discovering their gifts. They are looking for their spot, their role.

Most importantly they want to be where Jesus is! As you read through the gospels there are many times when the disciples aren’t really sure what they are getting into, they are not sure where Jesus is going with a certain parable. At times Jesus would even get a little frustrated with having to explain to them a second or third time, but when he called them they dropped every thing and followed him right away. And Jesus isn’t going to give up on them.

These are the people that bring up a refreshing and often forgotten point in Bible study. The comment or question that makes you think and remember a time when you didn’t have the answer. Then makes you realize that maybe you still don’t have the answer, you still don’t have it figured out. They come with the kind of faith the Jesus talks about in Mark 14, when he says “let the little children come to me…”. They don’t hear about a miracle with a skeptical ear, they don’t read about something Jesus did and ask, “Is that really how it happened?” They hear what Jesus has done and they soak it up. They are eager to know more, and their heart is so willing to serve.

These people show us that there is always a place to serve. There is always room for more hands to help. They are in it for the long haul, no matter how bumpy the road they are going to stick with Jesus. We need disciples. The efforts and lives of those devoted to Jesus are never wasted.

Next is Judas. Now I know your thinking, “If he says we need Judas’ I’m leaving.” But hear me out. Let’s look at Judas a little closer than we normally do, because there is a good side to him.

First off he was one of the twelve that dropped it all to follow Jesus. Judas was super talented and one of the most educated of the disciples. Judas had gifts that the other disciples did not. The comment that Judas makes is true, that money could have been used to help the poor. The idea was fine, during the Passover it was customary to give gifts to the poor on the evening of the celebration, but Jesus being Jesus saw past the idea and into the intent. Jesus knew the heart of Judas, and that is where his problem was. Judas knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.

For all of his head knowledge he had no heart knowledge. He wouldn’t let Christ penetrate past his intellect. As the years that he spent with Jesus went by he came to realize that Jesus was not the Messiah he was hoping for. He wanted a Messiah that would conquer Rome, and give him a high place of power in the new kingdom. He began to look for a way out. He took his eyes off Jesus.

We can see people like him all around us, so gifted, so talented, yet so lost. They use their talents for their own gain. They think only of how they can benefit. Our worship and service should never be dependant on what we get out of it or how it makes us feel. Judas knew that what he did was wrong. As a way to try and make amends he returning the money. But he was so proud that he could not bring himself to repent, and so he died in sorrow. Sometimes we let our talents and gifts make us proud, and self-reliant. Then we turn our backs on God and make our own way.

 The church needs people like the good Judas. The church needs those who are super talented, and smart. We need people who are wise in the way of business, finance, computers, and administration. We need those who would use their gifts for the good of the kingdom. We need Judas with his eyes on Jesus. With our eyes on Jesus our knowledge and abilities are never wasted.

Last we have Mary. Mary was not the most talented or the smartest, or the richest. But she desired and treasured a relationship with Jesus. Five times we have Mary as a central character in the John’s gospel and four times we see her at the feet of Jesus, she’s there listening to him teach, she’s there weeping after her brother’s death. She’s there, in this story, anointing him with expensive perfume, and the fourth time she’s at the foot of the cross. Mary was close to Jesus, and as evident from this story she may have understood his mission and purpose better than most.

In this story we find Mary with one desire, to honor Jesus. She brings the best she has and offers it to Jesus with no apologies or qualifications. That jar of perfume was expensive, but it wasn’t as much a sacrifice for her as we think. She didn’t give the perfume up, she gave the perfume to, and she gave it to Jesus.

The Mary’s in the church are the one’s that value relationships more than possessions. They are the one’s that are gaining wisdom, they are the one’s that seldom worry about them selves, they are the one’s that love because he first loved us. They are the one’s that don’t count the sacrifice as something to be lost as much as something to be gained. They are the one’s that point to Christ in all they do. They are the one’s that show loving devotion and a desire to worship God with their lives. They are the one’s who sit at the feet of Jesus and learn, cry, and honor. The church needs Mary’s, for those who sit at the feet of Jesus will never go to waste.

The truth of the matter is this. We need all kinds. The church wouldn’t survive if everyone was all Mary. If everyone was Martha we couldn’t go on. We need Mary’s, Martha’s, Judas with his eyes on Jesus, and we need disciples. And probably we all need to be a little of each.

In closing I want to bring up another character that I have overlooked until now. That character is the bottle of perfume. None of us have an alabaster jar full of perfume that cost a year’s wages. But it is a reminder. No matter whom we see ourselves as, no matter what combination of gifts and talents we have, let’s also be like the bottle in the story. When it’s all said and done, when we strip away everything else, like the bottle. May we find ourselves broken and at the feet of Jesus. AMEN.