I was ordained into the Lutheran ministry in 1974, so I’m closing in on 40 years of studying the Word of God both privately and in public. You’d think I’d have seen everything these texts have to offer. Not so. Last Wednesday, as I write this, was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. And this is the year of Mark. So on the Wednesdays of Lent, we are reading through Mark 14 and 15 as we count down the days until Easter. The text was Mark 14:1-11.
Here’s the text as the Revised Standard Version has it: “It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him; for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people.”
And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the jar and poured it over his head. But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor.” And they reproached her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying. And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. And when they heard it they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him. [Mark 14:1-11 RSV]
I have highlighted the words indicating the value of the ointment – something called nard – which the woman poured over Jesus’ head. Looking at the Greek, “more than three hundred denarii” is a literal translation. A footnote in my RSV tells me that “The denarius was worth about twenty cents.” Doing the math, the total is $60.00, which seems like a lot to pay for perfume, but is nowhere near correct. Perhaps it was this footnote that kept me from the full import of what Jesus said next, but another Gospel, Matthew, tells us in chapter 20 that a denarius was the amount some day laborers agreed upon for a day’s work in a vineyard.
Yes, it’s a story Jesus told, but scholars verify that a day of labor was worth a denarius in Jesus’ time. Suddenly, this little coin is worth, not twenty cents, but more than 300 days’ labor. Subtracting Sabbaths and holy days, that’s nearly a year of work. What is your annual salary? What is the annual income of a day laborer today? That’s the amount that could have been given to the poor if Jesus’ fellow guests had been able to wrest the nard or the money away from the woman. But they couldn’t. It was her nard to do with as she wanted, and she wanted to pour it on Jesus’ head. And Jesus commended her action.
But there’s more! Jesus not only commended the woman; he chastised the grumblers. I wonder if they got it. “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me,” Jesus said. All too often only the first phrase of this statement is quoted: “You always have the poor with you.” But this misses Jesus’ point. His point is what comes next: “and whenever you will, you can do good to them.” [emphasis mine] It’s Jesus saying in today’s language: “Hey guys, use your own money to take care of the poor. Don’t tell this woman what she should do. Worry about your own righteousness. Let her worry about hers!” To those who would use the wealthy woman’s money to do good to the poor, Jesus said it was up to them to do their own good to the poor. And they could do it any time they wanted.
This lesson was an excellent way to begin Lent, 2012 – or any year for that matter. Thank you to Mark [and to Jesus] for a reminder to forego coveting others’ possessions and see to a responsible and charitable use of our own.
