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We all carry one. In fact, everywhere we
go, we carry one with us. We carry it with us to work, to
school, to the mall, and to the movies. When we go out to
eat, we bring it, and when we go on vacation, we are sure to
bring it along. Every one of us carries one of these. It
doesn’t matter how old you are or whether you are male or
female, black or white. You have one and I have one, and
seldom do we go anywhere without it.
And this thing, it means the world to us.
That is why it goes wherever we go. We hold on to it
tightly, being careful never to drop it or let it slip
through our fingers. We’d do just about anything to protect
it and keep it safe.
So what is this prized possession? It is
our jar. That’s right, our jar. We all carry a jar. Each of
the jars we carry is different from the jars others carry.
Some are a bit bigger. Others are a little smaller. Some are
fancier and others a bit plainer. But despite these
differences, we each have one.
But here is what we all know about these
jars we carry. It is not the jar that is of real value to
us. It’s what’s in it that matters most. After all, it’s not
the container that is of real value, but what the container
contains that makes it so precious.
“What are you talking about, preacher?
What is this jar thing you’re talking about? I am not
carrying a jar. As I look around, I don’t see anyone else
carrying a jar. I don’t get it. Make it plain, preacher!
What are you getting at?”
The jars I am talking about here are our
“blessing jars.” You have one. I have one. All God’s
children have a blessing jar. They are the containers that
carry all the reminders of all the ways we have been
blessed. Every time a blessing comes our way, it drops into
our little jar:
The blessings of family
The blessings of friends
The blessings of meaningful work
The jar
is filled with blessings. It has all of the ways we have
blessed materially:
The houses we live in
The cars we drive
The clothes we wear
The food we eat
Our jar
has the blessings of creation:
All the sunrises and sunsets
All the full moons and starry, starry
nights
All the rainbows and the blue skies with
big, puffy clouds
In it
you’ll find:
The fresh snowflakes of winter
The fresh flowers of spring
The beaches of summer
And the leaves of autumn
Also in there are the songs of robins
that wake us in the morning and the humming of crickets that
puts us to bed at night.
And of
course it is filled with all the blessings that flow from
the life of faith:
Love
Forgiveness
Grace
Compassion
Peace
Patience
Mercy
Gentleness
Goodness
They are all in there, every one of them!
Every blessing we’ve ever received is on display in our
jars. No wonder we love our jars so much. They remind us of
all that is good and all that we have been given. That’s why
I carry mine with me wherever I go—just so I never forget
how much I am loved. If I am having a tough day, I just pull
out my jar and run my hands through all of the blessings.
I sometimes pull a couple of the
blessings out and look at them.
This one is dated July 26, 1996. That is
the day the most beautiful woman in the world walked down an
aisle and she said she would be my partner for life.
Then there is this one dated June 6,
2006, the day Casey John Nelson came into our lives.
This one doesn’t have a date. It just
reads, “The first time I saw the ocean.”
This one doesn’t have a date, either. It
just reads: “That night you laid under the star-filled sky
for hours without saying a word.”
And, of course, there is this one. This
is one of my most prized blessings. It is dated January 26,
1997. We all remember what happened that day, don’t we?
That’s right! That’s the day the Green Bay Packers won the
Super Bowl. A blessed day indeed!
I love my jar. I cherish my jar. I make
sure nothing happens to my jar. In fact, I have this vision
that when my life comes to an end, when it comes time to lay
me to rest, there on the top of my casket will be my
blessing jar, overflowing with blessings as my way of
offering a final thanksgiving to God for the life I have had
the privilege to live. We love our blessing jars.
Then comes a text like today’s, and it
seems to change everything. Out of nowhere, this unnamed
woman enters the scene, takes her jar, smashes it, and pours
all the contents out on Jesus’ head. The details of this
moment make it all the more shocking. The text tells us the
jar was full of an expensive perfume, pure nard. Nard is the
thick, amber-colored oil that is made from the roots of the
spikenard plants found in the Himalaya Mountains of China,
India and Nepal. This was the good stuff, the expensive
stuff. In fact, the scriptures tell us that this one jar
cost an entire year’s wages. One year—12 months, 52 weeks,
365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes of blood, sweat and
tears were in that jar, and she poured it all out. Every
last drop of it. Just like that. Without a moment’s
hesitation, it was all gone. She held none of it back. Saved
none of it for a rainy day. Didn’t seem to count the cost.
She just poured it all out.
How do you feel about that? We probably
feel like the disciples in the story. They were shocked.
They were appalled. When they saw what she was about to do,
they rushed over to her, shouting: “Stop! Wait! Don’t waste
it! Think of all the people we could feed with that money!”
“Don’t waste it.” The disciples are the
voice of reason here. And who can blame them for being a bit
miffed at the waste this has created? Not anyone who has
ever run a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, that’s for
sure. “A year’s wages. Are you kidding? We could do a lot
with a year’s wages.” I can only imagine what a social
worker who has a caseload full of people in desperate need
would think as he or she would watch that entire jar—full of
the good stuff—being all poured out in one single moment.
And I can tell you, as a church administrator with a passion
for missions and outreach, that that kind of money can
literally save lives. I think if I had been there that day
and watched this nameless woman pour all of that oil out in
one shot—all of her blessings being spent in one single
moment—I think I might have broken down in tears.
This is the tension of our faith. On the
one hand, we have the disciples. They represent the
well-balanced, emotionally-controlled, frugal, reasonable
inclinations of our soul. They represent that part of us
that says, “Hold on to it. Save it up. Spend it wisely.
Spend it slowly. Be reserved. Be measured. Safety first.”
They represent that part of our faith lives that says, “If I
can’t explain it, then I won’t believe it. If I don’t
understand it, then I am not going to do it. If I don’t know
where this journey is going to end, then I am not taking
it.” The disciples in this story represent the reasonable.
But on the other hand, there is the
perfume lady. She represents the abundant, spontaneous,
ecstatic, extravagant, risky leanings of our hearts. She
represents that part of us that says, “Let it all go. Give
it all away. Bet the farm. Don’t hold back. Take a chance.”
She represents that part of our faith lives that pushes us
to give more of ourselves—more of our feelings, more of our
emotions, more of our money, more of our time and
talents—than we ever dreamed possible. The nameless perfume
lady is that impulse within to be abundantly extravagant.
So what are we to do with the tension
between holding onto our blessing jars and breaking them
open and letting the blessings spill all over the place? We
look to Jesus, whose answer flies in the face of our
reasonable, measured, frugal, Protestant work ethic. In the
choice between reasonable disciples and a wasteful woman,
Jesus chooses the perfume lady. He calls the act of
exuberance “beautiful.” He calls this an act of holy waste—a
waste growing out of an abundance of the heart. “I will
never forget this,” he says. “In fact, no one else will
forget this, either.”
So the question has got to be for us
tonight: What are we ‘wasting’ our lives on? Are we holding
tightly to the blessing jar or are we breaking it open so
that it might bless others? Through the act of this nameless
woman, we are reminded that the Kingdom of God is built on
the abundance of the heart. By lifting up her wasteful
action, Jesus reminds us that religion confined within the
limits of reasonableness will not transform the world, and
that calculating love is no love at all.
Even a cursory reading of Christian
history tells us that the Church has always been built upon
those who ‘wasted’ their lives:
·
Francis ‘wasted’ his life to live
among the poor of Assisi.
·
Julian ‘wasted’ her life
cloistered in Norwich, writing and reflecting on the immense
love of God.
·
John Wesley ‘wasted’ his ministry
preaching in open fields and at coal mines.
·
Albert Schweitzer ‘wasted’ a
promising academic career to become a missionary doctor in
the jungles of Africa.
·
Mother Teresa ‘wasted’ her life in
the slums of Calcutta.
·
Martin Luther King ‘wasted’ the
opportunity to teach at a prominent northern seminary in
order to pastor a small church in Birmingham, Alabama.
·
Millard Fuller ‘wasted’ a
promising business career to start a small housing ministry
called Habitat for Humanity.
·
And just last Sunday, we listened
to the testimony of four of our youth whose friends are
pretty sure they ‘wasted’ their spring break by going on a
mission trip to Kentucky.
The Kingdom of God has always been, and
dare I say, always will be built by those who have decided
to ‘waste’ their lives in service to God and their
neighbor.
But now we have to ask: “Why did she do
it? Why did she just give it all away? Why did she break her
jar and let her blessings flow?” The scripture makes that
pretty plain. The woman made the exuberant act of blessing
because she knew what time it was. She knew Jesus was about
to die. She knew this was going to be her last chance to
bless him. Her last chance to show him how much he had meant
to her. Her last chance to say the things she always wanted
to say, and her last chance to do the things she always
wanted to do. She knew what time it was. She knew his days
were numbered. She knew there might not be a tomorrow. And
maybe if the disciples understood what time it was—if they
knew that Jesus would soon be dead—then perhaps they
wouldn’t have given her such a hard time. In fact, if they
knew the time, they might have broken their blessing jars,
as well.
Knowing what time it is can make all the
difference in the world. Here is an example. When it comes
to booking a flight, most of us will search for the best
deal we can find. We will book as early as possible. We will
stay the extra day. We will search different airlines. We
will use Expedia or Travelocity. We will use credit cards
that give us special discounts. We will go to just about any
length to save a couple of bucks.
But when the phone rings and the voice on
the other end tells us that it is time—tells us that there
isn’t much time left…that if we want to say goodbye, then
we’d better come—then we never count the cost, do we? We
will pay whatever we need to pay in order to get there. We
will break the bank if needed to ensure that we have one
last chance to say what needs to be said to the people we
love the most. Knowing what time it is makes all the
difference in the world.
And here is the deal. Jesus tells us what
time it is. All four of the Gospels agree that the first
words out of Jesus’ mouth when he begins his earthly
ministry are all about what time it is. Jesus emerges from
forty days and nights of temptation in the wilderness
saying, “The kingdom of God is at hand!” That’s what time it
is. The time is now. If you don’t hear anything else I say
tonight, hear this: The Kingdom of God—the reign of
God…heaven…eternal life…whatever you want to call it—is
happening right now. It is happening right here. Now is the
moment. Heaven is not some “pie in the sky, in the sweet by
and by, only when I die” reality. Heaven is now. Connection
with God is possible right now. “The Kingdom of God is at
hand.” That’s what time it is.
So you might be asking: “What do I do to
experience it? How can I live into heaven right here, right
now? How is that kind of connection with God possible?” We
get there by doing exactly what the woman in the story did.
We take our precious jar of blessing and break it open and
let the contents flow out all over the place. We can let the
abundance of our hearts guide us into ‘wasteful’ acts of
compassion and service.
So tonight, if there is a relationship
that needs mending or forgiveness that needs offering, don’t
waste any more time. Pick up that phone and make the call.
Now is the time!
If you have been saying to yourself, “One
of these days I am going to go on a mission trip,” don’t
waste any more time. Make that commitment tonight to do it
in the next twelve months. Now is the time!
If you have been thinking that if you
just had some more money, you’d give to this ministry or
invest in that project, don’t waste any more time. Give what
you can right now. In fact, give more than you think you
can. Now is the time!
If you have been hanging out at the
church for a while now, checking things out, figuring that
one of these days you’ll join, one of these days you’ll get
more involved, don’t waste any more time. Pull me aside
after the service, pick up the phone and call me, send me a
note or an e-mail and say: “Pastor, put me to work. Give me
something to do. I want to break my jar and let my blessings
be a blessing to others.” Now is the time!
In the standards of the world, God’s plan
to save the world was a total waste of time. Jesus was born
in a poor, unknown little village to poor, unknown parents.
The majority of his leaders came from the unspectacular and
uneducated. At his peak, only a couple of hundred seemed to
buy into his plan. At the end, only three or four women were
left standing there as he died a shameful death upon the
cross. In the terms of the world, the whole thing was a
total failure, a complete waste of time. Yet I don’t know
about you, but every day I thank my lucky stars God has
wasted his time on me!
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