Rations or Rainbows                                                                        4/18/48

 

Scripture:  Matthew 26: 1-13

 

Text:  Matthew 26: 8, 9;  “But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, ‘To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.’”

 

Today I want to discuss a problem.  I hope that you will not be exasperated that I do not solve it. - Would that I could! - But if we may see a bit of light upon it, perhaps each of us may advance a bit toward our own solution of it.  The question is this: “What is really practical in human life?”

 

This question was raised a few days before Jesus died, while he was at Bethany, on his final trip to Jerusalem.  During meal time, while Jesus sat at table, a woman came into the room with a costly alabaster box of rare ointment.  She poured it out on the head of Jesus, and its odor filled the room.  It must have been pleasant.  Anointing the head with oil (in certain ceremonies) was a way of designating a new king.  Anointing the feet was a sign of comforting hospitality.  The use of ointment was a matter of pleasure and satisfaction.  Judging by the box (alabaster) and by the comments made, this ointment must have been a very precious variety.

 

And some of the disciples raised a question: “To what purpose is this waste?”  They all had so little.  Jesus himself had no material things except the clothes on his back.  And there were always those who did not even have food, or fair shelter, or decent clothing to cover them.  Wasn’t this a terrible extravagance; when the box of oil might have been exchanged for its value in money or food and the amount “given to the poor” and needy?  It seemed a very practical question -- the kind of question I might have raised -- and perhaps you might have thought?

 

It must have been confusing to the questioners that Jesus replied: “Why trouble ye the woman?  for she hath wrought a good work upon me.” -- Let her alone, she has done a lovely thing for me.  Now what is practical, anyway?

 

It is said that, some 500 years before Christ, a prominent king [Cambyses] sent some presents to the Prince of Ethiopia.  They included a purple vest, a gold chain for the neck, bracelets, an alabaster box of ointment, and a cask of palm wine.   The cynical might say, well, what did he want from the Ethiopian Prince?  Probably gifts to royalty have been all too often an effort to purchase favors.

 

But suppose that, after all, the gift was simply a token of friendly esteem.  What was the use of all that stuff?  The wine might qualify as food, provided the prince didn’t get drunk on it.  But he couldn’t eat the bracelets or the gold chain.  And what could anybody do with a purple vest?  As for the alabaster box of ointment --- that leads our mind over the 500 years ahead to Jesus and his anointing at Bethany, and to that persistent question -- what is the use of this?  It may be that we can watch the way Jesus met the problem -- and listen.  For we ourselves must meet the issue -- in our families -- and all over the world.

 

Should relief money be spent for hymn books and organs?  Should it not all go for clothing and food?  And look what happens now and then to some of the promising expenditures of missionary funds?  A Christian mission compound in North China, established and supported by a church in the United States, was taken over by Japanese invasion forces during the war.  And now it is occupied by communist arrivals.  “To what purpose is this waste?”  Would Jesus say with rueful anger, “It wasn’t worth what it cost.  The money would have been better spent some other way.”  It is a matter of fascinating interest that Jesus did not say any such thing on the occasion of that comment by his disciples.  Instead, his reply was a sharp rebuke: “Let her alone!  She has done a lovely thing to me.”  But is an act justified if it is lovely?

 

Suppose utility is the test -- then has not God himself made some blunders?  Why did God make alabaster in the first place?  Is it a human perversion to regard it as beautiful?  Why is autumn a crimson glory?  Hadn’t the leaves better just fall uncolored to the earth and rot to humus?  Why should musicians be miserable unless they be making music?

 

The disciples did not know it, but they were asking the right question: “To what purpose?” though they begged the question when they continued with the assumption that it was waste.  George Buttrick says that if we can determine the purpose, perhaps we can distinguish between what is waste and what is wisdom; for waste is whatever hurts the purpose and wisdom is whatever helps it.

 

If the purpose of our lives is to be hangers for good clothes, then clothing -- not just covering, but good clothing -- is all important.  If we are primarily furnace doors into which food must be shoveled for burning into energy, then food is all important -- every thing is waste except food and shelter and clothing.

 

But is it the purpose of life to be a clothes rack or a food furnace?  Did not the disciples mean, when they said, “...given to the poor,” “given to the arms and stomachs of the poor?”  That kind of assumption is an unconscious insult to the poor -- now as well as then.  Do not people like to be treated as human souls?  Sometimes it is food that is most needed; sometimes it is a rose or a song.  Often it is both.

 

The child of a war-ruined home, not knowing an adequate meal for months or years, may be made joyful if her father, at some sacrifice which she can only guess, brings her good bread and cheese and a pair of whole shoes for her birthday.  The child of a home where these things are plentiful, and who gets a pair of socks from his mother for a birthday gift, might, if he reasoned deeply, want to say, “Am I just a pair of feet?  Don’t you love me?”

 

There is a pitiful story, with a beautiful point, told by a lad who was raised in poverty.  It was almost Mother’s Day and he and his older brother would somehow get a fine gift for their mother.  Somehow he managed to get hold of a colored comb for her hair.  His older brother (they were both children) worked in a frenzy to earn money for his gift -- which he would disclose to no one.  But he got it and was full of the pride of choice.  On Mother’s Day they were to present their gifts together, but the older boy was to choose the time.

 

Mother was in the midst of the most hated job of the week -- washing the floor with old rags and water out of a battered old bucket.  While she was in the midst of that dirty hated job, the older lad ran to its hiding place and drew forth triumphantly his present -- a brand new mop bucket complete with mop and wringing device.  The tired mother burst into actual anger -- “a mop bucket for a Mother’s Day gift.”  And the boy, deeply hurt by a reaction he had not expected at all, started down the stairs in tears to try to exchange the gift for something else -- the little brother miserably tagging along.

 

On the stairway, they met their father coming home from work. He took in the situation with a glance and a quick question; he said, “That is a wonderful gift; I should have thought of it myself;” and led the way back upstairs.  The father took the new bucket, filled it with water, put in a bit of precious soap, wrung the mop deftly out of the liquid and finished cleaning the floor.  Then he looked squarely at his wife and remarked that the boy had not finished with his presentation; that he meant to offer, with the new bucket, to mop the floor himself thereafter!

 

It was a red-faced boy who then heard his mother exclaim that a woman be so “misunderstanding,” and received her profuse thanks for the gift.  Sweetest music to his new-taught ears were the words of his little brother.  For when the little chap was asked, “what is your gift?” he said miserably, “the other half of the mop bucket.”  What a frenzy of love for both mother and big brother must have gone into the child’s concealment of that pretty comb!

 

Now surely there must be a place for the colored comb -- and the alabaster box!  There must also be a place for the soup kitchen and the mop bucket -- when accompanied human love and thoughtful sacrifice!  Right now we are receiving renewed appeals for help for the children of the world -- hungry and diseased from the effect of war -- million of them - several times the total population of our own country.  Among other things, we are told that these kids will grow up with warped souls and dangerous minds in their malformed bodies -- the future dangerous neighbors of our well-fed kids grown up --  unless we help generously now to feed them.  And that is true.  Shall we give, then, for fear of what may happen if we don’t?  Or shall we give because we want to help children, because we love them too?  And will it be food alone -- for millions of little human furnaces --- or will it be food and friendship for millions of human people?

 

Isn’t there a whole universe of difference here?  A spiritual mountain?

 

O what use is a rainbow?  The rain drops to moistens the earth and clean the air -- yes -- that has practical use.  But a rainbow?  Perhaps it has no use for man -- unless he is more than a body.  But he is more than a body, and he does need the rainbow too.  He needs friendship; encouragement; self-respect; love.  (England -- Princess Alice’s daughter critically ill of diphtheria - child begged piteously to be kissed - at last mother could not refuse -- herself sickened.)

 

We get “possession-minded” -- especially we Americans.  Possession of things can be all right if we do not become absorbed in them.  There is a limit of some sort to the things we can possess -- and the limit of what we need is lower than many of us think.  Human nature needs rainbows, music friendliness -- else possessions turn metallic like Midas’ gold or become as ashes in our mouths.

 

[Striking shop girls -- better food -- roses too!]

 

[Edna Hills’ new white gloves in the missionary barrel]

 

[Bibles, organ, Quonset church buildings; not just food through government to fight the communists, but food and friendship -- through Church World Service.]

 

[The “Locket”]

 

To what purpose this waste.  Let her alone.  She has done a lovely thing for me.  It shall be remembered as a testimonial of her whenever this story shall be told.

                                                                                                (end)

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 18, 1948.