Bible Studies

MISERABLE MONEY-MINDED MISERS!

by Luella Campbell
08/24/15
Not For Sale
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MISERABLE MONEY-MINDED MISERS!

Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill Him. ‘But not during the festival,’ they said, ‘or the people may riot.’

While He was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on His head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, ‘Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.’ And they rebuked her harshly (Mark 14: 1-5).

Funny, isn’t it, how people suddenly have sympathy for the poor when someone else spends his or her money extravagantly! Of course, however, in their own way of life they never give the poor a thought.

Jesus was invited to a meal at the home of Simon the Leper. That’s strange. Lepers were outcasts of society. They were diseased and “unclean”. They had to remain in isolation, cut off from friends and family because their condition was infectious. Since “leprosy” was a term for a variety of skin diseases, not only true leprosy as we know it, the sufferer could recover and return home once he had been declared “clean” by the priest and had offered a sacrifice for his cleansing.

So, was Simon the Leper a recovered “leper” or was he perhaps one that Jesus had healed during the course of His many visits to Simon’s hometown, Bethany? We don’t know, but whoever he was, for some reason Simon had invited Jesus to a banquet. Luke tells the story of a bad woman who poured perfume on Jesus’s feet during a banquet at the home of Simon the Pharisee. Could they ne one and the same person? John records a similar incident in the home of Lazarus and his sisters after Jesus had raised him from the dead. His sister, Mary, showed her devotion and gratitude to Jesus by anointing His feet with expensive ointment.

For whatever reason the gospel records differ according to the writer’s purpose, this incident brings home an important lesson, one that Jesus encapsulated in His statement:

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money (Matt. 6: 24).

Jesus used a rabbinic teaching method here, called a chiasm, to drive home an important point. There is a central thought in this construction to which two supporting statements lead up to and away from. Let me set it up as it should look to help you understand.

A No one can serve two masters.

     B Either you will hate the one

          C and love the other

          C’ or you will be devoted to the one

     B’ and despise the other.

A’ You cannot serve God and money.

Can you now see how A and A’ match, and B and B’ and C and C’ are similar statements with C and C’ as the centre of the teaching? The rabbis used this very effective method of teaching for emphasis. The main point of what Jesus was saying was not that you cannot serve two masters, although this is true, but why you cannot serve two masters. You will either serve God or money depending on the one you love and are devoted to.

Those who criticised the woman for “wasting” her dowry did not understand the measure of her devotion to Jesus. It was not about the value of her gift but the measure of her love that they were, in the end, questioning. Their miserable, money-minded judgment of the woman showed up the identity of the one they served.

In John’s account, it was Judas who objected to Mary’s expression of love for Jesus because he obviously loved money, not his Master. In Luke’s account, the host was Simon the Pharisee, and he proved that he had no love for Jesus by withholding the common courtesies of a host for his guest; washing the dust off His feet and anointing His head with oil. It was left to an unsavoury, but repentant woman from the street to do what Simon failed to do for Jesus, with her own tears, her own hair and her valuable perfume which was her wedding dowry.

The lesson is clear. We can only show how much we love the Master by what we do with what is most valuable to us. When we lavish our love and our resources on those in need, we do it for Him and to Him.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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