What Will You Do With the Money?

Matthew 26:1-16

Lent 1

March 1, 2020

William G. Carter

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

It’s a story that make a lot of Presbyterians sit up and take notice. We’ve never been big fans of waste. The candles on Christmas Eve get re-used. As one of our careful volunteers once noted, it takes three minutes to sing “Silent Night,” and if Rev. Carter doesn’t give a long benediction, we use each candle for about four and half minutes, so we can get another year out of a candle. We can get about six more years out of a candle. We don’t like waste.

We don’t like waste. Recycle the worship bulletins. Cut up the leftover committee agendas and use them for note paper. Manila folders can get a fresh label and a new life.

My home church sent out an email to the member yesterday, inviting everybody to bring a coffee mug and keep it on a new shelf in Fellowship Hall. Everybody can rinse out their own mugs, the note said, and we won’t buy so many disposable cups. They said it’s a way to cut down on excess waste.

Yesterday, I led a workshop for a dozen lay preachers. For hospitality, I picked up some blueberry muffins at Sam’s Club and we plugged in a pot of coffee. There were leftover muffins, and they will re-appear at coffee hour. There was also about a gallon of leftover coffee, but Karen told me that we wouldn’t keep it for you. I grumbled but I understand; I am a fan of fresh coffee. But it did hurt a little bit to throw it out. I’m a Presbyterian. I don’t like waste.

Some of us are inclined to agree with the disciples on this matter. An anonymous woman slips into a dinner party in the village of Bethany. She cracks open an overpriced jar of an aromatic oil, and then pours it over the head of Jesus. Peter, James, John, and all the rest grumble and sneer – it’s a complete waste! Think of how much that ointment cost. Now it’s gone. The room smells pretty, but the ointment is gone. It’s just like throwing away money.

By some accounts, it was a lot of money. One verse of the story says it was valued at three hundred days’ wages. How much money is that? How much money do you bring home in a year? That’s eighty-two percent of your income, poured over the man’s head, spilled onto the floor, and now evaporating.

Sure, they are in the house of Simon the Leper, whoever he was. He was a leper; I’m sure the house didn’t smell very good, and a little perfume would go a long way – but $65,000 of perfume, on one splash? It seems so excessive. And we wouldn’t want it to be wasted.

Turn down the thermostat when you leave the room. Keep the lights off when you don’t need them. Next time, don’t make thirty cups of coffee for twelve people, especially if three of them drink tea. “Waste not, want not.”

I think of the Book of Proverbs, the twenty-first chapter: “Precious treasure remains in the house of the wise, but the fool devours it.” (21:20) Or this one: “Whoever loves pleasure will suffer want; whoever loves wine and old will not be rich.” (20:17) In other words, stop wasting your money. Don’t throw it away. Be prudent.

And so, naturally, the twelve disciples were upset. The Greek word is furious, incensed, indignant, rip-roaring mad. They yell in unison: “We could have sold that ointment and given that money to the poor.” Now, that would be a noble thing to do with the money! Feed the poor for another day. Give it to the needy and get them off your guilty conscience for a little bit.

After all, what does Jesus say to the whole world, immediately before today’s Bible story? “Whoever does this for the least of these has done unto me.” – Matthew 25. Remember that one? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the needy – and then somebody slips into the dinner party and dumps the expensive perfume all over Jesus’ head. What a waste! Is that what you are going to do with the money?

And Jesus interrupts and says, “Leave her alone!” But Jesus… “No, leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing.” But Lord, look at the waste… “Listen,” he says, “it’s not waste, it’s generosity. She has anointed me for burial.” In the Gospel of Matthew, nobody can get to the tomb fast enough to anoint Jesus for burial, and this woman, whoever she is, has already done so, at great cost, with loving extravagance.

“Leave her alone,” he says, “For she has done a good work. She has shown me her generosity, and treated me with the utmost respect.” That’s what she does with the money.

Meanwhile, as we heard, this brief story is entangled with another story, also about money. The religious leaders have nothing but scorn for Jesus. They have been watching him since chapter nine, and here it is, chapter 26. The scribes complained to the Pharisees, the Pharisees grumbled to the elders, the elders buzzed like hornets around the chief priests. All of them concurred: we must get rid of this troublemaker Jesus!

Take note: they presume to take the matter into their own hands, while Jesus is completely obedient to the Father in heaven. The authorities have “the illusion that they are in control, but it is the Father’s will that Jesus be handed over.”[1] They conspire to take Jesus by stealth, when nobody is watching, for they don’t want to be seen for their treachery.

And then, the opening comes. Judas, one of the twelve, appears at the door of the inner chamber, and says, “What will you give me if I hand him over to you?” They offer him money. Turn over Jesus, sell him out: that’s what they want him to do for the money.

How much money? Thirty pieces of silver. Actually, biblically speaking, it’s thirty shekels of silver. That’s not very much. It’s a paltry sum, an infinitesimally small fraction of what that expensive ointment would have cost. And it’s an insult. No human being is worth a mere thirty shekels of silver.

The scholar Dale Bruner says Matthew is pointing us to the other Bible passage that we heard this morning, from the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah is called “the underappreciated shepherd.” He told the spiteful, money-grubbing people whom he served, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages.” They gave him 30 shekels of silver, an insult. And God said, “Throw that away. Cast it into the treasury.” Life is worth a lot more than that.

What will you do with the money? Today’s entangled story offers two very different answers. You can show somebody deep respect or sell somebody out. You can do a generous good work or use the cash to maneuver in dark shadows. You can throw caution to the wind and honor somebody effusively; money is no object in displaying your love. Or you can cheapen someone’s life and discount it for next to nothing. It’s all what you do with the money.

Because, as you know, it’s all about the money – which is to say, it’s never about the money. It’s truly about what it is in our hearts. When I meet with couples before their marriages, we always have a conversation about money, for it can be one of the number one reasons that a relationship gets into trouble. You know the Other Golden Rule? “Who has the gold makes the rules.” So money in a relationship has to do with values, priorities, and power. And if there is any battleground in a marriage, money is often the field where the skirmish works out.

So the root issue is not merely the money, but what is in your heart. What is in our hearts will determine how we live and what we value.

We don’t know what was going on in the heart of Judas Iscariot. Was he disappointed by Jesus? Or did he want to force his hand and reveal him as Messiah? Or was something else going on? Another Gospel calls him “a thief,” and says he always had his hand in the offering plate. And when the woman anoints Jesus, it may have been the last straw.

Who knows? Later in the story, he regrets what he did, repents of it, and throws the money back at the temple treasury, just like the prophet Zechariah. The nicest thing was could say about Judas is that he was complicated. The worst thing is that he sold out Jesus for a pitifully small amount.

But it’s pretty clear how the unnamed woman regarded Jesus. She saw him as a treasure, as a gift of inestimable value, and she was willing to show her love, reverence, and respect to the world, no matter what it cost. As someone notes, when she anoints him,

. . . she was not draining away resources that could have been used for the poor. To the contrary, her act recognized Jesus’ death, a sacrificial death, a saving death. All acts of Christian ministry grow out of this one profound act of Jesus’ ministry. When the woman anointed Jesus, she proclaimed that in the death of this man was the miracle the poor need, indeed, the miracle we have all been waiting for.[2] (Long, p. 292)

And Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006) p. 214

[2] Thomas G. Long, Matthew: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) p. 292