Does “wasting” money on “an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard” negatively affect the poor?
March 8, 2020, I went to a mass in my mother’s hometown, Karlskrona Sweden.
That date the Lord’s words was from Mark 14:3-9
3 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.
4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume?
5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.
8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.
9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
The preaching that followed was beautiful and true, but I felt it left out something very important of that what Jesus was alluding to.
I refer to: would have that “alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard” even existed, had someone not been willing and capable of paying more than a year’s wages for it?
And, after more than a year’s wages had been paid for it, what stopped that money from not going to the poor? Those who helped produce that perfume, would most probably be less poor than if they had not have had that chance.
Posts
