The Third Sunday in Lent (CL)

Mark 14:1-9

It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, ² for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.” 

³ And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. ⁴ There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. ⁶ But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. ⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. ⁹ And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” 

The poor are always going to be with us.  Have you ever looked around your town or community and wondered where have all the poor boys gone?  They are there! They are often even staring us in the face. I was once told that there are millionaires walking among us.  But the truth is there are a lot of people who have nothing (or the balance of nothing) who are walking among us.

Have you ever went door to door selling some kind of fundraiser, and looked how other people live or what they have?  Have you ever sold something to someone wondering, if they could really afford to purchase that box of cookies, popcorn, or magazine? I know that I have bought things from people that I have not wanted nor needed.  I know that I have sold things to people who really shouldn't have been spending their limited supply of money in that way.

Do you think about the poor people that are all around you?  Jesus reclined at Simon's table and he knew there were poor people all around him. (ah there is the twist.)  Jesus walked through his entire life noticing poor miserable sinners all around him.  These people lived normal every day lives but they were in need of something more precious than perfume, gold, or silver. This is what Jesus really wants to teach us.

"She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." She helped anoint the anointed one for his greatest gift to her, and the entire world.  She helped prepare Christ to lay down his life for poor miserable sinners.  It is in Christ's sacrifice, death, for the forgiveness of sin. She prepares Christ for what the chief priests and the scribes will finally carry out.