Matthew 14: 6
A Beautiful Thing Done for Jesus 

You may remember from the Luke passage about the irritation of Martha, with her sister Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and not helping her with the housework.  Mary of Bethany is such a charming picture of a devout Christian!  In every one of the three times she appears in the four Gospels, she is like that.  Here we find her, the picture of generous giving to Jesus.  We were afraid, when we saw her in Luke's Gospel, sitting at Jesus' feet, and not helping her sister, Martha, that she was going to be the free-loader, Garfield the Cat, kind of a Christian, who takes and never gives; who is helped but never helps; who needs support, but never is supportive.  But not so!  She was an active, and not just a passive follower of Jesus. 

Here we see her, not just as a servant, but as the pattern of Christian giving and service which I want to speak about this morning.  The text is this beautiful sentence of Jesus in v.6: "She has done a beautiful thing to me." 

My approach to this text is to merely notice the qualities of her gift giving (there are four of them) and to observe what it teaches us about the practice of giving gifts of such a type and in such a way that Jesus might be able to say of us, too: "She has done a beautiful thing unto me," "He has done a beautiful thing unto me." 

I. FIRST NOTICE THAT HER GIVING WAS NOT JUST A RESPONSE TO THE NEED.

1. Of course, the religious fund-raising industry uses "need" as a primary bait for its work.  Once you go down that road and exhaust that appeal then you will need to send out urgent appeals to save the organization (or, perhaps, the Guru) from utter ruin.  By and by it descends to promises to the givers, of money, and all sorts of good luck. 

2. But the appeal here is entirely different.  It is doing something for the love of Jesus.  It was something that could be done for Jesus: "She has done a beautiful thing to me."

Of course, we do try to be responsible in our giving, so that we do not just throw away the resources that God has given us.  Billions of dollars are thrown away as a result of such appeals and often leave the real work of Jesus short handed and inadequately funded.  Hopefully, we do this even with the 9/10th of our income, or whatever we devote to maintenance of our life-style and savings.  To think that the Christian view of stewardship is that we give a tenth to God and do whatever foolish thing we want with the other 9/10ths, is a bizarre view, to say the least. 

But it seems to me, that our motive should be to express love and devotion to Jesus, who owns all that is ours and all that we are! 

It seems to me that the primary motivation for our giving should be the love of Jesus and disciplined giving should be a regular means to bring worship and praise and honor to his name. 

1. We are not sure whether she went out and bought this beautiful jar filled with precious ointment, or (which is more likely) if was an old family treasure, laid up for sale in case of a rainy-day tragedy in the family. 

2. This ambiguity is very helpful to us because the gift becomes a symbol of gifts which are given, that are not necessarily in cash.  Perhaps they are gifts of our possessions, or of our time, or our capabilities. 

I think we ought to bunch all of these things together when we are speaking about giving.  Just because the IRS does not allow such gifts as deductibles on one's income tax, does not disallow the validity of them as gifts. 

Paul commended the Macedonian Christians (presumably the churches of Thessalonica and Berea) that when they gave a gift, they didn't just give the gift, but had previously given of their own selves:

"And this they did, not as we expected, but (they) first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God."  Then, he says: "They gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own free will." 

You will recognize the words from II Corinthians 8: 5.

III. A THIRD QUALITY OF THIS GIFT IS THAT IT WAS NOT GIVEN IN A FORMAL ECCLESIASTICAL SITUATION.

1. As one whose primary income comes from an ecclesiastical organization, of course, I do not knock giving through the church offering.  And if you didn't notice, the offering box on Sunday after Sunday over by the steps, I will be glad to point it out to you. 

2. But here, it seems to me that we can get an even wider picture of what it means to give.  This woman could never have gotten an income tax deduction for this gift.  Yet it was a gift "that was a beautiful thing" done to Jesus.  Let's see -- where would we put it on Schedule B, Form 1040: "1 Jar of alabaster containing ointment.  Retail value in Egypt, 30 AD: $1,000." 

This gives you lots of room to fool yourself, but that is not the goal here.  Mission trips supposedly for Missions, but really for vacations; possessions, such as expensive cars to take people to church, or an outrageously expensive house so that you can hold a Bible Study once a week. 

IV. FURTHERMORE, THIS GIFT SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN A SUBSTANTIAL GIFT.

1. This ointment was in an alabaster jar, which in itself was precious.  The disciples were sitting down to an elegant meal, one of many they had in this very house, and curiously, they did not complain of the cost of the meal but the cost of the ointment and the jar which contained it. 

2. I think we can assume that its was of substantial value, perhaps as much as a month's, or even a year's, income for an average, well-to-do member of that society.

3. But perhaps it was providential that we do not know how much it was, so that we will not judge gifts to the Lord so much by what they are worth in the marketplace but by what they represent to the giver and how much they pleased the Lord. 

V. WHAT IS THE END OF THE MATTER TO WHICH WE HAVE COME?

I would like to challenge you this morning, to consider your stewardship.  I assure you that this is not the beginning of a building program, or a stewardship campaign.  Even the way you use your time to serve, is a part of your stewardship.  And about stewardship of your financial resources -- that is, gifts you give to the Lord, let me ask you , if you have ever given up something that meant a great deal to you, just so that you could give a gift to the Lord?  If so, that was "a beautiful thing" done unto the Lord. 

And stewardship of any possessions you have and stewardship of your time and life.  Everybody here, of course, has at least given the time it takes to worship God on this occasion and probably many others.  But have you ever taken the time to do something in the nature of duty with the express intention of doing it for Jesus?  No doubt, it was "a beautiful thing" that you did unto Jesus. 

In each of our cases, the prominent thing might be in one area or another: the gift of money, the gift of, or use of, your possessions, and (perhaps, by application of your talents) the gift of time.  You might be pressed for time at this period in your life, and you might not have any possession that you could use.  In the case of this house, that God quite remarkably gave to me, I prayed for a number of years that there would be a more substantial use of it for his glory.  And when the church moved in, my prayers were answered.  And I hope that it will go on in the service of the Lord for many years after I am gone to be with him. 

The time might come in your life, when you would have enough means to make a annual gift larger that our whole church budget.  May you live your life in such a way to aspire to a life of service and dedication to God so that it might be said of you too: "He has -- she has -- done a beautiful thing unto me." 

At the age that many of you are at, you might consider the ultimate gift of your time, by following some form of full-time ministry or missionary service.  I am not talking about the kind of Christian vocation that pays 30 or 40 grand a year, but one that requires a life of sacrifice, not just for a decade or two, or a third of a century of sacrifice but one that literally gives your life to the Lord to be a "beautiful thing given to the Lord." 

Perhaps then, but also perhaps even now, you can give money, possessions, time, talents in such a way that whatever you give, will by its quality and quantity, represent something very beautiful, that will be a token of all you own, and that it will symbolize a gift given in token of a whole life, joyfully given over to Jesus.  That is the kind of giving that merits the description: "She has done a beautiful thing unto me," "He has done a beautiful thing unto me!" 

Don't expect me to be the judge in the matter, but the Lord, himself, to be the one who evaluates the gift.  In fact, in the whole history of this church I have never seen the giving-records of the congregation.