THE PERFUME
Today,
I want to share on the topic of giving and for that I’ll first share a story
and then a text from the Bible. A man goes to his pastor and says “Pastor, you
have got to pray for me. I am really struggling in the area of tithing”. Why?
What seems to be the matter? Asked his Pastor. “You see, there was a time when I was earning 50 dollars a week and I
was tithing 5 dollars No big deal, it was cool, then my salary became 500 dollars a week and I had to tithe 50
dollars, which was also ok. But now, I am earning 5000 dollars a week and
tithing 500 dollars is too much. His pastor began praying for him” God, you
have got to help this brother here who is struggling to give his tithes, so I pray that you would decrease his
salary so that the amount he has to tithe would also become less and it would
be easier for him to pay his tithes.
Humour
apart, when it comes to giving, people do all kinds of peculiar calculations in
their head and come up with reasons on why they cannot give. Seriously how does
addition of one more 0 matter? It’s the principle
that matters.
The
text that I want to share is from John
12- Verse 3 onwards, It is a graphic
story which basically looks into
the hearts of 2 people Mary (generous
heart) and Judas (selfish heart).
3 Then Mary took about a pint[a] of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet
and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 But one of his disciples,
Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5 “Why
wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s
wages” 6 He did not say this because
he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
In those times,
one Denarius was one day’s wages, so ANNUAL INCOME of an
ordinary person would be around 300 denarii. Now nard or spikenard was a costly perfume which most
probably had originated from India, China or Nepal and Mary would have paid
around 300 denarii for jar of the perfume.
To really
appreciate this story, you need to imagine it in today’s context. So Mary enters Shoppers Stop, goes upto the
perfume counter and says “Look I want to buy the most expensive brand of
perfume that you have”. The salesman says “ok here you are, 1 ounce bottle that
would be Rs.50000”. And Mary replies “I don’t need just 1 oz. I need one pint
.I need 16 oz. Here is my entire years’ salary. Wow! Just think about it.
Makes me
wonder, why did Mary do it? She was not rolling in money. She was an ordinary
person with an Average income like you and I. Then what motivated her? The
answer may be found in the previous chapter. Lazarus had just been raised from
the dead and they were having a small party on that day with Jesus and his
disciples. Mary was obviously grateful. Not only that, she loved the Lord with
all her heart. And it was this love and gratitude that led to her incredibly
lavish gift. So here we have the picture of the generous heart. A person living life with an open hand, which says God nothing matters more
to me than you and all I have, my finances, my talents, my time,
my resources are yours.
Now look
at Judas. He was so concerned about the money (which incidentally was not even
his). What was his motive? Concern for
the poor was the last thing on his mind; it is very clear that Judas was only
seeking to gratify his needs.
He was the
treasurer and He was pilfering with the offerings. He was literally robbing
Jesus. It says here- he was a thief.
You may
wonder- Didn’t Jesus know what was going on? Didn’t he know Judas’s nature?
Then why did he place him in such a responsible position? God knows everything
about us including our weaknesses and he sometimes deliberately places us in
areas of our weaknesses, to make us strong in those particular areas. In Judas
we have the picture of the selfish heart. A person living life with a closed
fist, which says nothing matters more to me more than my finances, I will grab
whatever I can and hold on to whatever I have.
This is a
pretty good analogy of our lives. The spirit of generosity (the Mary spirit) and
spirit of selfishness (the Judas spirit) coexist in all of us, maybe in
different areas and like everything else in our life the battle between the 2 is
in the mind. And every time the battle begins, we need to make a choice, the
choice either to be generous or obey God or the choice to be selfish and
gratify self. Making right choices every time leads to the formation of right
habits. And forming right habits leads to creating right lifestyles. So if we
are generous every time, it leads first to a habit of generosity and then to a
lifestyle of giving. And vice versa is also true.
Before I close, I want
to share an interesting statistic with you. The word
"Give" appears 921 times in the Bible, almost as many times as
"Faith" (270), "Hope" (165), and "Love" (541) put
together. God is repeatedly exhorting us to be generous because he knows
perfectly well that most of us struggle with this discipline. 2 Corinthian 9: verses
6-11, particularly verse 11 are powerful scriptures on generosity. I particularly
like Verse 11 which says
11 You will be
enriched in every way so that you
can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result
in thanksgiving to God.
God enriches us so that our generosity achieves two basic purposes:
·
God's name will be thanked and praised by people whose lives we impact.
·
God's people will have their needs met.
And as we step into the New Year, let us try to have a lifestyle of
giving so that our offerings would be used to impact lives here and round the
globe...
