Lent Landscapes - 5 - Sacrificial Giving

Scripture: John 12:1-8

John 12:1–8 NIV

1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint 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. 7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

4/6/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Scout Sunday!

Opening Prayer:

Creator God,

you prepare a new way in the wilderness

and your grace waters the desert.

Help us to recognize your hand

working miracles beyond our imagining.

Open our hearts to be transformed

by the new thing you are doing,

so that our lives may proclaim

the extravagance of your love for all,

and its presence in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sacrificial Giving

Deserts

The Boy Scouts of America have a long and proud history of exploring and surviving outdoors in many challenging conditions. Bekah and I were involved in a Boy Scout troop several years ago that had been active for at least three generations. Grandparents watched their children teach their grandchildren how to tie knots, set up a campsite, and cook food outdoors over a campfire. Even though most of us today fully embrace the use of hotel rooms and fast food when we travel on vacation, there’s something exciting about knowing you could survive without access to those luxuries.

When that Boy Scout troop gathered for their award ceremonies, they had a tradition of sharing how many miles each scout had hiked. As the scouts advanced in their ranks, so did the miles they hiked along local trails while practicing for their big hiking trips out west, including places like New Mexico during their summer trips. What was truly incredible was when they celebrated the scout leaders. Some of the leaders had been serving and hiking for forty or fifty years. In that time, they had racked up thousands of miles. In some ways, these humble leaders resembled major league baseball players cheering on a team of Little Leaguers, and they helped give me a picture of how Scouts can be.

Most of us don’t achieve those kinds of goals or get to celebrate those kinds of accomplishments. And while we sometimes use our health as an excuse, the real reason is that it costs too much. The cost is not so much about money but how we choose to spend our money and, even more importantly, how we choose to spend our time.

I remember my pastor telling us that if we were willing to give up our summer vacation, he could take us somewhere that would cost less money than we would spend normally, that would give us a chance to make some good memories and do something meaningful, and that we would come back more refreshed instead of coming back from vacation, exhausted and falling right back into work. And he was right. Many of my vacations have blurred together in my memories, but the handful of mission trips I’ve participated in. I can still recall well. I remember they weren’t always easy, but I know the good we accomplished in my trips to Arkansas, South Dakota, rural Appalachia, Chicago, and East St. Louis. Those trips all helped shape who I am today.

We have been learning to follow Jesus up and down the hills in our lives, celebrating those mountaintop moments and filling our souls with new life at the freshwater places where He leads us. But there are some places Jesus leads us that we don’t want to go. Sometimes, He calls us to follow Him across barren deserts and vast wastelands. Many times, there are places we turn away from when we see them. We look at our resources and training and don’t think we have what it takes to cross those places. These are the moments when Jesus calls us to give sacrificially and to trust Him fully to guide and provide for us at every step along the way.

Strange Days

The 12 disciples had many adventures following Jesus for three years across Israel. However, as they recounted the stories of those adventures in our four gospels, they pointed out that everything changed the day Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. That was more than a mountaintop moment. That was redefining what a mountain was to them. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time, and the slow, simmering frustration that the Jewish leaders had for Jesus completely boiled over that day. Every day after that went from surprising to strange.

The people there at this dinner party were the ones who had been willing to follow Jesus just about anywhere. And they were getting nervous. Jesus was talking openly about his upcoming death on the cross, and they were all trying very hard to turn that into some prophetic sign that didn’t literally mean his death. After three years, they had invested so much into this mission that losing Jesus would likely mean starting their lives all over again and working their way up from the lowest class of the community. They didn’t have a Plan B, and that bothered them.

Previously, Jesus had spoken into the air of anxiety around them to bring their focus back on him and the way he was showing them who God is. But this day, it was Mary, Martha's younger sister, who broke the tension.

Mary had a little bit of a reputation for being an odd duck and strong-willed in her strange ways. She often acted like she did not care what others thought of her, and this moment was a prime example. She wandered into the room where Jesus and his followers were eating, which was not typically the woman’s place in this culture, but Jesus had invited her last time, so I suppose the disciples may have gotten used to her. But this time, instead of sitting around with Jesus, she carried in a special jar filled with incredibly expensive perfume. This was the kind of thing you would use in the burial chambers of royalty to cover up the smell of rot and decay, applying little bits over several weeks. It was powerful, potent stuff, not the perfume you would wear on a date. Anyone who smelled this would recognize the smell that fought off the scent of death in the tomb.

Mary opened that jar and poured it out on the feet of Jesus. Not his head, his hands, or his body… His feet. And since there was so much of this ointment, and she didn’t want any of it to go to waste by dripping on the floor or soaking into her clothes, she took the most valuable thing she possessed, her hair, and used it to rub all of that perfume into his feet. Mary shocked the entire household with this one act without saying a word.

Looking Ahead

Judas may have been the first to find his voice. Not only were they all shocked, but I’m sure they were also gagging at the overwhelming aroma that probably ruined their meal. Dozens of thoughts must have gone through their minds, with many reasons for questioning what Mary had just done. Judas addressed the financial aspect first, which makes sense since he was in charge of their money. The gospels also tell us that he was skimming a bit off the top for himself. He may have been the only disciple with a proper understanding of how money worked and how to manage it successfully. He knew better than any of them how expensive that perfume was and wanted to know where Mary had gotten the money to buy it. He challenged her as she worshipped at Jesus' feet, having poured out all she had and given everything she was to honor him.

Judas wasn’t worshiping Jesus. Neither was anyone else, at least not like Mary. He thought she could have done so much more with that money, served many more people, and influenced so many lives in a lasting and more appropriate way. And it made him angry because he felt anxious. Judas was no fool. He heard what Jesus was saying and saw the writing on the wall indicating hard days ahead. He knew they had to cross a wasteland before reaching the cross, and he had no idea what lay on the other side. Looking down the road, he wanted to prepare and ensure they saved up extra for those challenging days ahead because he had so much to lose.

Change

Mary, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of Judas. She couldn’t own any land or run her own business. Even if she had been born a man, according to her family and friends, she didn’t have good business sense or even common sense. She was just Mary and would always need someone to take care of her.

Unlike Judas, Mary had already lost it all several weeks before when Lazarus died and had been in the tomb, buried before Jesus even got there to see him. With that kind of sickness in the family, she was not marriage material, nor did she probably want to be, and she and her sister were both on a short path to becoming homeless beggars. Their brother Lazarus had been their anchor to life in this world. When he died, she lost that.

And then Jesus brought him back from the dead. I can’t imagine how Mary felt that day. But I know it changed her forever because instead of going back and making Lazarus her anchor again, she shifted her life and put all her hope in Jesus—all of it, everything she had, all that she was and ever would be. That was her offering.

Several times, when Jesus talked about his death, the men around him passionately proclaimed, and at other times, reluctantly stated that they were willing to go and give up their lives with him. However, there is a difference between seeing the vast desert between us and the cross, telling Jesus we will eventually follow him there, and doing what Mary did by saying, "I’m ready to go now." You’ve experienced this with your loved ones who transition from having aches and pains and thinking heaven would be nice someday to those who have lost almost all their earthly abilities and can’t wait to let go and fall into the arms of Jesus. The truth is, most of us are more like Judas than like Mary. Often, Jesus has to drag us halfway across the desert until we have run out of everything and have nothing left to lose before we are willing to truly give sacrificially and comprehend what it means to love him with all that we have and all that we are.

Lewis and Clark

The explorers Lewis and Clark are famous for their inspiring adventure to find the Northwest water passage to the Pacific Ocean. The most memorable moment in the story of Lewis and Clark occurred when they reached the final branches of the rivers, stretching out to the west. They and their troops had become experts at canoeing up rivers, fording through the shallow waters, and carrying their canoes with them. They had experience with the Appalachian Mountains in the east and believed they could traverse any landscape North America could throw at them. Then they arrived at the Rocky Mountains in the Grand Canyon and realized that every hike they had ever taken was merely a warm-up for this. They took one look and had to redefine the word 'mountain' in their minds. They also recognized that they were not equipped to cross this challenging landscape. The one thing they were good at was using canoes. Now, they had to give them up and continue on foot through this barren land to move forward.

Judas had one talent: handling money. He knew how to make it, hold onto it, and use it wisely, always planning ahead. He applied that skill in both good and bad ways. Wherever he went, he viewed things through the lens of money. He did not want to follow where Jesus led because it meant losing everything he valued. He feared giving up the only thing he knew and following Jesus in his weakness.

Mary saw everything in the world through the lens of Jesus, giving up everything to follow him. He was all she had. She could follow him anywhere. She followed him to the cross. She followed him to the tomb. And when she realized after the resurrection that he would always be with her, she discovered she could go anywhere he led and do anything he asked because he was all she needed. She knew he would always take care of her, and she was grateful.

Gratitude

Expressing gratitude is polite and kind, and being grateful reflects good character. However, Mary's gratitude is different. Most of us can be thankful out of habit. We say thank you so frequently that it has become a conditioned response, requiring little thought. Some of us understand gratitude theoretically. When asked to list things we appreciate, we can quickly come up with half a dozen. While we may not think about them often, we recognize these as things we can and should consistently appreciate: food, friends, good weather, and a place to call home. Yet, these are the very things that Mary and the other disciples of Jesus were willing to sacrifice to be with him.

If we asked Mary what she was grateful for, she might tell us some specific things. We know she was grateful that Jesus brought her brother back from the dead, which is something she will probably always cherish. However, I believe she could also share something she was grateful for that Jesus did that day, not just something from the past. It might be so small that most of us wouldn’t notice. But Mary would have. She would’ve been thankful just for the opportunity to sit, listen to him, and absorb his words every single day. You and I have that same opportunity each day. Do you take advantage of it? Or do you spend most of your time working and managing your affairs? When Jesus interrupts our lives, work, and routines, do we even listen then? Or do we merely pause long enough to share a list of requests, asking for his help managing our concerns? It’s hard to be grateful for a gift you refuse to receive or a love you haven’t experienced.

What are you grateful for?

Do you practice gratitude out of habit?

Are you thankful for things just in theory?

Or are your eyes open to see everything that Jesus is doing in your life?

Mary is an incredible example of gratitude, especially in our scripture today, and she learned it from watching Jesus. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness before he began his ministry and endured a spiritual wilderness before going to the cross. Mary might have been with the disciples the night Jesus spent in the garden, pouring out all he had before God, who called him to go to the cross willingly. When all Jesus had was his life and the love of his friends around him, he asked God if there was any other way than through that ultimate sacrifice, and he answered his own question, telling his heavenly Father, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.“

We are part of a generous church family, and many of you are no strangers to giving sacrificially. Many of you know what it is like to pour out your gifts upon the feet of Jesus, worship him, and be grateful for some very specific things he has done in your life. Sacrificial givers do not wait for a need to arise to toss money or donations. Sacrificial givers don’t give to try to fix situations. When God calls you to give sacrificially, he’s calling you to unburden yourself in a way that allows you to follow him more closely across a place that most people cannot and will not travel. Whatever Jesus calls you to give will be valuable to you, whether money, time, reputation, or comfort. And you will know that you did not come up with the idea. Whether or not you ever see the full significance of your gift, like Mary, it will free you to be closer to Jesus, and you will be more grateful after giving it than you ever were before.

How is Jesus calling you to give and drawing you closer to Him?

Closing Prayer

Jesus, you are more valuable to us than anything in the world. Your love means more to us than our lives. We live to hear your word speaking to us more than we need food or water to satisfy our hunger and thirst. We need to be filled with your spirit more than we need air to breathe. And we know there will come a day when we will give up everything in this world and come and live with you forever. Help us to hear your voice today, calling us. Help us to follow you wherever you lead us. Help us to let go of anything that comes between us. And help us do all of this with eyes to see that you have already given up everything for us. We could never outgive you. Help us to love you in return the way you deserve. In your precious name, we pray, amen.