[finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . Every 3 seconds.  [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . Every 3 seconds, a child dies.  [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . Every 3 seconds, a child dies from hunger or a hunger-related cause.  In other words, every 3 seconds, a child dies from being poor.  Hunger and poverty are mutually reinforcing conditions.  When a farmer in Mozambique cannot sell her crop of corn for more than it cost her to produce, she cannot afford to feed her family.  When a worker in the United States earns twice the minimum wage, that often is not enough to purchase safe housing, food, clothing, transportation, school supplies, and health care for himself and his two children.  When a farmer in India cannot afford to buy the seeds or fertilizer he needs to grow enough food to last until the next harvest, he cannot feed his family.  And so, every 3 seconds, a child dies.[i]

Have faith.  End hunger.  That is the call to mission of the organization Bread for the World, of which the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a partner.  Have faith.  End hunger.  Does that mean, “Have faith that it is possible to end hunger”?  Or does it mean, “If we are people of faith, we will end hunger”?  Which prompts another question:  Is there a connection between our lives as people who follow Christ and the fact that every 3 seconds, a child dies from hunger or a hunger-related cause, the fact that every 3 seconds, a child dies from being poor?  There are hundreds of biblical passages, in both the Old Testament and the New, that tell us that caring for the poor is absolutely basic to who God is.  As the writer of Psalm 72 assures us, God “has pity on the weak and the needy . . ; and precious is their blood in his sight.”[ii]  Scripture also tells us that God wants you and me to make caring for the poor our priority, as well.  “Is not this the fast that I choose,” God declares, “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house. . . ?[iii]

God has not put any conditions on the care he expects you and me to provide.  When God tells us to share our bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into our homes, he does not tack onto that, “except for people you consider lazy or immoral, or people who speak a different language from you or that you believe have no right to be in your community.”  God has not put conditions or limits on the care he expects us to provide, but he has made it clear that how we treat the poor will be a vital factor in the relationship we have with him.  God has promise that, “If [you and I] remove the yoke from among [us], the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if [we] offer [our] food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted . . . .  [he] will guide [us] continually, and satisfy [our] needs in parched places, and make [our] bones strong; and [we] shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”[iv]  The book of Proverbs puts it in very simple terms:  “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full.”[v]  This is not about God telling us what we have to do to earn his love.  This is about God telling us to express the love we have for him by taking care of the people whom he has created — especially those who are poor.

Jesus reiterated this command over and over again.  He did not leave any doubt about how he wants us to respond to people who are in need.  When we see that a man is hungry, we are to give him something to eat.  When we notice a woman is thirsty, we are to give her something to drink.  Jesus taught that being righteous means reaching out to immigrants and welcoming them into our midst, giving clothing to those who need it, and caring for those who are imprisoned, whether in jail or in body or mind.  And, Jesus did not put any conditions on the care he expects you and me to provide.  When he told us to take care of the hungry, the thirsty, the immigrant, and the sick, he did not tack onto that, “except for people you consider lazy or immoral, or people who speak a different language from you or that you believe have no right to be in your community.”  Jesus put no conditions or limits on the care he told us to provide, but he did make it clear that the care we give to the poor will be a vital factor in the relationship we have with him.  “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”[vi]  Christ expects you and me to fulfill the command from Deuteronomy that, “If there is among you anyone in need, . . . open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be.  . . . Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’”[vii]

Caring for the poor is absolutely basic to who God is, and absolutely basic to who Christ calls us to be.  It is truly astounding that anyone who claims to know Christ would even think to dispute this, but some do.  And, one of the ways some folks dispute the call for us to “open [our] hand to the poor and needy” is to take one particular phrase out of its context in scripture, then give it a distinctly non-biblical spin.  That phrase is “you always have the poor with you,” and it is part of our Second Lesson for today.  We are jumping ahead in our walk through the Gospel of Mark, because we have come to week 4 of the 5 Sundays in Lent, and for the next few weeks we will be looking at the final week of Jesus’ life.  Today’s reading takes place two days before Passover, when Jesus and his disciples have joined the thousands of people who have come to Jerusalem for that event.  Jesus is now a wanted man.  The writer of Mark tells us that, “the chief priests and the scribes [are] looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.”  But, Jesus has not slowed down his activities, and on this day he is making a visit to Bethany, a village south-east of Jerusalem, on the edge of the Mount of Olives.

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.  But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way?  For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.”  And they scolded her.  But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her?  She has performed a good service for me.  For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.  She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Being a Christian means following the example that Jesus set.  One help for doing that can be to ask, “What would Jesus do?”  Another help is to ask, “Where would Jesus be?”  If Jesus was walking the earth today, where would we go to find him?  We know the answer to that, don’t we?  We know that if Jesus was on earth today, he would be standing on a street corner chatting with a prostitute.  Or hanging out with gang members and child abusers, drug dealers and thieves.  We know that if Jesus was on earth today, we would find him sharing God’s love and grace with the most despised people in town — just as he did 2,000 years ago.[viii]  Just as we find him doing in this passage from Mark.  Jesus is in the home of a leper — a man scripture said he should go out of his way to avoid — and he is even sharing a meal with him.  And, it gets worse.  Jesus is permitting an unknown woman to approach him and pour ointment on his head. 

Now, we find the idea of someone pouring ointment on our heads pretty bizarre.  Imagine, instead, someone rubbing scented lotion onto your back and chest — a very intimate action.  Now, imagine that you are a man having dinner in a private home, and a woman walks in off the street and starts rubbing scented lotion onto your back and chest.  That is the scene, and in the midst of that scandalous conduct, some people grumble, “What a waste.”  These folks do not like what is going on, and they frame their criticism to make it sound as though what they care about is the poor — giving money to the poor — but Jesus does not buy that.  He does not let the people who are criticizing this woman get away with pretending that this is an either-or proposition:  either spend money performing “a good service” of devotion, or spend it on the poor.  Jesus recognizes that as a false choice.

A few years ago, Charlotte's First Presbyterian Church built a new building.  They included in that project a fresco by artist Ben Long.  The title of the painting is The Parable of the Good Samaritan.  

It is 8 feet high and 28 feet long, and it cost several thousand dollars to complete — an amount comparable to the cost of that jar of ointment the woman poured on Jesus’ head.  That cost has drawn the same criticism that woman did:  that the money could have been spent on the poor.  Here is a different reaction:

When you come into the building from the outside, the first thing you see is this powerful image of the Samaritan bending over to help the beaten stranger.  As [my wife and I walked away], we commented to each other that the Good Samaritan fresco embodies First Presbyterian’s story.  It pictures that congregation’s best understanding of their call from God, their heritage and their present mission.  They are to be Good Samaritans in the uptown heart of Charlotte.  It guides them as they make the daily decisions of how they are to spend their time, focus their energy, and serve the Lord.  It also, I am sure, judges them when they lose focus and drift away from their church’s unique and basic story.[ix]

There are some pieces of art, some works of architecture, some human actions that have the capacity to guide us, to focus our energy, and even to judge us when we lose our focus and drift away from serving the Lord.  That is what Jesus recognized in one woman’s decision to break open a jar of expensive ointment and pour it onto his head.  Her action demonstrated that this woman “got it.”  It showed that she understood the supreme value and worth of this man Jesus — and that he was headed for death on a cross.  Jesus wanted her action to be remembered and retold for all time and in all parts of the world.  So that it can guide us, focus our energy, and even judge us when we lose our focus and drift away from serving our Lord.

Being a Christian means following the example that Jesus set.  Jesus came, he told us, “to bring good news to the poor.”  Today, we are his hands and feet and voice in accomplishing that mission.  [check time on watch]   [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . . [finger snap] . . .During the course of this sermon, over 300 children died from hunger or a hunger-related cause; over 300 children died from being poor.[x]  Amen.

Copyright 2008 © Leslie R. Stacks. All rights reserved.