Loving Impractically (Friday Devotional)

“Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

- John 12:3-8

Judas had a point.

I know he’s a villain in the gospel story, a wolf in sheep’s clothing whose name is now synonymous with betrayal. I know he was a thief who valued money over people, ultimately selling out his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. And I know that the question he asked was grounded in his thievery, not genuine concern for the poor (the gospel writer makes that much clear). I know all that, but when I think about his question—why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?—I can’t help but think he had a point.

After all, 300 denarii wasn’t chump change—it was the equivalent of 300 days’ wages, 10 months’ worth of paychecks. The perfume Mary poured out on Jesus’s feet, sold at cost, could have gone a long way toward helping to feed and clothe the poor, just like Judas said. Jesus was always reaching out to those on the bottom rungs of the societal ladder, and now Mary had wasted an opportunity to help. Whatever his motives, there was a kernel of truth in what Judas said: Mary’s gesture just wasn’t practical.

Indeed, it was extravagant. Face to face with her Lord, this man who had raised her brother from the dead, she was overcome with the need to give him all that she had. Reason demanded that Mary save or sell her costly perfume, but love demanded that she use it.

In reflecting on this story, it is worth noting that Jesus does not praise Judas’s question, but Mary’s action. That’s because love is not always practical; sometimes in its truest form it is extravagant. When reason demands that you protect your feelings, love says to forgive. When reason says to defend yourself, love says to turn the other cheek. When reason says to think about your own problems, love says to think about others.

There is a place for practicality in faith, but there must also be a place for extravagance, an understanding that love looks beyond what is reasonable to what is meaningful. You can draw inspiration not only from Mary’s act, but from the cross, where love compelled Christ to spill something far more costly than perfume. Having been loved so abundantly, may you then show grace and love to others—even when it’s not practical.