Pastor Gale Watkins has been serving at Westminster Presbyterian Church for the past twenty-eight years. He also teaches part-time in the College of Theology at nearby Grand Canyon University. Pastor Watkins especially enjoys helping others, both in the church and in the college classroom, discovering the riches of God's grace in the Bible.
"We can benefit from the story of Bartimaeus. Consider those three moves he makes. He cries out to Jesus and approaches him. He receives help from Jesus. Then he follows Jesus down the road of life." (Extracted from one of Pastor Gale's sermon)
As the pastor's wife, Laurie Watkins is an active and integral part of Westminster Presbyterian Church. She is a talented singer who adds to the beauty of the Westminster choir. Her co-management of the coffee hour is appreciated every Sunday. She also participates in the World Vision marathon as a one-half marathon walker. Here is what Laurie says about walking for World Vision: "This is what motivates me. I am thinking of children as I walk. I'm also thinking of their mothers. In one of the videos, a mother who now has clean water says, 'You have lifted a burden from me. All I could do was carry water every day.' Children now can go to school."
Scripture Reading: John 12:1-16 (New Revised Standard Version)
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6(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.) 7Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
9When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, 11since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
12The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord— the King of Israel!” 14Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: 15“Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” 16His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.
Waste not want not.
That’s a proverb that has been around for a long time.
It’s a proverb that resonates with me.
When I print notes for my classes, I like to use the blank side of some leftover document.
It saves a lot of paper.
So I’m one who appreciates that proverb.
Waste not want not.
Then comes this biblical story.
It gets under my skin.
It’s an unsettling story because I find myself aligned with one of the characters who is none other than Judas Iscariot!
I know how he ended up, and I surely don’t want to go there.
In this story, though, Judas sounds an awful lot like a Waste not want not type.
He is appalled by the truly wasteful behavior of one of Jesus’ friends, and he does not hesitate to speak up.
What he saw was the outpouring of a small fortune all at once.
He is appalled.
Judas, being Judas, quickly calculated the value of the perfume, and translated it into the wages of the day, and came up with a big number.
Judas not only saw the wastefulness with his own eyes.
He could smell it too!
Everyone could smell it.
It was not a bad smell, but it was overpowering, too much of a good thing, especially in a confined space.
The teller of the story, John, says, The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
It takes a long time to get rid of strong odor like that, and it drove Judas crazy.
So Judas speaks up. Judas sounds like the voice of reason.
Though I’m ordinarily a Waste not want not supporter, even I can question Judas.
He may have had some other agenda.
Was he really being reasonable?
It may be that if we pay close attention to Mary, the apparently wasteful woman who made a scene, and if we also pay attention to Jesus’ strange interpretation of her action, we’ll have second thoughts about who the reasonable person really was.
We may even have to examine our thoughts about that proverb Waste not want not.
Jesus doesn’t go along with the critical comments spoken by Judas.
Instead, Jesus affirms what Mary has done.
He says, She bought it so that she might keep for the day of my burial.
This costly perfume is actually pointing forward to what is soon to come, Jesus’ death.
In those days, it was death first, anointing with perfume second.
Mary is jumping the gun, and Jesus doesn’t mind.
Her action on that occasion is a picture of what will be unfolding before long.
It looks like Judas is the one who was mistaken.
The costly perfume was not poured down the drain as a wasteful act.
What Mary did, filling the house with the fragrance of the perfume, made perfect sense.
The story that John tells now shifts from indoors to outdoors, from the village of Bethany to nearby Jerusalem.
But once more, our Waste not want not leaning is called into question.
A large number of people throw caution to the wind.
Not that palm branches cost as much as that perfume did.
What they lack in funding, they make up for with volume.
They don’t whisper. They shout. Like Mary, they make a scene.
Their words are not only a nice compliment for Jesus, but over-the-top praise that they got from the Bible.
That passage about a coming king arriving on a donkey that they found in the book of Zechariah is now being played out in Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem.
A critic, following the lead of Judas Iscariot, could easily say, What a waste!
A waste of palm branches, a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of devotion.
What they do on Palm Sunday was as extreme as what Mary had done.
They are convinced that Jesus is the very one promised in the book of Zechariah.
For them, this is no time to hold back.
They welcome him for all they’re worth, with loud shouts of praise.
What are we to make of this?
What about that expensive perfume?
What about all those palm branches?
What about all those loud shouts of praise?
It all depends on what you think about Jesus.
If he’s just another sage, just another doomed reformer, you could say that it was a total waste.
Besides, all of their enthusiasm did nothing to keep Jesus from being arrested and crucified.
What a waste!
But perhaps the point was not to keep him from suffering.
Perhaps the point was to enact the truth, to proclaim, in both word and deed, Jesus’ true identity.
He is, as they shouted, The one who comes in the name of the Lord— the King of Israel!
If Jesus really is the coming one, then it wasn’t a waste at all.
Then Mary’s pouring out of all that perfume, and the crowd’s exuberant shouts of praise made perfect sense.
In that case, the real waste was the missed opportunity on the part of Judas and all the other critics.
What a waste it was to miss the point!
Shifting now from those days long ago to our world, what can we say?
Are we Christians wasting our time, meeting every week to praise Jesus as we do?
If Jesus is the one who was expected, if he is the real King, then nothing we do to praise him or to serve him is wasted.
Waste not want not!
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