21st March 2010 : Lent 5 : Year C
9:30am Camillo
Isaiah 43:16-21 : Philippians 3:3-14 : John 12:1-8
One of the contentious issues that has clung to the Church over the centuries is its use of financial resources. For instance, when I was training for the priesthood a bequest of one million dollars was made to the cathedral for restoration work on the organ. When that figure became public knowledge a great controversy arose: how could the Church spend such a sum on an organ when so much need existed, even in a relatively prosperous city like Perth?
To say that the bequest aroused considerable scandal would be an understatement. Here was the Church yet again squandering money on material possessions while people went homeless and hungry or lived in circumstances of considerable deprivation and hardship. Self-righteous moralists, outside and within the Church, condemned this situation even though, because of the nature of the bequest, the cathedral was legally bound to use the money for no other purpose than the restoration of the organ.
We can ask any number of questions about this or any other issue where obscene amounts of money are spent on the broadly material fabric of either Church or society. How many people can a cool mill feed or house or train? How many hospital wards could that money open or keep operational?
It’s not an obscure picture. We all get it. And even if our sympathies stray towards the organisation that benefits from that kind of lucre, we still have an eye on the underprivileged and the echo in our ears of all those ethical questions and issues that have sprung up, well, at least since this Mary in John’s gospel cracked open a jar of nard and poured the aromatic fragrance over a mere man’s feet instead of selling it and giving the money to the poor.
Ultimately, these are pointless questions. The causes of poverty and human and environmental degradation are complex and not solvable simply by, as they say, hurling cash at them. We’ve seen how effectively such a strategy has brought justice and dignity to our aboriginal populations. It hasn’t.
Holy scripture on the other hand makes it clear that a primary responsibility of people of faith is to worship and praise God. This is one of the justifications that the Church advances for seemingly materialistic spending: we produce art, architecture and music of excellence as a sign to the world of how significant God is in our lives. We do not take short-cuts or offer God what is second-best but seek out the best, the most excellent, the most worthy – in honour of this Being whose standards we can barely comprehend.
In Isaiah God speaks of
In his letter to the faithful in Philippi Paul repudiates material, social and religious status on the grounds that they cannot compare to the wonders of God:
What Paul is saying is that when we assess the value and worth of Jesus everything else becomes meaningless and worthless.
And here begins the clue to what this is all about. First, what the faithful offer God is never a match for what God offers the faithful. By comparison to God’s grace and favour all material, social and religious trappings are without value. But second, what we can offer God is the best that we have.
Thus, Mary makes an offering of hugely-expensive aromatic oil. It is not valid to compare the offering to God with the gift made to, say, the poor, because they are not the same in quality. It’s like trying to compare an apple and a grain of sand. How do we do that? What value can we find in such a comparison?
When we shell out a million bucks on a musical instrument in a cathedral we are making an offering of the best we can be and do and in effect giving back to God what God has given us in the first place, so that we might declare God’s praise, a la Isaiah.
We are not actually lavishing money on God and therefore depriving the poor of the undoubted benefits of such a sum. What we are doing is praising God by acknowledging God’s worth and value in our lives. We are demonstrating our faith in God as the ultimate arbiter of justice and trusting this same God to continue working to eradicate the many horrors that beset any community or society in which humans live.
We are also acknowledging God’s sovereignty – God’s power to effect change. At one level, yes, we do this at the expense of the poor, whom we will always have with us.
However, at a more profound level, we are paradoxically doing more to benefit the most needy in our world when we surrender our own notions what is best for them and instead place our primary focus on God. In this sense, Mary is hastening the ability of Jesus to complete his work by anointing him as prefiguring of his own final conflict with the powers and sources of violence and injustice.
We surely know that anything we do, we do in God’s name. Anything we do, we do in the power of the Holy Spirit. Anything we do, we do with and to and for Jesus.
…Because our faith is relational. In other words, it’s about going out and being with people in that Spirit of love and generosity that comes from the Living God. As I’ve already suggested, simply doling out money is not an effective solution to the complex problems that create and sustain poverty and degradation. Far better to seek the Living God and venture forth trusting in the divine power and meeting other human beings as fellow humans, relating and building relationships rather than dealing in paper, plastic and metal.
It’s much easier to do that, of course. But we have to ask ourselves: do we want this rather lazy option? or do we trust the Living God enough to guide and strengthen us as we seek the lost and wounded of Camillo?
9:30am Camillo
Isaiah 43:16-21 : Philippians 3:3-14 : John 12:1-8
One of the contentious issues that has clung to the Church over the centuries is its use of financial resources. For instance, when I was training for the priesthood a bequest of one million dollars was made to the cathedral for restoration work on the organ. When that figure became public knowledge a great controversy arose: how could the Church spend such a sum on an organ when so much need existed, even in a relatively prosperous city like Perth?
To say that the bequest aroused considerable scandal would be an understatement. Here was the Church yet again squandering money on material possessions while people went homeless and hungry or lived in circumstances of considerable deprivation and hardship. Self-righteous moralists, outside and within the Church, condemned this situation even though, because of the nature of the bequest, the cathedral was legally bound to use the money for no other purpose than the restoration of the organ.
We can ask any number of questions about this or any other issue where obscene amounts of money are spent on the broadly material fabric of either Church or society. How many people can a cool mill feed or house or train? How many hospital wards could that money open or keep operational?
It’s not an obscure picture. We all get it. And even if our sympathies stray towards the organisation that benefits from that kind of lucre, we still have an eye on the underprivileged and the echo in our ears of all those ethical questions and issues that have sprung up, well, at least since this Mary in John’s gospel cracked open a jar of nard and poured the aromatic fragrance over a mere man’s feet instead of selling it and giving the money to the poor.
Ultimately, these are pointless questions. The causes of poverty and human and environmental degradation are complex and not solvable simply by, as they say, hurling cash at them. We’ve seen how effectively such a strategy has brought justice and dignity to our aboriginal populations. It hasn’t.
Holy scripture on the other hand makes it clear that a primary responsibility of people of faith is to worship and praise God. This is one of the justifications that the Church advances for seemingly materialistic spending: we produce art, architecture and music of excellence as a sign to the world of how significant God is in our lives. We do not take short-cuts or offer God what is second-best but seek out the best, the most excellent, the most worthy – in honour of this Being whose standards we can barely comprehend.
In Isaiah God speaks of
the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my
praise.
In his letter to the faithful in Philippi Paul repudiates material, social and religious status on the grounds that they cannot compare to the wonders of God:
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
What Paul is saying is that when we assess the value and worth of Jesus everything else becomes meaningless and worthless.
And here begins the clue to what this is all about. First, what the faithful offer God is never a match for what God offers the faithful. By comparison to God’s grace and favour all material, social and religious trappings are without value. But second, what we can offer God is the best that we have.
Thus, Mary makes an offering of hugely-expensive aromatic oil. It is not valid to compare the offering to God with the gift made to, say, the poor, because they are not the same in quality. It’s like trying to compare an apple and a grain of sand. How do we do that? What value can we find in such a comparison?
When we shell out a million bucks on a musical instrument in a cathedral we are making an offering of the best we can be and do and in effect giving back to God what God has given us in the first place, so that we might declare God’s praise, a la Isaiah.
We are not actually lavishing money on God and therefore depriving the poor of the undoubted benefits of such a sum. What we are doing is praising God by acknowledging God’s worth and value in our lives. We are demonstrating our faith in God as the ultimate arbiter of justice and trusting this same God to continue working to eradicate the many horrors that beset any community or society in which humans live.
We are also acknowledging God’s sovereignty – God’s power to effect change. At one level, yes, we do this at the expense of the poor, whom we will always have with us.
However, at a more profound level, we are paradoxically doing more to benefit the most needy in our world when we surrender our own notions what is best for them and instead place our primary focus on God. In this sense, Mary is hastening the ability of Jesus to complete his work by anointing him as prefiguring of his own final conflict with the powers and sources of violence and injustice.
We surely know that anything we do, we do in God’s name. Anything we do, we do in the power of the Holy Spirit. Anything we do, we do with and to and for Jesus.
…Because our faith is relational. In other words, it’s about going out and being with people in that Spirit of love and generosity that comes from the Living God. As I’ve already suggested, simply doling out money is not an effective solution to the complex problems that create and sustain poverty and degradation. Far better to seek the Living God and venture forth trusting in the divine power and meeting other human beings as fellow humans, relating and building relationships rather than dealing in paper, plastic and metal.
It’s much easier to do that, of course. But we have to ask ourselves: do we want this rather lazy option? or do we trust the Living God enough to guide and strengthen us as we seek the lost and wounded of Camillo?
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