My wife doesn’t need me to buy her flowers, and she will often say so when I come home with a bunch of daffodils or roses from the mark down rack at Fred Meyer clutched in my hand. What I spend on those blooms is definitely an unnecessary extravagance and both Beth and our marriage could probably get along just fine without them. Yet I get joy in the giving and Beth is pleased to receive them. What seems “unnecessary” from a purely practical perspective might be necessary in another way, as an expression of love and honor.
Mary’s outpouring of expensive perfumed ointment on Jesus in this Sunday’s text, John 12:1-8, could certainly be construed as an unnecessary extravagance. That’s exactly how Judas Iscariot described it in verse 5, money wasted that could have been spent on the poor. That this very practical and seemingly compassionate notion comes from the mouth of Judas should give us a clue that is is somehow mistaken. And of course John goes on to tell us in verse 6 that Judas real motivation was to get hold of the price of the perfume, not consideration for the poor.
I believe this text by itself may justify some of the extravagant things Christians do in worship, whether it’s merely constructing a building or some expensive beautification of a worship space like stained glass, carved wood, flowers or banners. If the motivation is to honor and praise Jesus, the extravagance is justified, even if some more practical humanitarian end might have been accomplished with the same money.
However, we should not forget practical compassion in our extravagance. We can be thoughtful in our spending. My wife actually enjoys her flowers more if they are marked half price and some money was saved for other purposes. We can have beautiful extravagant worship and remember the poor.
Jesus did not mean to ignore or forget the poor in verse 8, “You always have the poor with you…,” which is an idea drawn from Deuteronomy 15:11, where it is immediately followed by a command to generous to poor and need among us.
There’s a place for extravagance in many of our relationships. It’s a way to express love and respect. Isn’t extravagance appropriate in our relationship with the One who both created and saved us by the sacrifice of His own life?