Beautiful Things - by Greg Steggerda

There’s a wonderful thing happening in our community and country. It’s the same thing we saw immediately after the terrorist attacks we now call 9-11: people are reaching out to help other people.

Service can be hard, or at least we sometimes make it that way. We can find all kinds of reasons why someone doesn’t deserve something, or worry about whether we’re making the absolute best use of a resource. While we wonder and debate, needs continue. It’s our local or church version of what we just saw happening as Congress struggled to pass an emergency contingency bill.

This morning, I think Jesus has given me a good thing to say in those conversations. In Mark 14 there’s a story of a woman who anointed Jesus with a jar of expensive perfume. Here’s the result, in verses 4-6: 

“Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, ‘Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.’ And they rebuked her harshly.
“‘Leave her alone,’ said Jesus. ‘Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.’”

Isn’t that why we do service, to do beautiful things for Jesus? Wouldn’t that make a great way to refocus some of the discussions we get into?

When people say someone doesn’t need our support because their family can afford to help them . . . .

When people say we shouldn’t do service because those people don’t deserve it . . . . 

When people say that giving help will just enable more bad choices . . . .

When people ask whether there aren’t better ways to use the money . . . .

When people point out all the other folks in similar situations that we didn’t help . . . .

When people would rather hold onto the resource than commit it . . . .

We could respond, “Yes, but we’d be doing a beautiful thing for Jesus!” We don’t help people because they deserve help, we help because they need it. The best kind of image-bearing, the thing that most closely reflects Jesus himself, is to help people who don’t deserve it.

We didn’t deserve it but Jesus saved us. Now we serve because as the grateful redeemed we can’t help it. We’re bursting with the need to pay it forward. We do these beautiful things because they please our Savior.