Sects Hielsuaou
TWIN CITIES PRESBY TERY (teams )
“TW Co Cor\o\oett
EXTRAVAGANCE

March 4, 1986

John M. Buchanan, Pastar
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Sere ee

Mater eta 3

January 28, 1986 - 72 seconds into the flight of Challenger -

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it blew up, and the task for those of us who had to stand up

in our pulpits five days Jater, and say something intelligible,

was to make some sense of the wastefulness.| Some of us did

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it better than others.\ Most of us, | imagine, gave it a try. | Certainly

every editorial page in every newspaper in the land gave voice

to grief, sorrow, and national pain. || read it all as you did.

| said something, and it helped for the preacher to gather it
up in worship.
But 1 found the truest commentary on the topic of the death
a enenllien my

of those seven astronauts preparing for this day, thinking about

tain | o_o

value and giving and sacrifice and stewardshipi\I had chosen
_ Sei ieen a Oa anil mtrbantepiratraiceg,

fhe text for a number of reasons: | First, | love, it and when you're
Ciimeneaugenammanl Leer iets J
asked to preach at an event like this you're allowed to pick a

text and not feel like you've violated the congregation's need

to hear the balance of the lectionary \ And second ~ because
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i've come to think it's the best stewardship story in the Bible.
And third, and not the least, because Johanine version is the
—_— armies nie aa _

lectionary text Sunday after next, a fact | assumed would not
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be lost on my hearers tocay.

In any event, | recalled a brief sermon of Paul Tillich's
ey,
called Holy Waste - in The New Being and I got it out and in

it | found a meaningful word about Christé McCauliff and OD Natl

{
and others. \ Tillich wrote:

"The history of humankind is the history of men and women
who wasted themselves and were not afraid to do so. They
did not fear the waste of themselves, of other men and women,
of things in the service of a new creation. They were
justified, for they wasted all this out of the fullness of

their hearts," |} [p. 47-48]

Professor Tillich went on to lament that Protestantism has
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lost_a lot by neglecting the grace of wateful self-surrender.

He askea:( "Are we not in danger of a religious and moral utilitarianism
which always asks for the reasonable purpose - the same questions

as the disciples in Bethany? \There is no creativity, divine or

human, without the holy wast which comes out of the creative
abundance of the heart..."

Have you ever done it Ever been wasteful out of the fullness
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7 |

of your heart - foolish, gloriously extravagant?4If you have
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—

not, that's too bad, because there is a sense in which you haven't
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—

loved fully until you've been made to feel a little footish.| Which

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means that surely all of us have, on some occasion, bought a
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dozen roses when one would have sufficed \or written a silly

love note that still makes us blush to recall it - even if it was
weeny | een nine
in fifth grade, |or shouted (1 love you, God" into a night sky
or prayed it or wrote it into a diary, or even in a cocktail party
aie tee dr a) Rr,

conversation suddenly turned racist edged ourselves out across

the line of socially accepted and expected behavior because of

Gard 3
a buring love for God and all his multi-colored children which
_prireniniesinvinilar tsi AAILS ag,

is planted deeply in our heart.

The textis about a foolishly extravagant woman who does
in sanell
a foolisly wasteful thing for Jesus.\ The scene for the incident
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is set by a high level conference in the palace of Caiphas, the

priest, puppet ecclesiastic, Jerusalem, 33 a.o-f "Jesus must

go,"|they decided \ Enough is enough \ He has come to our city,

insulted us, caused trouble in the temple, is daily making us
meee a ailaienhiinenl

‘ene

.

look bad. He must go."| With that terrible dye cast, Mebsaew YHA! .
‘eee eink

Semanal

shifts scenes to Bethany, where

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simon, who used to have leprosy.| They're sitting on the dirt
nae

floor, fhe men are, cross~legged, eating out of a common bowl,
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probably dipping chunks of bread into oil. \ They're talking,

laughing some - about the look on the Pharisees' faces when

Jesus turned over the tables and the pigeons got loose and the

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fat salesman tripped over the lambs and fell into the next booth

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where the calves were. \ Without a word she penetrated that clubroom

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and walked to where Jesus sat, and looked _at_him intensely, knowing
qeccncnai. onmaentt one

that this festivity was prelude to disaster, and caught him extended,
dipping his bread in the olive oil, poured out on him the expensive
Sarena arena cic “enamel mieten aceon

perfume in the precious alabaster jar she had treasured for years,
Pa Bitte einai Oe hae iain Oe

given to her by her mother when she became a woman.
S astiiohnoad

The moment, frozen in time, was powerfulat first awkward,
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embarrassing, shocking, and as he sat, paralyzed by this peculiar
neni, Cael

honor — rich, aromatic perfume running down his neck, soaking
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into his shirt, her vulnerability was punctuated by a gasp from
the other side of the circle €What a monstrous waste! \Why,

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if she had just given that to us, we could have sold it and fed
a lot of hungry people."

it is grossly inappropriate to use what he said next as a

pence

poverty policy. \ Jesus spent most of his time with poor people.
He_ was ong of them. \He was their advocate. \ At least part of
what is going on in the Gospel accounts is the eternal conflict
between the haves and have nots, the privileged and under-
privileged, the ins and outs. \ The common people heard him

gladly. \rhat means the poor peopte.\ He said what he said about
Eaehaaeane i ee a sal

them here to protect this woman in her foolish extravagance.
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And then, he even tried black comedy. / Like a critically ill persen
,emishdiantinetnmensmmmil

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joking about the funeral,+Jesus tries a joke about her annointing

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him for his burial, because the other event people got annointed
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for in Israel is coronation. (he's proloclel, plete tn Wee CAM }

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it's a vulnerable feeling to have acted foolishly for love,

like a three year old bringing the prize begonia - plucked and
clutched tightly in his hand - to his mother as a gift of love.
li's meek hardep to be the recipient of grace sometimes. Jesus,

the lover, loves this woman, honors this woman, by ignoring
= Ci ial ee, Ce |

all that is prudent and sensible and economically viable. ("What
es,

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she has done is beautiful,“jhe announces to her detractors. (she

will be remembered forever.!! )

He may have overstated that a bit.| She is not, in point
of fact, one of the personalities that we remember much at all.
And | think the reason is that what she did is peculiar and unlikely
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and we don't do things like that and the pragmatist in each of

us can hear our own voice expressing concern about this wastefulness. wr
We are, in fact, as Professor Tillich suggested, religious yr
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and moral utilitarians. } We preachers even think we've made «.
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a point about stewardship when we remind our people that they \

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are spending more on pet food than they're giving to their church. x

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wick. is true \ou) weil. televeant way it

Pursnescus -

We are inclined to divine value in terms of functionality.
fhe

[wat is is valuable is what functions efficiently, is productive,
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efficient. But, in fact, art_is not productively functional. \ Money
= Gime ming
spent on form could be spent on efficient function.} But there
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f tet we is human value to beauty which transcends even the immediacies
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ee “a 4 e of hunger and every artist knows that, thank Cod. eines,
2 foe n en ta keep the church beautiful in the city could be
pe yo 2 ey spent p u eautifu y

AE oe buying food.| But thereis a hunger assumed and addressed b
v ae w yp beauty and our love for it that may dscemmmeamre - not replace -
il 40 * . iilvwatacte . ; ;
yee xo but tramseermt and energize our commitment to deal with human
, oo Sheer Sra

4X! need. \ Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, of Newark, New

ersey, wrote an excellent article in the Christian Century on

urban church which is very helpful. | Bishop Spong observes:
EE aA tae

"Urban life is not beautiful, Barbage collection is generally
poor. Trash litters the streets. Many homes are in poor
repair, and some are abandoned bits of dilapidation. Many
city people are so depressed that they deliberately fill their
lives with ugliness, as an unconscious commentary on the
way they feel valued by others. Eonsequently, it is espectially

important that city churches be places of beauty...Money

spent to beautify urban houses of worship is not wasted,

for beauty _is a gift..| Chwrechesccti-tesbear-witress=to0 - ~ -

When

we fill these churches with poorly prepared liturgies and
shallow, inane preaching, we add to the urvan poor's sense
of being surrounded by a non-caring, non-valuing world.
Urban church structures need to shine as centers of beauty,
as symbols of hope, as signs of the Kingdom. They need

to be living parables of God's caring."

What about the poor? Whatts our r

was the discipte’ s? uiefory tence t Sird ‘ephiThre. Humanism

“

without Menger produc

ened,

onsibstity ? What
e worker's paradise, as in

r God is a God of justice, a God who
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hears the cries of the poor, who favors the underdogs, and who
[a Ted Seger octet

clearly holds us responsible for one another.\ The theme of this
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zit
t dus wr wt _ %s fhe issue which will command the future and with which those
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re seh of us in the First World, the privileged world, the rich world,
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. ny a
we N ge x must come to terms.\ It is a misreading of the text and a terrible
wre va 4 misreading of the entire Biblical witness to conclude that poverty
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NS “oe is anything but the major item on the agenda.

That having been said, may | submit_that economic justice

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and extragant love are not mutually exclusive. | In fact, somewhere
aan | eimai

in the Good News there is an invitation to love and to be loved

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so much that we know what it means to be carried away, and
Seah eT eam

to love so thoroughly we are willing to be foolishly extravagant.
ReneS eR

So there is a tension - a dialectic - a conflict even, between
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a Lord who said so simply one tine, Where your treasure is,
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there your heaf{ will be also J) and a culture which responds:
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"When E. F. Hutton speaks, everybody listens." )

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God's word comes in disguise sometimes. ‘| | find it withen Ce adler

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©
some-reguitari ty tidoes ai delightful Wall Street Journal features

which simply hold up for investigative inspection, a slice_of contemporary

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American life. \ Some time ago an article appeared on(*y uppie
Love - Detroit Auto Makers Try to Increase Sales To Young Protesstoculss” )
aan — aihiniemimetae

Yuppies, "young, urban rofessionals," are having an enormous
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impact on politics and commerce and are already nemeauieaaes
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as our culture's next "tastemakers." vuppies are defined variously
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as f'people who listen to National Public Radio while jogging," )
or typically, (t childless couple, mid-'30's, who live in a condo,
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work hard, do aerobic exercises, canoe in the wilderness and
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drive a $25,000 Seab.") "We are," one of them told the reporter,

"very into value."
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Market researchers in the steel and glass towers of Detroit
| mneniemicniniaiindl ORT tint Sin cnihmenml,

now know that Yuppies and all of us influenced by that image

(“preter cars that befit their new affluence, reflect their desire

to be socially responsible and don't remind them of their parents."

Protowa be t as
Chieesteraaneetsht

have invested more than one billion dollars
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in the Yuppie cars. } The Journal's moral and subtly sermonic

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conclusion was in this observation:

"Yuppies' fondness for gadgets has revived the turbo charger

industry and given rise to the $3,000 car radio./ Affixed
ese iit

to a turbo-charged Saab seen recently in Detroit was a

bumper sticker that read, 'He Who Dies With The Most Toys

Wins." |

Well if we ever got around to understanding and remembering
mip. ae ae

what this extravagent_woman did for Jesus one time, we might
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be saved by a truth deeper than that bumper sticker. edwcuié

oys

wrss Jesus tuaght that the most love wins;] that is, the most

MTR oS

grace, and giving, and extravagance, and occasional foolishness.
La a ay

10.

id y tes utility

company will not consider ithe lilies of the field as monthly payment -

Of course we must calculate.
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regardless of how splendidly they are arrayed. \ Of course, we
have to heat our churches and light them and balance the budget
and pay the janitors and feed the hungry and clothe the naked
and pay the secretaries and shelter the homeless and buy Bibles
for the children and announce Good News to the oppressed and
fix the organ.

a

re!
Douglas John Hall argues eloquently that stewardship's

imperative is to love this world deeply and profoundly and |

$
would & foolishly , extravagantly | Hall suggests that this is the

_—,

key, not better techniques. \ Hall wrote: This world is the

Thi 5

world for which God offered up the ‘only begotten Son.'

at in re en -

| believe is where the theology of stewardship must seek its real

we,
foundation, and if this foundation is missing then no amount Z
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of beating the drum for God and money will make the least difference.”
email | Te re , RY

[The Steward: A Biblical Symbo!l Come of Age, p. 68]

Of course we must calculate. | Of course we must learn about
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how to use the best materials, organizational plans and campaign

strategies available.to us.\ The battle for the tax deductible

dollar in our nation is on and we're not even on the field yet.
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Our people are asked to give money to a dozen causes a day,
PGR carey

11.

all of whom are doing a better job of the asking and explaining
Sa iamaienenaial sie nein oe Far ieee

than we are. \ or course we must calculate and of course we must
al Oe ae an ea |

do a better job. \But the danger te the church is not from irresponsible
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extravagance so much as the dullness and dryness that prudence
Sui, [ee
often becomes.

Frederick Buechner suggests that (the church is destroyed
reer. Priel ae aml

by people who are afraid to be human, brave, and loving, and

a, aang

to take chanees,"|and that the church lives where (for Christ's
_ Fd .

sake we are willing to look like fools: | where we understand that
on eteiaiahi name

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without simplicity and passion and outlandishness no church
‘ret renee Pr emmeminen

is worth two cents. "JIA Room Called Remember, p, 125]
That's true about our churches. { And | know out of my
emer tianlian, Si ree aed
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own experience, that fit ts true about us as individuals. \ue must

be responsible The burden to do our ministry successfully -
Plliereatacencnane ema iol

which feels like prudently - is a heavy and relentless one.

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Paul Tillich wrote: ("People aré sick, not only because they y ¢
peeve i

ve we
have not received love, but also because they are not allowed e
hemiamiassninitd menamab etal
to give love, to waste themselves. \ Do not suppress In yourselves \y
WTAE, EIN ERLE, eae ye
or others the abundant heart, the waué of self-surrender, the \) RN
ACPA ni
Spirit who trespasses all reason. Do not greedily pressure your AD

time and your strength for what is useful and reasonable." |
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[op. cit., p. 48]

12,

The cross of Jesus Christ is God's extravagant wove. | The
Catan eat il

death of Jesus Christ is, at least, foolish extravagance. | lt is
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also invitation to a fullness of tife which is free to allow love
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and passion to be expressed. | the Gospel of Jesus Christ is

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an invitation to tears of joy at God's love for us, and a passion
nie

——

for the life of the world in God's love. \ it is an invitation to
tee, ftir

music and laughter and a freedon on occasion to be so overwhelmed

by it all that we - even we - risk becoming. foolish, foolishly

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extravagant - for the love of Christ. Amen.
eal ESR