The Rev. Dr. Timothy Ives

First Congregational Church

Chappaqua, New York

April 1, 2001

John 12:1-8

In the early eighties I took my first job in New York City. I became the executive director of the Westside Youth Ministry. Of course I was the only employee of the Westside Youth Ministry so besides being director I was also secretary, custodian etc. I started in a little office in the Rutgers Presbyterian Church on 73rd street just off Broadway. It was my own little entrepreneurial start up. There was no IPO though. But it was my initial public offering of my ministry.

My job was to create a ministry to the teenagers of the Westside. I was really given free reign to do whatever I wanted. It was great fun most of the time. I worked with seven different churches from 59th street all the way up to 113th street trying to create programs that would touch all of their youth. We did a lot of things. We started a basketball league we had hundreds of kids involved in that program. We got a grant to weatherize the churches and so we started a little jobs program. We got a local chef to teach kids how to cook. We took retreats out to the country as the kids said. Sometimes we would take a hundred and fifty kids. On these retreats I came to realize how limited their experience was. They knew as little about the country as I knew about the city. Dragonflies terrified them. These streetwise city-tough kids were undone in the country. We went often.

The whole experience was an incredible education for me. It was the first time I came into contact with real poverty. And most of these kids lived in real poverty.

Bruce Williams who was here a few weeks ago grew up in the Phipps Housing projects just behind Lincoln Center. I don’t know what they are like now but back then it was a scandal that such deplorable living conditions existed within a stone’s throw of Lincoln Center.

The first time I went to see Bruce I was shocked. I was shocked by the overwhelming stench of urine in the halls. I was shocked by the broken windows that were left unfixed for months or years even in the winter. I was shocked that in his apartment they were running the gas stove for heat. I was shocked by the mess that Bruce lived in. I was shocked by the number of people who seemed to be living in his apartment. I was shocked that Bruce had any sense of himself or his life at all.

Poverty, it was the given for most of these kids. It didn’t take me long to be outraged that so many kids were facing this kind of life and no one seemed to care. I would become enraged by comments at parties I would hear about these damn teenagers. I would try to set people straight about graffiti, rap music, and break-dancing. All these things were becoming very popular among the teens of the city at that time and I saw it as wonderful self-expression and said so. There was a time during the early eighties before the city really cracked down on graffiti when these kids would do elaborate paintings on the trains. Many were wonderful. I always thought the city should hire them and let them paint the subway cars any which way. Of course most people just lumped it in with urban blight.

I didn’t like to hear the way people talked about these kids and their problems. I didn’t like the way everyone would make excuses for the fact that real poverty existed in the city alongside such incredible wealth. Poverty doesn’t have to exist we allow it to exist. I would say it often. I still believe it today.

That is why when I read a story from the Bible like the one for today that has Jesus saying something like “The poor you always have with you.” I want to ignore it or believe that Jesus could not have possibly said it.

Jesus who tells the story of about the end time that allows that only those who fed the poor, housed the homeless, cared for the sick are worthy of an eternal reward. Jesus who continually sides with the poor in what he says and does. Jesus who picks the poor widow out of all who gave to the Temple and said that her two pennies were worth more than any other gift because she was so dirt poor. Jesus who told the rich young man to sell all that he had and then he would be perfect. Jesus who himself grew up in outback Galilee where there was little but poverty could not have ever said, “The poor you always have with you,” as if he did not care. He would have never said not to give to the poor. And if he did say this I might be tempted to side with Judas and betray this man who had seemingly turned on his most basic teaching, and cashed in the people he loved.

Judas has a point. Mary pours on to Jesus oil worth three hundred denarii. That is almost a year’s wages! You remember when the compensation package of the top executive of the United Way was revealed. It was hundred of thousands of dollars and people were outraged. This is the same thing. Jesus who is supposed to be about caring for the downtrodden luxuriates in something that only the most pampered would use. It is wrong and Judas is right to say so. We are right to be outraged if indeed this happened in this way.

I have to tell you one more thing about my work in the city. It made me a little crazy. I became very judgmental of anything and everything. I remember a friend telling me they thought it might be time for me to take a rest from the city. It was after one of my tirades that started “That is so typical of this place . . .” Evidently I had been pointing out a lot about the city and city life that was typical and terrible. I understood all the things that were wrong but I had no sense of what was right.

This is Judas’ problem in this passage too. He is so busy bitching about what is wrong he can’t or won’t see the miracle of his life with Jesus. He should be reminded and we should remember when reading this passage that Mary is the sister of Lazarus. Lazarus in this story is sitting right there. Lazarus at this point is a rather unique individual. He has just recently been raised from the dead. And all Judas can do is harp about his belief that Jesus isn’t doing enough. What else could Mary do? Jesus just brought her brother back from the dead. Anoint the man and don’t think it is nearly enough.