What the World Calls Waste, God Calls Beauty

Reading the Word

From Exodus: Moses fled from Pharaoh and sat down by a well. The priest of Midian had seven daughters, who came to draw water. Some shepherds drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them. Their father invited him to stay. Moses agreed, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. She bore a son, and he named him Gershom, "for he said, 'I have been an alien in a foreign land.'"

From Psalm 8: "O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!... When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor."

From Matthew: A woman came to Jesus with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. The disciples were angry. "Why this waste?" they said. "This ointment might have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor." But Jesus said, "Why do you trouble the woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me... In pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial... Wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

Reflection

Three stories. Three people the world would not remember.

Moses is a fugitive, a man with a price on his head, sitting by a well in a land not his own. He is an alien. A foreigner. A refugee. And yet he becomes the one who defends the daughters of Midian, who finds a home through kindness, whose very son's name carries the truth of displacement: "I have been an alien." It is not shame. It is honesty. And out of that honesty, a future is born.

The woman at Bethany is not named by Matthew, though some traditions call her Mary. What matters is what she does: she breaks open a jar of pure nard, fills the room with its scent, and anoints Jesus' head. It is an act of total devotion, total waste, total beauty. The disciples, the rational ones, the budget-conscious ones, the ones who care about the poor in theory, are furious. "Why this waste?" They have math on their side. She has love. And Jesus takes her side. "She has done a beautiful thing to me." In the economy of the kingdom, beauty is not waste. Devotion is not extravagance. And the memory of a woman the disciples wanted to silence will outlast their arguments.

Psalm 8 holds the frame. The moon and the stars, the work of God's fingers...and then us, mortals, dust, crowned with glory and honor. The God who set galaxies spinning is mindful of the alien by the well, the woman with the jar, the ones the world calls waste. This is not sentimental. It is cosmic. We matter. Our small acts matter. Our love, poured out, is remembered.

The refugee by the well is not a problem to solve but a person to welcome. The woman who breaks the budget for justice or beauty or care is not foolish but faithful. And the ones who do the counting, who measure worth by productivity, by usefulness, by return on investment, are not evil, but they are missing the point. The point is beauty. The point is devotion. The point is love poured out without holding back, because God has already poured out everything on our behalf.

Moses will lead his people out of slavery, but not before he learns what it means to be a stranger. The woman will be remembered, but not before she is called wasteful. And we, mortal and glorious, are invited to do beautiful things, even when they look like waste to everyone else.

Prayer

O God, you crown the small with glory. You remember the ones the world forgets. You defend the alien by the well and honor the woman with the jar. Forgive us for calling waste what you call beauty. Forgive us for measuring love instead of pouring it out.

Today we pray for every refugee who knows what Moses named. For every woman whose devotion has been called foolish. May they know they are remembered. May they know they are crowned with honor. Amen.

For Today

Where are you holding back from pouring out love because someone might call it a waste? Where might you need to defend, or see the beauty in someone else's costly devotion?