Keep Reading

People wonder why we should keep reading the Bible. When I taught Sunday school to high schoolers, I had them re-read the same passage we read in church. You would have thought I was torturing them, "But we already read it, why do we have to read it again?" I told them because we were going to discuss the readings. I don't think I ever got them to really understand that there were multiple levels of meaning, and that there was something to be gained by re-reading and reconsidering Bible readings, but this past week I rediscovered that lesson reading John 12:

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.² There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. ³ Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them^[a] with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. ⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii^[b] and the money given to the poor?” ⁶ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) ⁷ Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it^[c] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.⁸ You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

I grew up in northern California, and every time somebody tried to do anything, some politician would say, "What about the poor." It was ludicrous. Try to build a luxury hotel, and some low-level city council member would say, "What about the  poor." Even as a kid this struck me a strange, and I began to realize that this was more about status than real concern for the poor. The city-council member probably thought, "This guy has more money than I do, but I can make him squirm and extract my pound of flesh." 

Rereading John 12 I realized how old this status one-upmanship game is. I knew this story primarily from Jesus Christ Superstar, and especially the line, "You will always have the poor with you." But what I never even remember reading was the parenthetical phrase, "He said this not because he cared for the poor, but becasue he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it." I believe most of the concern for the poor expressed today is not real concern but misdirected ambition and pride.