Matthew 26:6

And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him having an alabaster flask, a very costly, fragrant oil, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when his disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, "Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor." But when Jesus was aware of it, he said to them, "Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for me... For in pouring this fragrant oil on my body, she did it for my burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her." Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?" And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

How a woman's lavish, sacrificial worship reveals the heart of every true follower of Jesus—and how it divides them from the fakes.

A Small Story With Enormous Weight

When you first read this passage, it doesn't look like a big deal—just a little encounter in a room, a small bump in the road. But upon further examination it is enormously important. The timing is just before the Passover, one of the biggest holidays of the year, and Jesus had ruffled some feathers. He had caused trouble.

Consider the setting: they're meeting at the house of Simon the leper. Simon had obviously been cleansed—you don't hang out in lepers' houses or you'll get it. He was one of the lepers Jesus had cleansed. There was also a man named Lazarus walking around, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here are two living, walking, talking billboards of Jesus's greatness and proof that these were the miracles of the Messiah.

This was starting to rile the religious elite—people with jobs to protect, reputations to protect, positions to protect. Jesus had made them mad because He was the real deal. He was what they were waiting for, and suddenly they were going to become less while He became greater. Trouble was brewing, and bad things were getting ready to go down.

Mary's Intent

We might imagine Mary casually sauntering down to Simon's house to hang out with friends, like a connect group, dabbing on a little perfume. But by Judas's reaction and the reaction of those in the room, there is far more going on here.

Mary left her house with the intent of doing something lavish, unheard of, wild for the time. She took this alabaster flask of oil and poured it over Jesus's head to anoint Him. The value of this flask is believed to have equaled a year's wages. If we assume the average wage today—around $52,000—that's roughly what this flask was worth in today's dollars.

It's also believed this was her dowry. It was common for a family to provide something of value when a marriage covenant was made, and this was part of it. So this gets deeper and bigger. This was her future, her 401k, her prospect of a husband and a life. And she walks in and breaks it over Jesus's head.

Watch the room's reaction. The truth is, I don't think anyone in that room would have given their all. They had been bested, and their reaction was to be critical of this extravagant worship. They were surprised, because this was nothing else but a pure, unadulterated act of worship. Nobody had ever seen anything like it, and they couldn't process it.

What Worship Actually Is

The dictionary defines worship as "reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred." In the Old Testament, submission, sacrifice, and offering are closely tied to worship. A Jew would bring a sacrifice to the temple to atone for sin—a bloody, costly process repeated every year at Passover.

Under the New Testament, Jesus now provides that atonement. He is the sacrifice. So we worship differently—we worship in grace, because we want to, because we want to draw near to the Lord out of love. Yes, sometimes we are repenting, but it is a much different relationship with worship.

One mistake we've made in the church—particularly in Southern California—is equating all worship with music or singing. We have music not because it is worship in itself, but because it is an on-ramp that puts us in a place of worship, since that's how we communicate. God does receive those songs and praises. But it's like building a house: if you're framing a wall and someone asks what you're doing, you don't say, "I'm hammering"—you say, "I'm building a house." When we sing, we're hammering; the worship is the house we're building. Singing is one component of worshiping the Lord, but it is not the total component.

Worship Is a Sacrificial, Intentional, Free-Will Choice

Real worship is not because we're forced to. It's a little like love—nobody ever forced you to love them. Worship is not extracted from us; it is something we do as an intentional, free-will offering.

Mary brought this flask to Simon's house with the intent to worship Jesus. It wasn't part of her accessory set—she carried it there on purpose. Nobody made her do it. He didn't ask for it. She wasn't guilted into it by a good tithing sermon. She did it on her own.

I think of the Magi in Matthew 2:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him." ... And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

That was intention—probably a two-year journey chasing a star, not knowing exactly how or where they would find Him. And when they saw Him, they worshiped. It came from their hearts, freely, and it cost them to do it.

How do we apply this practically? Seek Jesus. You don't need to get on a camel; you need to get on your knees. One of the ways to worship Jesus is to pray—to ask Him, to talk to Him, to bring Him our requests. When we make a prayer request, we are saying, "I can't fix this. You can. I'm going to trust You with it." And on our knees we also praise God—simply saying, "Lord, You created me, You created the universe, You are holy, You are perfect, and I want to be in Your presence." Those are sweet, sweet times.

Worship Is an Offering of Tangible Value

Worship must cost us something. Consider King David. He had been disobedient, and the Lord brought a plague upon Israel. David needed to repent—and to come up with some cold, hard cash. In 2 Samuel 24, Araunah offered David his threshing floor and oxen for free:

Then the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver... So the LORD heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.

It cost him something. And Mary's worship cost her something too. There's a question I ask myself that doesn't make me many friends: does your Christian life cost you anything?

I love this church because so many people are here to make it work. Our Sunday school teachers brave the cold season and all that goes along with kids, loving them—and that costs them time. They do it as a free-will offering, and they're not grumpy about it. The security teams comb the parking lot at 6:15 in the morning, train with their holds, and make sure the same kid you brought goes home with you. The hospitality team ushers, serves communion, and takes care of us. All of it is an offering to the Lord, and it costs them energy, assets, or time. If it doesn't cost you energy, assets, or time, it's probably not worth anything.

What made Mary's sacrifice so valuable was not its worth, but its cost—just like the widow's two mites. The beauty and value of it was how much it cost her and how freely she gave it.

Worship Is a Point of Contention

Worship is divisive. It separates. It causes trouble—because the battle is over worship. What we worship, what we give our energy, assets, and time to, is what the battle is over. It started in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day. Isaiah records the origin of it:

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! ... For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will be like the Most High.'"

The devil is so consumed with self that, though he has read how the story ends, he still won't admit defeat. The battle is over who we worship—and it culminates with the whole world ultimately worshiping the Lord, some in grace and mercy, some not.

Cain slew Abel over worship—meat, not vegetables; one offering acceptable, one not. The first murder was an argument over worship. In the Old Testament, the standards for offerings were strict and specific—animals without spot or blemish—precisely so there would be no division, no argument, no opinion. It was all spelled out.

Now we are under grace, and Jesus is the sacrifice. Yet worship can still be a bone of contention. If I gathered all the pastors who handle the business of the church and asked their single biggest headache, it would always be worship. Even in our own church we have a wonderful worship community, but the enemy got hold of it. The Lord took our worship leader Rich home through the evil of cancer. Emily led worship today for the first time since Easter because of an issue with her throat.

If you want to see division, look at worship teams. Pray for your worship pastor—pray for Casey. After the senior pastor, the devil is gunning for the worship pastor, wanting him or her to fall off the tracks, and he will sow dissension in those ranks.

In our passage, the disciples are confronted with a pure, awesome moment of worship—and they blow it. It's not just Judas; all of them were fooled, unable to see the big picture. To look spiritual, they protest, "We could have given it to the poor." Doesn't that sound spiritual? Giving to the poor is good, and Jesus affirms it—but that wasn't the focus here. We don't worship the poor; we worship the Lord. And notice Judas's next step right after witnessing this beautiful, pure act of worship: he walks out the door and betrays Jesus. Worship causes a reaction.

Worship Separates the True Worshipers From the Fakes

The application may sound harsh: take your attention off yourself. We all love the unholy trinity—me, myself, and I. We don't need to be taught to love ourselves; even when we pity ourselves, we're still loving ourselves.

Mary did something no one else in the room would do, except Jesus, who gave it all. And it made them deeply uncomfortable, so they combated it with disparaging words, calling it a waste. It's striking that what God calls precious, perfect, good, and beautiful, they called a waste. Real worship divides—you either are or you're not.

Worship reveals your heart, because you become like what you worship. Psalm 115 says:

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see... Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.

You become like what you put before the Lord. You become like your idols. Mary worshiped Jesus because she wanted to become more like Him—to have His love, grace, mercy, and goodness in her life.

The application: stop worshiping other things. There are many wonderful things in our world that aren't inherently bad, but they take our energy, assets, and time and distract us from what we're supposed to be doing. How many of you will be thankful when the election is over? I tell my kids you get no biblical results without biblical methods—you won't do unbiblical things and get biblical blessing.

I can come home and burn two hours on Craigslist looking at boats. How many of you have looked up from Facebook and realized you just blew an hour and a half? Churches in Southern California actually budget for both attendance and offerings according to football season, because attendance drops at the start of it. What does the Lord ask? A couple of hours a week.

When over-attention to distraction has become a problem in a marriage, I challenge couples to "go Amish"—modified Amish—for one week. Not King James, not a buggy, but for one week: no Facebook, no Craigslist, no TV, nothing for entertainment. You have to talk to your wife. You have to talk to your husband. You have to give your kids undivided attention rather than looking at your phone. I bet many of us couldn't do it, especially the busy types. It takes discipline to stop and spend that time with the Lord—and I promise you won't miss any of the political banter on Facebook.

Worship Is Good, Praiseworthy, and Eternal

But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them... "For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her."

I want to be that cool—to have people still reading about something I did two thousand years later. Mary is totally blessed; people are still talking about her. From this verse we draw three things: worship is good, worship is praiseworthy, and worship is eternal. It doesn't go off into outer space somewhere. It is counted. It is important.

Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?" And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.

Worship shows what we value and how much. The value Judas placed on Jesus—a man he walked with, saw heal and raise the dead, who was perfect and was his friend—was thirty pieces of silver. Coincidentally, that's the price of a low-level slave; if you accidentally killed someone's slave in the Old Testament, you paid thirty pieces of silver, no harm, no foul. Mary, by contrast, valued Jesus with everything she had.

Sharing as Worship

I don't believe God is asking you to dump your whole 401k on Him, unless He's specifically telling you to. But He does ask you to be obedient and give back a portion of what He's given—not only money, but energy, assets, and time.

A friend of mine who is good with money once told me his rule: "Go have some fun and take somebody with you. Whatever you own, whatever you have, use some of it for the Lord and God's people, and you'll find it's way less hassle." So I have an old boat, and I bring people down to it—some of you I've invited, and we've gone kayaking together. I'm more excited about that boat because I get to share it. I'm doing a heinous bathroom remodel right now, but I'm more excited about my house because college kids come over on Tuesday nights and we hang out. When you take people along for the ride and share your energy, assets, and time as an act of worship, you're blessed.

In fact, that's how Miles and I both got to Maui. A friend with a timeshare said, "I'm not using it—go use it, and have Miles use the other week." We just paid for our plane tickets. I hadn't been on an airplane vacation with my wife since our honeymoon twenty-nine years ago. He kept insisting, "Take somebody with you, share it with people." I encourage you in that.

Jesus Sang Before the Cross

Now Jesus is at the Last Supper, being betrayed by Judas. He is not ignorant of what is coming—the horror of the cross was a common practice, and He knew the betrayal, the beatings, all of it. And there's a little line that says a ton:

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

During the Passover High Holy Days, Jewish culture would sing the Hallel—Psalms 113 to 118. "Hallel" is short for "Hallelujah." These were psalms of celebration, of the glory and the promise of the Lord. Here is just a piece of Psalm 113:

From the rising of the sun to its going down the LORD's name is to be praised. The LORD is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens... He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that He may seat him with princes... He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children.

This psalm celebrates how God takes the lowest of the low—the barren woman, the person of the ash heap—and raises them up and provides for them. The famous pastor David Guzik once shared this with a few of us: Jesus knew the nails and the beatings, but what prepared Him to see it through and get there was singing the Hallel. He took hold of the promises, the goodness, and the greatness of the Lord, and He took it to heart.

So today I encourage you. I see a lot of fear out there—elections, all of it. Don't look at that stuff. Go home and read Psalm 113-118. Grab hold of the Hallel—"hallelujah," the claim of victory, the greatness and goodness of God. He has this covered.

Closing Prayer

Dear Father, as we approach You—sinners all of us—we've admitted our guilt and our shame and our wrongdoing, Lord, and the mistakes we've made. We know that You hung upon that cross and rose again in three days for our sin. It was paid. The story is told: it is paid, it is finished, it is done. And we thank You for it.