[Sermon] The Beauty That Disrupts

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo + April 6, 2025

Fifth Sunday of Lent

"Full to the Brim: Brazen Acts of Beauty"

When Mary pours perfume on Jesus' feet, it’s more than an act of devotion—it’s a bold, prophetic gesture that unsettles those around her. Pastor Hector explores how this moment invites reflection on the systemic brokenness of our world, especially the persistence of poverty. Through Mary's act and Jesus’ response, we are called to see beauty not as extravagance, but as resistance—an intentional pouring out of love in a world built on scarcity. True devotion, he reminds us, must be rooted in justice and grounded in eternal values. Even the smallest acts, done in love, are part of God’s transformation of the world. What brazen beauty are we willing to risk in order to live out that call?

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatically generated captions, lightly edited by ChatGPT for punctuation and readability.

Grace to you and peace from Abba, Father, Mother, Creator—our God—and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Savior, our Lord, our friend. And we say:

Amen.

I am going to spend a few minutes with you, and I have been really struggling and really wrestling with these two passages—because both passages are passages that are foundational for my understanding of what, uh, life of faith is about.

And I was trying to decide: Which one should I use to spend time with my siblings on Sunday? Should I go with Isaiah? I love that passage. I love it because, as you know me, I—I like to look forward. I like new things. I like to be creating new things.

And then the other one is—I always wanted to talk about Jesus' words to the disciples. So I'm torn now, apart, and I don't know which one I should use.

And then, as we are reading the Gospel, you can see that every single sentence, as David said, can be a sermon. So what should I do?

As I was thinking about this, I was thinking of this invitation that I always am reminded of, that I always bring to you at the end of every gathering of the church—when I say, "Are you ready to be church?" And you say, "Of course."

"Are you going to be church the next six days of the week?" Yes?

Okay. The time of the test comes. What did you do as church during the past six days?

Oh—there is a silence now. Are we still ready?

Again, what did you do as church for the past six days?

Say again—meal?

Be a bridge. Be a bridge.

These are the ways that we are called. And I—I believe there are many other things that we will need more time to think about and to say: This is the way that I was able to be church. To be a channel of God's grace and mercy. To do acts of love and mercy that remind people what church is about—not only the gathering on Sunday in this building, but the everyday in life.

These two passages that I just mentioned, that are very important for me, that I like, that I want to talk about, also represent and remind us of the tension that we experience in our lives—between what we used to be, and the new unfolding and evolving order of life that God has created in us and through us, in every aspect of life: spiritual, political, economic, social, in our families.

And also, these two passages remind us of the promise—the prodigal grace that we were talking about last Sunday—and the promise that Jesus encounters us, embraces us, accepts us as we are. That Jesus will never leave us in the way or in the place that Jesus finds us, because Jesus wants us to grow, to flourish, and to be the people that God calls us to be.

So, as I was reading the—the—the—the passage in the—in the book of Isaiah, I can see God’s challenge for the people of Israel—and God’s challenge for us today:

Forget about what's happened. Don ’t keep going over old history. Be alert. Be present. I am about to do something brand new. It's bursting—don't you see it?

Do you see it? What is bursting?

God recounts the story of liberation—the story of how God reclaims Israel and reclaims us as God's people—and reminds us that nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to stop God's reign. And at the same time, that you and I cannot dwell in the past—we are to see the new thing that is bursting.

So, as church that leaves this place to be the church for six more days every week—what may be bursting? What may be new in your midst? In your lives? Through your lives?

What we experience in the gathering of the church is not something that we keep for ourselves—but it's something that needs to be released. Because it’s bursting. It's like the prophet, when he says: I cannot keep it to myself, because if I do, I feel like a fire burning my bones.

We don’t keep it. And we don’t let it be still there, inside us. It is to run. It is to bring life.

And then we go to the passage in the Gospel according to John, where Jesus challenges the disciples—and, by the way, challenges us—to focus on what is transcendent, what goes beyond our own little agendas. That’s something, sometimes—we believe that our personal agendas are the whole world’s agendas.

And when—when maybe Judas, and maybe others (the Scripture says only Judas, but I want to think that there were some others; Judas was just the one who was talking)—when Jesus hears that he starts complaining about wasting this perfume, Jesus responds and says:

"Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You have poor people with you always, but you won't always have me."

And the words that really have always caught my mind are the words: "You have poor people with you always."

So, there are four things that I would like to share with you that I think come out of this short sentence—things that will invite us, and really guide us, in how we are going to be church for the next six days, as we leave this place today.

The word poor is mentioned only four times in the Gospel according to John—three times in the verses that we read today, and one time in the verses where Jesus is at the Last Supper and tells Judas to leave and to do what he has to do. And then the evangelist—or those who wrote the Gospel—they write a note that says that the disciples didn’t understand exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “Go to do what you need to do, Judas.”

And the evangelist says, maybe some of them thought that he had to go to sell, or to—to get the money, to use the money that he was collecting, and feed the poor. That’s the fourth time that we see the word poor mentioned in the Gospel according to John.

And it is possible that Jesus uses it—according to the passage today—he uses this reference, “You will have the poor people with you always,” as a reference to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 15:11, where God gives the guidelines to the people of Israel to deal with slavery and the poor in the midst of the community.

Last Sunday, as I was greeting people at the end, out there—when you were going out to be church for the next six days—one of our young worshippers came to me and showed me this drawing that we are going to show you now in the slide that I have for you.

He said, “Pastor Hector, I drew this for you. The other day, I was with my parents, and we were in the car, and we passed—and there was one person like this. It says, ‘Please, I need food.’ And I saw him, and I was very sad.”

And I said, “Why were you sad?”

And he said, “Because I didn’t have anything to give him.” And we left.

When I saw this drawing, and when I was talking to him, I was thinking to myself: “Certainly, the words of the Lord Jesus are true.” Because even our younger generations can see what is happening in our society. The poor are always with us.

This drawing, this brief conversation, was a moving experience for me. It was a challenge for me. And at the same time, it was a proclamation by this young worshipper—and an exhortation that helped me to read this passage differently, and also an invitation for us, as a congregation, to think differently about what Jesus may have meant by these words in this section of the Gospel.

So let me share with you four aspects that I see as important in this passage—especially in this verse where Jesus is saying that we will have poor people with us always.

The first thing is that Jesus recognizes a systemic brokenness in the system. Jesus acknowledges the reality of poverty. The result of this—poverty—is the result of inequality, systemic injustice, greed, corruption, and exploitation that perpetuate these cycles of deprivation for communities around us.

In the United States, the rate of poverty is about 14 to 15%—about 40 million people that are suffering poverty. And this poverty in our country is not due to the lack of resources, because last week I was at Costco, and believe me, there are mountains of products and food on top of me that nobody is touching, and that are just stuck there waiting for somebody to pay. It is not because there is no food; it is because we keep it to ourselves—for those of us in positions of privilege.

I don’t buy the story that there is hunger. And I don’t buy the story that there’s poverty—I’m sorry, but I’m not. What I believe there is, is a bunch of corrupt people in power, and a culture that has led us to believe that we need to keep everything in our hands for ourselves to secure our happiness, and pretend that we care for those who are around us.

And I’m not saying that everybody is like this. I believe that there are people—like you and me—who are struggling and finding ways to change the systemic problems in our society. What I’m saying is: the culture, in general, has gotten to—has, has—can move in that direction.

The roots lie in systemic choices of societies, not in individual failures or divine indifference to what is happening in our societies. Jesus’ ministry is the good news to the poor. If we read in Luke 4:18, Jesus urges us to address both immediate needs, but also systemic roots.

The second thing that I believe this verse reminds us is that there is a moment of devotion. As Mary pours the—the—the—the perfume on the feet of Jesus, it’s an act of profound worship that is criticized—as I said earlier—for some, as wasteful. But also, Jesus helps us to recognize the unique moment in our lives—in this case, when Mary is with him, of his death and his resurrection—but for us, to remind us that there are unique moments for acts of devotion and service to others.

And to remember that there are times when we act in worship, and when we do acts of mercy. Sometimes we swing, as church, some—and I remember the congregation where I grew up—everything was just about, “Pray for them.” And we prayed and spent hours praying, but never did anything for them.

And there are times when we go to the other side, where we are so busy doing things for them that we forget that we also need to spend time in devotion, reflection, and also nurturing our spirits to be able to serve and to align with God’s purpose in our lives and through our lives.

The third thing that I see that these verses bring to us is that—this verse brings a challenge to prioritize our eternal values. Jesus contrasts the temporal—“You will always have the poor”—with the eternal—“You will not always have me.” Devotion to him shapes how we serve others. Devotion to Jesus helps us to see that people are not just the recipients of our pity, or our dis—or our self—(I would say) self-satisfaction or our self-righteousness.

Sometimes we do it because Jesus wants us to do it and to be like that. Actions toward the poor reflect God making something new in us.

And the fourth thing—and last thing—is this: this passage reminds us that there is a call to hope and to justice, to see what is bursting in our midst. While poverty persists, the Scripture also points to a future hope: God’s reign will ultimately eradicate this suffering and this poverty.

As we read in the book of Revelation—that we will be studying in the next month—in chapter 21, where it says that God is going to wipe every tear from our face, and there is not going to be more suffering, because we will be living in the fulfillment of this reign of beauty that God brings to us.

You and I are called to be—and to act—with justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly.

We will be singing in a moment words like: “Not all treasures gain, and profit feed the poor.” Our work for justice and mercy is part of God’s redemptive plan for our lives—for us as church. That even the small, brazen, shameless acts of love matter eternally for others.

These acts are part of the brand new thing that God is doing in and through a people that are filled to the brim.

Are you ready to be church the next six days?

Are we—and I include myself—are we ready to be church for the next six days, and to tell people that something new is bursting?

Amen.