When We Help and Give Love to Folks in Need, We Have Jesus with Us

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

April 6, 2025

5 Lent, C

Philippians 3:4b-14

Psalm 126

John 12:1-8

“You always have the poor with you,” Jesus said. I’ve often heard this said with a kind of fatalism. You’ll always have the poor with you so, there’s not a whole lot we can do; we wish it were different, but eh, we can’t really help. So, “You will always have the poor with you,” ends up being used as an excuse not to worry too much about poverty and those who suffer from poverty. The poor will always be with us, so just accept it and move on.

Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jesus meant when he said, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Jesus taught extensively about caring for the poor. Jesus taught folks with wealth to live off of less so that those with little would have more. Jesus even taught that those at the top, in modern times, the CEOs and shareholders, should choose to earn less for themselves so that those on the bottom of the pay scale could earn more. 

So, when Jesus said, “You always have the poor with you,” he did not mean, “Meh, don’t worry about ‘em.”

Jesus was talking to Judas who was making a good self-righteous show, pretending to be upset about how much money Mary had spent on the perfume she was using to anoint Jesus. It was a huge amount of money, about 10 months’ worth of minimum wage, and she was using it all in one go to anoint Jesus’ feet. So yeah, fair point, that’s an extravagant expense, but as John tells us, Judas didn’t actually care about how the money could have been used on the poor; he just wanted to be able to keep more money for himself.

So, when Jesus responded, “You always have the poor with you,” he was telling Judas, “Dude, I know what you’re really on about, and if you actually care about the poor, like you say you do, I highly recommend doing something about it.” In fact, Jesus was commanding Judas to care for the poor. “You always have the poor with you,” was a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 15:11, “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’”.

Yes, Judas, you are commanded to care for the poor and needy in the land, so stop lambasting Mary, stop stealing, and start using what you have to care for those in need. In fact, Judas, not only do you always have the poor with you and should therefore care for them, but you do not always have me. 

Ok, on the one hand, Jesus was obviously speaking about his upcoming arrest and crucifixion. When Jesus was killed and then when he ascended into heaven, his friends and disciples truly didn’t have him there with them anymore. He continued and continues now to dwell in our hearts, in our very souls and bodies, and yet, Jesus is not walking among us physically, at least not in the way he was a couple thousand years ago. 

In Matthew 25:31-46, however, Jesus did say that whatever we do to the least among us, we do to him. We do have Jesus with us among the very poor and needy whom Jesus commanded Judas to care for. By not caring for others among us, we push Jesus away. 

So, anytime someone dismissively says, “You always have the poor with you,” and therefore figure there is nothing we can or should do about it, they are ignoring Jesus and pushing Jesus away. By words and actions that care only for the wealthy and do nothing for the poor and needy, people reveal the truth of Jesus’ statement, “you do not always have me.” When we push away, trample on, and ignore the poor and needy among us, we push away, trample on, and ignore Jesus and find his words are true. We don’t have Jesus with us. 

So, the truth is, we always have the poor with us; we always have people in need among us, but depending on how we treat them, we don’t always have Jesus. 

So, what are we then to do with the hugely expensive bit of perfume that Mary used up in one sitting to anoint Jesus’ feet. Well, it may not have been the best use of money ever in the history of the world, but Jesus meant a huge amount to their family. Beyond that, they seemed to have some idea of Jesus’ importance beyond just a family friend, and Mary wanted to honor and bless Jesus, and draw near to him in this act of pure love. 

Giving of ourselves to spend time with Jesus, never a bad idea. That’s part of what Paul was saying in his letter to the Philippians when he wrote, “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Paul had been one of the absolute best at his religion, and I don’t think there’s really a contest about being better than others at religions, but even so, Paul was the GOAT at his religion, and he gladly let all of it go when he came to know God as a human being, Jesus. 

Mary had this hugely expensive bit of perfume, and she got rid of all of it, used it all at once, in order to be near and offer love to Jesus. 

Now, don’t let anyone fool you into giving them all your money for some Jesusy, religious, whosadeewhatsit. “Send us $1000 and all your prayers will come true.” “Support our ministries with all you’ve got, and God’ll give it back to you with interest.” The only folks what get rich off things like that are the preachers.

No, when we give all that we have to draw near to Jesus, we’re giving our lives, our wills, desires in order to follow Jesus more fully. Sometimes we do give money to support ministries, and we do give money to help others in need, and when we’re helping those other people, we are drawing near to and loving Jesus. 

Realize too that when we give things up in order to draw near to and love Jesus, they’re usually things that we find we’re just fine without. Paul didn’t regret giving up his number one religious guy card, and Mary didn’t regret using all of that perfume on Jesus. She found afterwards that she didn’t need it anymore. 

When we help others in need, we tend to find that we didn’t really need whatever it was we gave up in order to give that help. We find instead that we have spent time with Jesus in those moments, and it was well worth it. We’ve always got folks in need among us, and when we help and give love to folks in need, we have Jesus with us as well.

So, I Tend to Be Kinda Grouchy

Brad Sullivan

Maundy Thursday, Year A

April 13, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

So, I Tend to Be Kinda Grouchy

I tend to be kinda grouchy.  There’s my Good Friday confession a little bit early. 

So this has been for me a fantastic Lent.  Lent is generally my favorite time of year because it’s this time of year when we get to be more intentional than usual in seeking help from God in some aspect of life, or we seek to give something up so we can further our dependence on God, and this Lent I had not come up with anything to give up by the first Sunday of Lent.  Ash Wednesday came and went, and I was thinking, “I don’t know.  I don’t eat much chocolate so that’s not going to do much…” 

Then I was talking to a Gentleman on the morning of the first Sunday of Lent, and he was talking about how Lent had been great.  He had this laundry list of things he had given up.  We’re talking chewing tobacco, coffee, alcohol, every coping mechanism a person could have, and he had gotten rid of all of them, and so I was thinking, “That’s gotta stink…,” but it had been a fantastic Lent for him because every time he started thinking about, “I really want this, or I really want that,” he took it as an opportunity to pray.  So, he was loving it, because it was this constant drawing nearer to God that he got to have.  I was thinking, “Thank you!  That should have been obvious, but thank you, and that’s what I’m going to do now.”

So, I decided to give up being grouchy for Lent.  There was one night when I was angry and upset, and it wasn’t really about my life, it was listening to the news and hearing about all the awful stuff and getting so incensed about all the bad things in the world and finally saying, with tears streaming down, “God, I cannot take this anymore.  Please get rid of this.  Get rid of this anger.  Get rid of this overreaction to everything.  I don’t want it anymore; I’m done with it,” and he took it. 

It was gone, and I felt fantastic.  I was less grouchy, less grumpy.  I had a greater capacity to be a loving person.  That has been my Lenten practice for the rest of Lent.  Every time I start getting agitated, or worried, or upset about something, I stop, and I pray, “God, please take this from me.  I don’t want to deal with it.  I can’t deal with it.  Please take this from me.”  Then I can go about and deal with whatever was getting me upset in a much more loving way. 

So it has been a fantastic Lent, and I offer that story because we’re coming to the end of Lent.  We’re starting what’s known as the Tridium, the three days, and Maundy Thursday as we’re remembering our abandonment of Jesus at the end of this service.  We’re remembering, tomorrow, the crucifixion of Jesus and the horrors of humanity.  Talk about grouchy, here was a guy loved people far too much for humanity to allow him to live, and so we’ll be remembering just how huge our capacity for atrocities and darkness is. 

Jesus knew that was coming, so he gave his disciples this new commandment, and knowing full well his disciples’ and our capacity for darkness, his final commandment was not a warning against darkness.  His final commandment was not, “Guys, try not to be terrible jerks to each other.” 

His final commandment was “Love one another.  Even as I have love you, love one another,” which tells me that despite our capacity for darkness, Jesus knows that we have a capacity for love, and not just a capacity for love, we have every bit as large a capacity for love as he does.  He didn’t say, love one another kinda like, near to how I have loved you.  He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

We were made in God’s image.  Jesus was fully human.  So, every bit as much the capacity for love that Jesus has, so do we have.  That is what he left his disciples with on the night that he knew they were going to leave.  Amidst all of the darkness of the world, amidst all of the darkness that was to come, he wanted them to remember and to live out their capacity for love. 

That is what I have found this Lent in asking this continual prayer of help from God, that ultimately, asking God to help us to take away the darkness leaves us free to love.  Jesus has taken care of our darkness.  He has taken it, and he asks us continually to offer it to him, so that we then may be free to live out a life of love, a life full of every bit as much love for one another as he has for us.