What Are You Worth?
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 3/8/2015
Based on Luke
7:36-50
This
morning I would like us to think about our “worth.” Have you ever thought about what “elements” make
up the human body? The body is made up
of 13 basic elements and then traces of other elements like aluminum, copper,
zinc and even some silicon. The major
make-up of our bodies is: 65% oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10%Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen,
1.5% Calcium, 1% phosphorous, and then smaller % amounts of Potassium, Sulfur,
Sodium, Chlorine, Magnesium, Iron and Iodine. If I were to ask you what dollar value could
you get from the “elements” of your body, what would you estimate? The answer is about $1.00. If you were to tan your skin and sell it, you
might get $3.50. So if you are lucky,
you could sell your body for about $4.50.
Now you could make a lot more by selling your organs individually on the
open market, but that is illegal and actually when you think about how much
money you could get for yourself, it comes only if you are dead and you
wouldn’t really get to enjoy the profits.
If we are worth $4.50 dead, what would you estimate what you are worth
alive, which is a much more pleasant prospect.
So as we think
about our worth, maybe the question is better asked as to how we base our worth. Do we approach our worth by what we are able
to produce or contribute? Much of
society judges who we are by what we are able to produce. If you were to go on line and research the
Median lifetime earnings by College Major’s, you can gain some sense of what
your earning power could be over your lifetime.
A high school/GED graduate can expect to earn about $600,000 over the
course of their working years. With some
college you can boost that up toward $750,000.
With degrees in elementary Education/social work/religion, the median is
about $800,000. In the field of
Psychology you can expect around $900,000, in the health and medical
administrative degrees you will receive $1,100,000 and with a chemical
engineering degree which is the top of the degrees chart you will earn a cool
$2,250,000 over your working years.
That would be the
worth that society has assigned if you fall in one of those categories, but is
that really how we look at ourselves in light of asking, “What am I
worth?” Earlier this week I was watching
the movie, “The Joy Luck Club” based on the book of the same title by Amy
Tan. The story focuses on four Chinese
women who migrate to San Francisco and their relationships with each of their
daughters. I have been haunted this week
by one of the values that this story presents.
It is the idea of what a person is worth.
This value was
shared by the mother An-Mei, as she relates to her daughter June, the lesson
that she had learned as a little girl while still living in China. The mother as a little girl eventually went
to live with her mother who had been kicked out of the parent’s house for
violating the rules of being a young widow.
She had become the fourth wife of a wealthy man. She became this man’s wife because he had
raped her and she was pregnant with a little boy. Her parents would not believe that their
daughter had been raped and kicked her out of their home because of the
pregnancy which was dishonoring the family.
The young An-Mei
soon realized that the station in the household of the wealthy man was nothing
better than that of a servant. Her
mother then instills in An-Mei the understanding that, An-Mei was not a child
of a fourth wife, but rather a child of a first wife, which gave great status
in any household. Moving forward to
modern day, An-Mei, now mother to a grown daughter, June, ho was going through
a divorce asks the question of June, with respect to the division of property,
“What are you worth?” An-Mei was afraid that her daughter had not
fully realized her worth, just like An-Mei’s mother in China, who discovered
too late in her life the true value of herself.
The grandmother finally committed suicide in order to give all that
worth to her daughter An-Mei, who found her voice through her mother’s
sacrifice and now was wanting her own daughter to find her voice, her “worth”
through the tragedy of a failed marriage.
In the scripture
story we heard this morning we see where Jesus is enjoying the company of a
wealthy man at a dinner party. Then the
enjoyment of the evening is broken when a woman, labeled only as a “sinner”
crashes the party and begins to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and uses her
hair to dry them, and then anoints his feet with a very expensive bottle of
oil. The woman saw herself as not being
any better than a servant in her actions.
We are not told what Jesus had done prior to this dinner for this woman,
but it was something so powerful as to risk ridicule of the community and do
this act of love as a “thank you” to Jesus.
What was her worth?
According to the story, those at the dinner party were offended by her
presence and by her actions. Simon, the
host, assumes that Jesus doesn’t recognize this woman as a sinner and tries to
diffuse the situation by letting Jesus know what she was. Jesus however saw this woman
differently. He asks Simon this
question, “Do you see this woman?”
Jesus wasn’t asking if they physically saw her, of course they saw her,
that’s why they were offended, that she a sinner should come in and interrupt
their fine evening. What Jesus was
asking Simon was, “do you not see what is
in her heart?” “Simon do you not see in her actions her repentant posture, how could
she be a sinner in the act of care and concern that she is showing me?” Jesus
said, “I came into your house. You did
not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped
them with her hair. You did not give me
a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my
feet. You did not put oil on my head,
but she has poured perfume on my feet.
Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved
much.”
In his book “Jesus is the Question, The 307 questions
Jesus asked and the 3 He Answered”, Rev Martin Copenhaver see’s the story
this way: “Do you see this woman?” In
this setting and this company, it is a probing and challenging question. The woman may be right in front of them, but
that does not mean they all see her.
Sometimes people choose not to see.
There is, after all, a cost to seeing.
If you see this woman, actually see this woman, you might need to move
beyond the stereotypes and preconceptions.
You might have to stop simply labeling her a sinner and then leaving it
at that. You might have to relate to her
as a person, as one soul to another soul.
You might have to respond to her with compassion. Simon
only sees what sort of woman she is.
Jesus does not see a “sort of woman”; He sees this woman. The question Jesus asks – “Do you see this
woman?”– challenges those around him to see her as well.
How does your
family see you? How are you seen as a
friend? Or by the larger community? What is the “worth” that is seen in you? These are deeply probing questions, but there
are two questions that probe even more deeply.
“How do you see yourself?” And “How
does God see you?” The truth is, it
doesn’t matter what others see as your worth, as much as it matters what you
see as your worth. Eleanor Roosevelt
once said, “People can only have power over you when you let them.” This was said by a woman who by many others
standards had little beauty or worth as she was growing up. Yet she has been one of Americans most
shining stars through her wisdom and her work toward improving life for the
working class.
As we enter into
this third week of Lent, I would encourage you to think about your worth, in
light of how God sees you. Jesus was God
present in human form, and he saw such great worth in you that he walked to the
cross so that we might know how much God loves us. “What are you Worth?” You are worth the cross! Amen
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