This perfume could have been sold for more than a year’s wages, and the money given to the poor.”
so eager to defend
what needs no defense
we immediately attack
what is laudableour power of exaggeration
springs to action
not used to thinking of the poor
we drag them in to sooth our discomfortwhat we would do
with the money poured out
is obviously help the poor
not using our money but their’sno surprise at being in a leper’s house
no surprise at a woman anointing a man
only surprise at our utilitarianism
measuring life economically
There is sufficient inequality of income in the United States of America to make receiving an annual basic income a political possibility. Experiments with basic income in Finland, Canada, and Alaska have shown is that a basic income alleviates the stress of insecurity and actually increases people’s work, not decrease it.
The reasons poll numbers indicating 52% of American are still against a basic income revolve around an idea that charitable giving to the poor comes out of an excess of resources (a year’s wage stored in a small flask would be one example of such an excess) and linking poverty to moral failings rather than economic conditions and other issues beyond one’s control. It should be noted that just 10 years earlier, 88% were against basic income.
Sabin1178, comments on Mark’s telling his story:
Mark creates several ironies here: those who could not imagine selling their own possessions to give money to the poor (ch. 10) are quick to give away the possessions of others; those who have called Jesus “the messiah” or “the anointed one” (i.e., christos) are slow to see the point of actually anointing him.
We see the same ironies in the hyper-capitalist economy of the United States where people are slow to acknowledge the privileges that have allowed their “getting ahead” and use the “poor” as a foil to play against and blame them for their own condition. By any measure, grace does not quantify and simply does what is graceful.