While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.” Mark 14:3-6

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a complete stranger to stop us and share an unsolicited opinion with us. Most of the time, it is preceded with the phrase, “You are wasting your time, not to mention money! Our hard earned-money!” They always assume that their tax money is paying us to be with the children. To make matters worse, it doesn’t end there. It is followed by a long and tedious diatribe on how to solve the problem of homelessness. The best thing to do is ignore these people which is what we do most of the time. Besides, I am always at a loss on how to respond. A quick look around the place, you can see bars full of men in business suits drinking away with their eyes on a soccer game on a big screen TV. There are young men spending hours skate boarding even though it’s obvious that none of them will ever be professionals in this lifetime. There are people gathered around a street magician performing mediocre magic tricks. Not far from them, a bunch of taxi drivers sitting around doing absolutely nothing but at the same time complaining how society is made up of lazy people. One thing we have common is that all of us waste our time one or another. Somehow, it irked our random passerby that we were doing it with the homeless youth. Yet still, I don’t know how to respond because he is right. We do waste precious time with these youth.

We cannot honestly say that the things we do will eventually help our teens out of homelessness. We spend hours talking about movies with Bruno. He might gain knowledge about all the great movie classics but it is not going to guarantee him a shelter nor a job in the future. Felipe talks about the planets and the distant stars that he discovering through his personal research. Despite his growing knowledge of astronomy, he still is a squatter in an abandoned storage space with his family of five. His growing knowledge is not going to change this. We play games with Daniel and Guilherme who have few interests. They have never been to school for more than a year in their lives.

On another occasion, a nicer and kinder person asked me why I don’t do anything concrete like open a shelter or set up a feeding program. It sounded reasonable. It made me feel a little embarrassed to say that we don’t do these things. On the hand, we rather like doing what we do. We find it to be very productive, much more than if we were to ran shelter or set up a soup kitchen. Perhaps a pragmatic person will fail to understand. They might stand with the disciples and say we are wasting precious resources that could be used to help others in need. Thankfully, Jesus seemed to understand. He defended another wasteful person. He even said that she was doing something beautiful.

Many would have seen the whole triumphant entrance into Jerusalem as a complete waste of time. Apparently, the religious authorities of His time were of this opinion. All the ruckus was for nothing. Jesus did not overthrow the oppressing rulers. He did not change the corrupt religious system in place. Even the same people who cheered Jesus on would later betray Him. It would seem like a wasted event for the people and leaders of Jesus’ time. However, its significance still remains alive till today in hearts and minds of millions through the liturgy. This seemingly meaningless event opened up a door for us to participate in welcoming the humble King who enters our hearts and soul triumphantly. Its significance has transcended time and space.

Palm Sunday leads us to the Passion. Another example where the life of God incarnate is wasted on the Cross. He could have changed the whole scenario if He wanted. There were people ready to do battle for Him. He just had to say the word. Instead He wasted all these opportunities by being silent. Instead, He wasted Himself on the Cross. This does seem like foolishness if we were solely pragmatic in our spirituality. Perhaps, these people may have a hard time with the way God does things in this world. They want a God who is useful to them. However, Jesus revealed a different God to them. As John puts it plainly, Jesus showed us that God is Love. Love is wasteful. It is extravagant. We cannot love if we are not willing to waste our time and energy, no matter how precious they appear to us.

Not all wasteful actions are founded on love. Not all have the same weight. One thing is for sure we are constantly wasting things, time and energy. The woman could have used the perfume for herself and no one would have accused her of wasting anything. They would say that it is her money and she has the right do it. However, her love prompted her to anoint Jesus’ head with it. It is strange that the disciples never criticized her for her actions. It appears to be an extremely sensual act. They were not bothered by it. They were more bothered about the loss of money. Just like the random passerby who complained that we were wasting our time. He thought that the tax payers money was being wasted on useless activities with these homeless children. He was consumed by his pragmatic convictions and he failed to enquire who we were nor the names of the children. There was an absence of love in his concern. It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t genuine. The disciples were disturbed by the waste of money but they failed to sense the anxiety in their master. Incidentally, He reminded them countless times that He was going to die a horrible death. The woman felt the urge to defend her actions. She was almost oblivious to the negative opinions generating around her. Love does this. Perhaps, most of us don’t realize how much time and energy we waste with the ones we love because our hearts are consumed with Love. We cannot love without wasting. We don’t even consider it waste anymore because it expresses how important our Beloved is to us.

During this Pandemic, one of the things we greatly miss is wasting time with our children and teens. Even when I met Daniel recently, he told me that he wants things to go back to when we could all be sitting together and play a game of Uno. I could give them a pack of Uno game easily. However, this wasn’t what he was saying. I did give a game before. They never played it. He wants us to be with him. He understands that the time we spend with him, perhaps doing the most useless thing, is our way of saying that he is important and special to us. He missed that and we missed it. However, we are still given the chance to waste despite these strange times. We want to make sure that we do it without restraint. We want to be as wasteful as we want to be with our youth because we just don’t know what the future holds for us. Perhaps it might be our last chance to be wasteful with them.