This story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet is absolutely compelling as we think about our gifts to God. There are times when a gift transcends the pragmatism of need and becomes our gift to God as a sign of our awareness that God has given extravagantly and we feel a need to offer something extravagant because we realize small gifts aren’t enough. “Give until it feels good,” we say to one another. So Mary poured out her whole bottle of expensive perfume without regret because she knew it was only a trifle compared to the magnitude of God’s love she had found in her friend Jesus.
