Homiletics Analysis: Matthew 26:6-13

Content & Intent

This Text — Content:

Matthew 26:6–13 is a compact, self-contained narrative set in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, positioned deliberately by Matthew between the conspiracy of the chief priests (26:1–5) and the betrayal agreement of Judas (26:14–16). A woman — unnamed in Matthew, identified as Mary in John 12 — approaches Jesus during a meal and pours an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment (myron polytimou) over His head. The disciples react with indignation, framing the act in economic terms: this could have been sold for much and given to the poor. Jesus intervenes sharply, defending the woman and rebuking the disciples. He reframes the act in three movements: (1) she has done a kalon ergon — a beautiful/noble work — toward Him; (2) the poor will always be present, but He will not; and (3) she has anointed His body eis to entaphiasai me — for burial. Jesus then issues one of His most striking benedictions: wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told as a memorial to her.

The narrative turns on a conflict of valuation. What the disciples read as waste, Jesus reads as prophetic worship. What they frame as misplaced priority, He frames as singular, unrepeatable devotion. The woman is not named in this account — the act itself becomes the identity. She understood, whether consciously or by Spirit-prompted instinct, that the moment was unique and would not come again.

This Text — Intent:

God’s intent through this passage is to confront the reader’s framework of value and call them to lavish, cost-bearing devotion to Christ — devotion that refuses to be governed by the calculations of efficiency, social expectation, or even conventional piety. The passage does not primarily teach about worship; it enacts a verdict on a worshiper and demands that the reader reckon with that verdict. The disciples represent every reader who has ever spiritualized a preference for withholding by dressing it as stewardship. The woman represents the worshiper who has grasped something about the person of Christ that makes calculation feel obscene. God is calling the reader, through this narrative, to examine which voice they recognize as their own — and to be moved toward hers.

Subject Sentence

Subject Sentence: A woman’s extravagant anointing of Jesus receives His permanent, gospel-wide benediction.

Primary Claim

Primary Claim: God is calling His people to a form of devotion to Christ that counts no cost too great — a devotion that grasps the unrepeatable weight of who Jesus is and what He is about to do, and that the world will one day recognize as the truest thing done in His presence.

Interpretive Evaluation

The nature of the woman’s act — prophetic or merely devotional?

The central interpretive question is whether the woman understood she was anointing Jesus for burial, or whether Jesus retrospectively invested her act with that meaning. Matthew’s account does not resolve this with certainty. John’s account names her as Mary and places the act before Palm Sunday (John 12:1–8), though Matthew’s placement is liturgical-theological rather than strictly chronological. Some interpreters (broadly Wesleyan and pietist traditions) prefer to emphasize the act as pure spontaneous devotion — an overflow of love without prophetic content — arguing that the burial interpretation is Jesus reading significance into what was a genuine but uncalculated gift. This reading has pastoral warmth: it says that Spirit-moved generosity is honored even when its full theological freight is unknown to the giver.

The Reformed reading goes further and better accounts for the text: Jesus’ statement (eis to entaphiasai me, “for my burial”) is not retrospective gloss but genuine recognition that this woman, whatever her conscious intention, has been drawn by the Spirit into an act that is precisely timed, precisely placed, and precisely suited to the moment. The parallel with anointing as a royal and priestly act (heads anointed in OT for consecration) and its convergence with Jesus’ own announcement of His coming death (26:1–2) — just six verses earlier — makes prophetic freight load-bearing, not merely decorative. The Reformed instinct is to credit the Spirit’s sovereign orchestration of the act without requiring that the woman have articulated a theology of atonement. She worshiped truly; God directed prophetically.

The disciples’ rebuke — is it simply wrong?

Some interpreters (particularly in social-justice oriented readings and certain liberation theology frameworks) press back against an easy dismissal of the disciples’ concern for the poor. They argue that Jesus’ statement “the poor you always have with you” (citing Deuteronomy 15:11) is not a general principle authorizing neglect of the poor in favor of worship expenditure, but a context-specific defense of an unrepeatable act in an unrepeatable moment. This is actually the correct reading — and it should be stated clearly in Reformed exposition. The disciples are not rebuked for valuing the poor; they are rebuked for using the poor as a pretext to evaluate and diminish an act of costly worship toward Christ. The principle “the poor you always have with you” does not underwrite indifference to the poor in any other context — it simply marks this moment as singular. A Reformed reading acknowledges this without embarrassment: the passage is not a general teaching on worship-versus-charity; it is a defense of one irreplaceable act in the presence of the incarnate Son of God in the week of His Passion.

The permanent memorial — scope and significance:

Some dispensational interpreters have parsed “wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world” as a prophetic indicator of global Gentile mission, reading the verse as a marker of the transition from Israel-focused to world-focused ministry. This is a category it can bear, but the more natural and primary reading (shared across Reformed, Lutheran, and Baptist traditions) is that Jesus is issuing a verdict on the act itself: its significance is not local or temporary but permanent and universal. The gospel’s proclamation and this woman’s act are bound together — not because her act is the gospel, but because it rightly orients the worshiper toward the One the gospel announces. Her act will be retold wherever Christ is preached, because she grasped something about Him that preaching itself seeks to convey.

Reformed verdict:

The text is a Passion-narrative defense of lavish, cost-bearing, Christocentric devotion against a spiritualized economy of calculation. The woman is commended not merely for generosity but for orientation — she gave everything to the right Person at the right moment. The disciples are not evil; they are miscalibrated. And the permanent memorial Jesus pronounces is itself a homiletical act: Jesus is telling the story before it can be told, guaranteeing that what looks like waste will be seen as the most enduring act in the room.

Key Canonical Support

Key Canonical Support:

• Psalm 45:7–8 — The Messianic king anointed with oil of gladness; the anointing of Jesus in Matthew 26 carries royal-consecration resonance, placing this woman’s act within the OT pattern of honoring the Lord’s anointed.

• Deuteronomy 15:11 — “The poor you will always have with you in the land” — the verse Jesus cites; contextually it calls Israel to generosity toward the poor, not away from it, which confirms that Jesus’ appeal to it here is strictly about the singularity of this moment, not a general principle against charity.

• Isaiah 53:9 — The Servant’s burial among the rich; the woman’s act of preparation for burial participates, unknowingly or not, in the prophetic pattern of the Suffering Servant’s death and burial being attended with honor, even as the religious establishment plots against Him.

• John 12:1–8 — The Johannine parallel identifies the woman as Mary and adds Judas’ specific complaint, sharpening the contrast: the one who will betray Christ for thirty pieces of silver is the one who objects to extravagant expenditure upon Him. Matthew omits this but lets the narrative placement (26:6–13 between the conspiracy and Judas’ agreement) make the same contrast structurally.

• Philippians 3:7–8 — Paul’s counting all things as loss for the sake of knowing Christ is the theological articulation of what the woman enacts narratively: no prior valuation survives contact with the surpassing worth of Christ.

Aim

Aim: To confront the reader’s habit of measuring devotion to Christ by the standard of efficiency and social utility, and to call them toward the kind of lavish, irreplaceable, cost-bearing worship that grasps the unrepeatable weight of who Jesus is.

Content Table

Divisions Table

Subject Sentence & Primary Claim (restated)

Subject Sentence: A woman’s extravagant anointing of Jesus receives His permanent, gospel-wide benediction.

Primary Claim: God is calling His people to a form of devotion to Christ that counts no cost too great — a devotion that grasps the unrepeatable weight of who Jesus is and what He is about to do, and that the world will one day recognize as the truest thing done in His presence.

Applications (Five)

1. (Mind/Belief) — Reframe what “waste” means in relation to Christ. The disciples’ error is not callousness — it is a miscalibrated framework of value. They are applying a sound economy (stewardship, care for the poor) to a moment that renders that economy temporarily inoperative. The reader must reckon with the possibility that their own framework for evaluating spiritual expenditure — time, money, energy, reputation given to Christ — has been quietly governed by the same calculus. What you have called “too much” may, in light of who Christ is, be precisely the right amount. Meditate on the fact that Jesus called this act kalon — beautiful, noble — and ask whether your devotion has ever been beautiful enough to require a defense.

2. (Mind/Belief) — Understand the singularity of the Passion moment and its claim on every generation. Jesus’ statement “you will not always have me” is not merely historical. It carries a present force: there are moments in the life of faith — encounters with Christ’s Word, invitations to costly obedience, seasons of unique gospel opportunity — that will not repeat. The woman did not delay. She did not calculate whether a lesser gift would suffice. She acted at the moment, with everything she had. The reader must learn to read their own moment with the same recognition: Christ is present, the moment is singular, and measured devotion may be the wrong category entirely.

3. (Affections/Worship) — Let the woman’s act expose what you actually love about Jesus. The disciples loved the poor — genuinely, it seems. But their love for the poor became, in this moment, a substitute for worship of the One who came to save the poor. The reader’s loves are not wrong; they may simply be wrongly ordered. The question the passage presses is not “do you love good things?” but “what has the weight of Christ’s person and work done to the ordering of your loves?” The woman’s act is a love act — extravagant, total, personal. It tells us she loved Jesus more than she loved what the ointment could buy. Ask honestly: when measured against your most costly devotion to Christ, what do your expenditures reveal about who you actually worship?

4. (Affections/Worship) — Receive the comfort that Christ sees, names, and memorializes acts of devotion the world calls excessive. This woman was rebuked in front of the disciples. She was publicly shamed for what she had given. Jesus’ response is not merely a defense — it is an elevation. He declares that her act will be proclaimed wherever His gospel goes, for as long as His gospel goes. The reader who has been mocked for giving too much to Christ, for taking faith too seriously, for refusing the economy of the world — this passage is written for you. Christ does not merely tolerate extravagant devotion; He permanently commemorates it. You are not foolish. You are known.

5. (Will/Behavior) — Identify one act of costly, specific devotion to Christ you have been delaying by calculation, and do it. The woman did not arrive with a plan — she arrived with an alabaster flask and broke it. The application is not to become impulsive but to recognize that there is likely one specific act of costly obedience, generosity, or devotion that you have been deferring because the calculation hasn’t cleared. The passage does not promise the calculation will clear. It promises that Christ will call it kalon — beautiful — when you bring it. Name the act. Remove the calculation. Bring what you have.

Theological Importance

Theological Importance: This passage teaches that Jesus Christ is the proper object of unconditional, cost-bearing devotion — not merely as a moral teacher to be respected or a Lord to be obeyed at reasonable cost, but as the one Person whose identity and redemptive mission make extravagance the only proportionate response. His acceptance of the anointing (in contrast to His consistent deflection of false honor elsewhere) reveals that He receives worship as God’s Son, and that this moment — the eve of the Passion — concentrates the full weight of His identity and work into a single unrepeatable encounter. The disciples’ miscalculation is theological before it is practical: they have not yet grasped what they are in the presence of.

Reformed Theological Significance

Reformed Theological Significance: This passage functions within Reformed theology as a vindication of Christocentric worship against every form of moralized religion that displaces devotion to Christ with devotion to the causes Christ cares about. The disciples are not sinners in the gross sense — they are sincere advocates for the poor. But Reformed theology insists that even the best human causes cannot substitute for the direct worship of Christ, and that any framework that makes devotion to Jesus feel like a misallocation has lost its center. The woman’s act also demonstrates what Reformed soteriology insists upon: the Spirit works in God’s people to orient them toward Christ in ways that exceed their own understanding, so that her act is simultaneously her free and total self-giving and God’s sovereign orchestration of a burial preparation. The permanent memorial Jesus pronounces is itself a Reformed homiletical point: the gospel and this act of worship are permanently bound together, because right worship of Christ and right proclamation of Christ belong to the same order of things.

Main Takeaway

Christ is not calling you to a managed devotion calibrated to what you can comfortably spare. He is calling you to the kind of lavish, irreversible, flask-breaking worship that recognizes who He is and what He has done — and finds that, in that recognition, no cost is too great. The disciples walked away from this scene correct about the poor and wrong about the moment. Don’t make the same trade.

Preaching/Teaching Pitfalls

Preaching/Teaching Pitfalls:

• Turning the passage into a general teaching on worship styles or generosity. This is a specific, unrepeatable Passion-narrative moment. It is not a general endorsement of expensive church aesthetics, lavish giving campaigns, or emotional worship experiences. The point is the object of devotion — Jesus, in the week of His death — not the style of devotion. Preaching that uses this text to defend high-budget church production or to shame “measured” givers has misread the text’s specificity.

• Dismissing the disciples too quickly or too harshly. The disciples’ concern for the poor is not hypocrisy (Matthew reserves that for Judas in John’s account). They are applying a genuinely biblical value (care for the poor, stewardship of resources) in a context where it cannot bear the weight they’re placing on it. Preaching that makes them villains misses the diagnostic point: the reader is more likely to be a disciple than a betrayer, and the passage speaks to sincere people whose valuation framework is simply not calibrated to the weight of this moment.

• Preaching “the poor you always have with you” as a general principle for deprioritizing social concern. This is a common and damaging misuse of v.11. Jesus is citing Deuteronomy 15:11 in a context where Deuteronomy 15 itself calls for active generosity to the poor. The point is the singularity of Jesus’ presence, not a theological license for indifference to the poor in any other context. To extract v.11 from its narrative setting and preach it as a general principle is to invert its force.

• Making the application primarily about the woman’s spontaneity or emotionalism. The passage does not commend impulsiveness — it commends right valuation of Christ expressed through costly action. Applications that romanticize “unplanned” or “emotional” worship as more authentic miss the theological content: it is what she grasped about Christ that made the act beautiful, not the manner in which she gave it.

• Failing to connect the Passion narrative frame. This passage is bracketed by the conspiracy (26:1–5) and Judas’ betrayal agreement (26:14–16). The contrast is not accidental: the religious leaders are calculating how to destroy Jesus; Judas is calculating what price to accept for Him; the woman is calculating nothing — she is simply pouring. Preaching that isolates 26:6–13 from its narrative frame loses the sharpest edge of the contrast and the deepest force of the commendation.

• Leaving the permanent memorial as a feel-good ending without pressing its claim. Jesus’ benediction in v.13 is not merely a compliment — it is a verdict that binds this act to the gospel for all time. Preaching that treats it as a warm conclusion (“and Jesus made sure we’d remember her — isn’t that lovely?”) misses the force: Jesus is declaring that right devotion to Him and right proclamation of Him belong permanently together. The memorial is a homiletical and theological act, not a consolation prize.