When our son Ben was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up he said three things:
He wanted to leave home
He wanted to live with his friends
And he wanted to be useful.
For a young man with Ben’s limitations, I was deeply moved by this urge within him – this quiet, determined desire to be someone who contributes, who offers, and who matters. He wasn’t dreaming of being impressive. He was dreaming of being helpful. And that longing, I think, touches something very deep in all of us.
But what does it mean to be useful?
Does it mean an endless round of doing, producing, fixing, and being busy? Or does it mean something deeper?
To explore that question, we turn to one of the most tender scenes in the Gospels.
Just before Jesus’ death, Mary and Martha host a dinner for him – perhaps to celebrate Lazarus’ return to life. During the meal, Mary takes a jar of perfume, worth a year’s wages, and pours it over Jesus’ feet. She wipes them with her hair. The fragrance fills the whole house.
Judas immediately criticises her.
He calls it wasteful.
He calls it impractical.
He calls it useless.
And in a sense, he’s right.
Did pouring the equivalent of 1.5 gallons of Chanel No. 5 over Jesus’ feet help his cause? Did it protect him from the suffering that was coming?
By any measurable standard, Mary’s action was not “useful”.
But Jesus sees something Judas cannot. Mary has understood him. She has listened. She has accepted the hard truth that Jesus must die. And in her act of extravagant love, she prepares his body for burial. She offers beauty in a moment overshadowed by violence and betrayal.
Is being useful less about productivity and efficiency and more about love and presence? Is being useful less about doing more, but about offering what is ours to give?
Ben’s desire to be useful wasn’t about achievement. It was about connection. It was about being part of the web of giving and receiving that makes us human.
Mary’s act reminds us that usefulness, in the Kingdom of God, looks very different from usefulness in the marketplace. Perhaps being useful is simply this: to give what is ours to give, in the way only we can give it.