To What Purpose is This Waste?

Sister Sharon Eubank, the director of Latter-day Saint Charities, recently said this at a devotional at BYU-Idaho: “I am occasionally asked, ‘Why doesn't the Church spend more money on humanitarian work? Why doesn't it stop building expensive temples and focus its resources on relieving the poor?’ This is a legitimate question for the Church of Jesus Christ. But is it money that solves society's ills? The world has poured two trillion dollars into addressing chronic issues in Africa. Why isn’t the situation better? Because money isn't really the issue. Lasting progress comes through trusted relationships, infrastructure, reducing corruption, and the ability of people to work together. Money doesn’t necessarily create those things. They must be developed alongside the resources and, frankly, it is much harder work.” The Church, of course, gives an enormous amount of money to help those suffering—in 2024 it spent 1.45 billion dollars to help those in need, both to members and people generally. This included aid to 192 countries in 3836 different humanitarian projects. And yet, because the Church has more money than that and uses money to do other things as well, people will criticize it because it does not do more.

Sister Eubank continued in response to this criticism: “I will never discount the one thing this Church does that lifts entire communities in rapid development. It invites men and women of all social classes and backgrounds to enter sacred buildings and make the most binding and important promises of their mortal lives. In those buildings, they promise not to steal or lie, they promise to be faithful to their spouse and children. They vow they will seek the interest of their neighbors and be peacemakers and become devoted to the idea that we are all one family—all valued and alike unto God. If those promises made in holy temples are kept, it transforms society faster than any aid or development project ever could. The greatest charitable development on the planet is for people to bind themselves to their God and mean it. So, thank goodness the Church builds 335 temples and counting. It is the greatest poverty alleviation system in the world.” So, while the world would tell us, build less temples and give more to address poverty, we respond: we’ll build more temples and through its blessings more people will get themselves out of poverty. President Benson famously put it this way: “The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.” And there is no place that Christ changes human nature more powerfully and permanently than in His house where God’s children make sacred covenants with Him.

               Shortly before the Savior’s death, a woman came to Him “having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.” She gave her very best to serve Him, and apparently that ointment cost a lot of money. Matthew’s account continues, “But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her” (Matthew 26:7-13). That is perhaps how some feel towards us as we spend money on temples that could have been instead given to the poor: they say, “To what purpose is this waste?” And we respond that we have sought to do a good work on Him and that the temple is His house where He can bless the poor through His covenants far more than we can by giving them money.

            Interestingly, right after telling this story of the woman with the alabaster box, Matthew told another story about money: “Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him” (Matthew 26:14-16). I have to think that one of those disciples who criticized this woman over money was indeed Judas who was led by money to commit an unthinkable betrayal. If so, that would have made Judas’s comment about the woman extremely hypocritical. Instead of obtaining money, she used her means to bless the Savior; Judas, on the other hand, obtained money by betraying Him. It was perhaps Matthew’s way of illustrating that money is not the answer to everything. Surely as a Church we will continue to make enormous efforts to give to and bless those in need across the world through our humanitarian efforts, but we will not stop also using our means to worship the Savior and bring His power through temples into the lives of more of God’s children everywhere.