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Somebody has told you that you’re too much. Maybe not in those exact words. Maybe it was a sigh, a raised eyebrow, a “you don’t have to make it such a big deal.” Maybe you cried too easily, prayed too openly, loved too hard, gave too generously, or got too into your faith for the room you were standing in.
You made it smaller after that. Most people do. You learned to love God and love people at a volume other people could tolerate.
There’s a woman in the Gospel of Mark who never got the memo to shrink. And when the room told her she’d gone too far, Jesus didn’t ask her to apologize. He did the opposite. He made sure the whole world would remember what she did — on purpose, forever.
The Dinner Party at Bethany
Mark 14 opens on a dinner in the small town of Bethany, just outside Jerusalem, at the house of a man named Simon the leper. Jesus and His disciples were reclining at the table, the way people ate in that culture — low to the ground, unhurried, elbow to elbow.
A woman walked in carrying an alabaster jar. Alabaster was a soft, pale stone carved into small sealed flasks, and this one held spikenard — a rare perfumed oil imported from the mountains of India. It wasn’t the kind of thing an ordinary household kept on a shelf. Scholars estimate its value at around three hundred denarii, roughly a full year’s wages for a laborer. She had likely been saving it, maybe her whole life, maybe as a kind of inheritance or security.
She broke the seal on the jar — an irreversible act, there was no putting the lid back on — and poured the entire thing over Jesus’s head.
The room went still. Then it didn’t stay still for long.
Why Would Anyone Call That a Waste?
“There were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?” (Mark 14:4). Someone did the math out loud: that jar could have been sold and the money given to the poor. On paper, that’s not a crazy objection. It even sounds noble. And “they murmured against her” (Mark 14:5) — not a private thought, a public complaint, in front of everyone, aimed at her.
That’s the part worth sitting with. Nobody accused her of doing something evil. They accused her of doing something extravagant. Of loving in a way that didn’t make practical sense. Of giving more than the moment, by their math, required.
If you’ve ever been told you’re “too intense” about your faith, too generous with your time, too emotional in how you love people — that’s the same accusation, just with a different currency. The world has a budget for how much devotion is reasonable, and it will tell you when you’ve gone over it.
Jesus’s Answer
Jesus didn’t ask her to explain herself. He stopped the room and defended her, by name, in front of the very people criticizing her:
“And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could” (Mark 14:6-8).
Then He said something even bigger. Not just “leave her alone.” Not just “she meant well.” He said this act would outlast all of them: “Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her” (Mark 14:9).
Think about what that means. Jesus didn’t just tolerate her extravagance. He permanently attached her story to His own — so that every time the gospel is told, for the rest of history, her act of “too much” love gets told with it.
That’s not a footnote. That’s a verdict. The thing the room called wasteful, Jesus called worth remembering forever.
What This Means for You
You are not the only person in scripture who got criticized for loving God out loud. It happens more than once, in more than one gospel — a different woman entirely is the one who weeps at Jesus’s feet in Luke 7, a separate story with its own accusation and its own defense. The pattern repeats because the criticism is common. So is the answer.
Here’s the Turn: the “waste” they were measuring was never really about the perfume. It was about how much of herself she was willing to hand over, unhidden, in front of people who might judge her for it. That’s the same fear behind most of our own hesitation — not “will this be practical,” but “will this be too much for the people watching.”
God isn’t watching for the version of you that’s been trimmed down to a comfortable size. Like the woman who reached for Jesus’s robe hoping not to be noticed, you might expect to go unseen or get scolded for stepping out of line. Instead, the pattern in these stories is always the same: Jesus stops, sees the whole thing, and calls it good.
3 Things You Can Do Today
- Send the message you’ve been editing down. Text or call someone right now and say the honest, full version of what you feel about them — not the shortened version you thought was safer.
- Do the “too much” thing you’ve been holding back. Write the letter, give the gift, say the prayer out loud, sign up for the thing — and don’t soften it with an apology afterward.
- Write down one time you were criticized for caring too much. Underneath it, write out Mark 14:6 in your own words, as if Jesus were saying it about you.
Questions to Sit With
- When was the last time you shrunk your love — for God, or for a person — because you were afraid someone would call it too much?
- If Jesus stood up for you the way He stood up for her, in front of the exact people who criticized you, what would that actually feel like?
- What’s one way you’ve held back from loving God “all the way” because it seemed impractical or excessive to somebody else?
If that inner voice that talks you out of “too much” sounds a lot like the voice that tells you you’re never enough in other ways too, it’s worth asking why you’re so hard on yourself in the first place.
They called it waste. Jesus called it a memorial forever.
A Prayer for When You Feel Like Too Much
God, I don’t always know if what I feel for You is too much or not enough. I’ve held back before because I was afraid of the room, afraid of being the person who cared more than everyone thought was reasonable. Help me stop measuring my love against what other people can tolerate. Let me pour it out the way she did — unafraid, unhidden — and trust You to call it good. Amen.
Tell Us What You Think
Do you think most people hold back their love for God more, or their love for other people more? Tell us in the comments below.
Share This
- “They called her wasteful for pouring out everything she had on Jesus. He called it a memorial that would be told for the rest of history. I needed that today.”
- “If you’ve ever been told you love too hard, feel too much, or care too deeply about your faith — read what Jesus said about the woman with the alabaster jar. It changed how I see my own ‘too much.'”
- “Not too much. Never too much. Not for God.”
Questions People Ask About This Story
Who was the woman with the alabaster jar in the Bible?
She’s an unnamed woman in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 who anointed Jesus’s head with expensive perfume at a dinner in Bethany, just before His crucifixion. A related but separate account in John 12 names her as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointing Jesus’s feet instead of His head.
Why did the disciples say the perfume was wasted?
The perfume, spikenard, was worth roughly three hundred denarii — about a year’s wages. Some at the table argued it could have been sold and the money given to the poor, and openly criticized her for pouring it out instead.
What did Jesus say in response?
Jesus told them to leave her alone, said she had “wrought a good work” on Him, and declared that her act would be remembered “wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world” (Mark 14:6-9).
Is this the same woman as the “sinful woman” in Luke 7?
No. Luke 7 tells a separate story — a different woman, at a different house, weeping and wiping Jesus’s feet with her hair, and the criticism there is about her past, not about waste. They’re often confused because both involve anointing Jesus and both involve public criticism, but the gospel writers record them as distinct events.
What does this story teach about feeling like “too much”?
That the love and devotion the world calls excessive is often exactly what Jesus calls good. Her extravagance wasn’t corrected — it was permanently honored. The story suggests the same is true for anyone today who has been made to feel their faith, love, or devotion is more than is reasonable.
