Mark 12:38-44
As the text was being read I know the Stewardship
Committee was getting excited. It can
not be disputed this scripture has been used for many a stewardship
sermon. Considering this is stewardship
season, perhaps we could stand another sermon on the topic…….. perhaps
not. One of the marvelous attributes of
the Bible is that each story carries more than one revelation. If we could accept, this our lives would be
more enlightened and there might be less conflict with folks who insist on a
singular reading of the text.
This morning’s scripture presents a remarkable example of this. Jesus
seems to always be making comparisons between the folks that have and the folks
that do not. Jesus is always lifting up
the downtrodden, the marginalized, the poor as the ones who best understand the
kingdom of God.
In this case we have a woman, a poor widow, who contributes two worthless
copper coins to the ministry of the church.
In contrast, the rich Pharisees put in large sums of cash. Jesus suspects both the sincerity and
sacrifice of the big givers. He makes a radical
assertion suggesting the amount given by the widow is crippling to her while
the amount given by the rich was a mere token.
I can celebrate his point. But on
the other hand no church budget can sustain a steady diet of pennies. Any treasurer will tell you churches need more
than cheerful penny givers. Too often budgets
are maintained by the 10 percent that carry the 90 percent. So as romantic a tale as this might be, it
might not be the message the Stewardship Committee desires me to send.
Anyway, I think most of us have had our
fill of economic parables over the last three months. As much as I enjoyed my weekly chats with Pat
Boone, Clint Eastwood and Susan Sarandon, it was nice to suddenly have my home void
of discussions concerning the rich, the 47% and the middle class. Keeping that in mind, I also suspect most of
you prefer I not rant endlessly with comparisons between this saintly character
and the members of her synagogue who were probably on the board of directors of
the Jerusalem
branch of Chase Manhattan.
So
just for giggles and probably much to the chagrin of some leading New Testament
Scholars, let’s move away from the Stewardship angle, let’s move away from
national politics and let’s see how this story of one woman’s faith might
become a much needed source of inspiration for each of us.
Last
week, during the first service, I stood behind the Communion Table and listened
to your joys and concerns. They were
overwhelming. We heard prayer requests
for a family of parents who had lost children in a car wreck. We heard prayer requests for folks who are
facing serious surgeries. I looked over
at Perry Hopkins and could see the worry on his face as his children consider
another trip to Pakistan. I saw the levels of concern you had for
friends who lived along the New
Jersey shore. My
heart grew heavier as each request was shared.
I took each of those stories home and I must admit the more I thought
about them the more helpless I felt.
Hoping to find an escape, I flipped on the TV to watch some football and
try to slip away from this weight that had penetrated my heart. It must have worked because I fell asleep and
didn’t wake up until around 4:00 as the first series of games were ending. I awoke to a victory celebration inside a locker
room. The guy speaking was Chuck Pagano,
the coach of Indianapolis Colts. You
may or may not know his story. At the
beginning of the season, the Colts were saddled with the dreaded prognosis of
having a rebuilding season. That is sports talk meaning everyone knew they were
going to be awful. But the Colts had a
new coach, a new number one draft pick at quarterback and hopes that they would
do better than the previous year. Then
disaster hit. Early in the preseason,
Coach Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia. He was forced step away from his
coaching duties and begin aggressive treatments against the disease. Last Sunday Pagano returned to the locker
room for his first visit since leaving the team. Holding the game ball high Pagano said,
“Men, we live in a world of circumstances.
Those circumstances can define the way you live each day of your
life. But we also live in a world of
vision. My circumstances are that I have
leukemia. My vision is that one day I
will dance at my daughters wedding and one day soon I will lead the
Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl.”
Then he looked at his players, and perhaps each of us, and said, “What is
it that controls your life, your circumstances or your vision? Circumstances
tell me I have a deadly disease. My vision celebrates that this illness has
already been beaten.”
What
if the story of the widow is not just about Stewardship, not just about
conflicting economic ideologies, but also about circumstances and vision? It is
easy for us to know the circumstances of the widow. Last week we talked about Naomi and Ruth and
the incredible hurdles they had to overcome each day to just survive. In the society in which Jesus lived there was
nothing romantic about being poor. All the
widow had to her name were two worthless coins.
Circumstance had beat her down.
And yet she had a vision. She placed her ultimate trust in God and how God
might provide in her future. Now some pundits
might say the widow might as well have placed her money on the lottery. Perhaps so, but when has the lottery ever
done anything more than crush hopes that have already been trampled.
Thanks
be to God stories of vision trumping circumstances happen in places far more
important than the locker room of a professional football team. We are hearing
stories of courage and vision that are coming out of New
York and New Jersey. Some of you tell me the folks who live on the
Jersey Shore are made out of really tough
stuff. That is a good thing because it has been a tough century for the folks who
live in that part of the country. I
remember spending a week-end in New
York a year after 9-11. What surprised me was the spirit of these
folks. I expected to find a bitter group of people. What I discovered was represented at a Jewish
Deli in Ft. Lee, New Jersey. It was owned by a guy from India, a woman from Mexico
was the waitress and a guy from Lebanon
was the cook. In the window, on a piece
cardboard, written in Hebrew, was the word Shalom. I pointed to the sign and asked the Mexican
women, “Which one of you speaks Hebrew?”
She laughed and said, “That’s not Hebrew, it’s New Yorkese. We put that sign in our window on the 12th
of September. It reminds us that every morning we wake up with the opportunity
to be a partner in God’s peace.”
The
widow that Jesus identified at the Synagogue certainly understood the meaning
of Shalom. Oh, some skeptics might
suggest she went to the synagogue, a broken woman, and prayed, “Lord, here are
my circumstances. I am putting my money
on you to change them.” Some pragmatist might
look at her as a fool who should have spent her money on one last piece of
bread. But Jesus saw this woman as a
person of faith and vision. Jesus saw this
woman as someone who was thinking, “Lord, I know you have a plan. I know you
have a vision. I even know that your revelation may not even include me, but I
want to contribute in the only way I can to your radical imagination.”
The
Psalmist wrote, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in
vain. Unless the Lord guards the city,
those who watch it watch in vain.” Those
are the words that inspired the widow. Unfortunately,
those words are difficult for many of us. We live in a culture that values
achievement, hard work and success. We
live in a culture where a person’s value is judged by his or her commitment to
the process and production of work. And
so did this widow. But she also believed
she was an instrument of God’s vision, a vision that started long before she
was born and a vision that would continue long after she was gone. She believed God was at work in her work
place, in her synagogue, in her community, even before she arrived. Her gift had nothing to do with her
circumstances and everything to do with a faith God’s vision.
Faith
is not easy. Faith is a courageous hope
that does not have all the answers.
Faith asks us to walk into the unknown.
Faith is not magic. Faith does
not rescue us from trouble. Hardest of
all, faith is not asking for what we want but rather asking to be changed in
ways we might never have imagined. By doing so faith gives us the courage to
endure what one must without losing our hearts and eventually losing our souls.
One
widow; one widow down to her last two coins; one widow whose name we don’t even
know. One woman who understood every
penny shared honors God, every penny shared expresses love to a neighbor, every
penny shared resists her being dehumanized, and every penny shared changes
circumstances into visions of grace and shalom.
This
is an amazing story, an amazing example of circumstances and vision. But most
importantly it is an amazing opportunity to reconsider your circumstances, no
matter what they are, in light of God’s vision.
To
God be the Glory. Amen
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