23rd Sunday after Pentecost Mark 12:38-44 8 November, 2009
I read a story recently written by a man who was reflecting on his childhood and trip to the circus. He writes: "Once, when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus. Finally, there was only one family between the ticket counter and us. There were eight children, all probably under the age of 12. You could tell they didn't have a lot of money. Their clothes were not expensive, but they were clean. The children were well behaved, all of them standing in line. They were excitedly jabbering about the clowns, elephants, and other acts they would see that night. One could sense they had never been to the circus before. It promised to be a highlight of their young lives.
The ticket lady asked the father how many tickets he wanted. He proudly responded, "Eight children's tickets and two adult tickets please.” The ticket lady quoted the price. The father leaned a little closer and asked, "How much did you say?" The ticket lady again quoted the price. The man didn't have enough money.
Seeing what was going on, my dad put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and dropped it on the ground. (We were not wealthy in any sense of the word!) My father reached down, picked up the bill, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket.” The man knew what was going on. He wasn't begging for a handout but certainly appreciated the help in a desperate, heart-breaking, embarrassing situation. He looked straight into my dad's eyes, took my dad's hand in both of his, and squeezed tightly, "Thank you, thank you, sir. This really means a lot to me and my family."
My father and I went back to our car and drove home. We didn't go to the circus that night, but we didn't go without."
Every now and then you hear of extra ordinary feats of generosity. For no obvious reason people are big-hearted and give liberally to help others out who are facing difficult times.
Today we hear of two women, both widows, who demonstrate true generosity. Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. He is on his way to the cross. And on his way to the cross he visits the temple and observes the rich people dropping their large amounts of money into the offering boxes. In a time when there was no paper money or credit cards, you can imagine the clatter as those rich people emptied their bags of coins into the containers for the temple offering. In amongst all of this, there is an insignificant woman, a widow. She no longer had a husband to look after her. She was the poorest of the poor. There was no one who was more hard up than a widow.
It would have been easy to overlook her in amongst that crowd of prominent people who were giving so much and making quite a show of it. But Jesus doesn't. He sees this widow throw into the offering box the two smallest copper coins in circulation at the time. Her offering was hardly worth a cent. A cent! A pitiful amount compared to what others around her were giving. The gospel writer highlights the fact that the widow gave two coins. She could have given just one of the coins and kept the other for herself. It would have been quite easy for her to argue, "Surely God wouldn’t expect me to give everything," and felt quite justified in giving only one coin. Widows had to beg on the streets for everything they needed. A coin no matter how small the value was hard to come by. Every coin was worth a fortune. And it’s not that the widow had other money stashed away somewhere.
Jesus makes the point that she, poor as she is, put in all she had – she gave all she had to live on (Mark 12:44). You might say that she is quite reckless, even extravagant, in her giving. She has thrown logic and reason out the window and gave all she had.
Apparently at some time in the temple’s history, it was the custom for the priest in charge of the offering to announce loudly the amount that each person gave as they put their offering in the offering box. As the rich people filed passed the offering box the priest would call out, "$100, $200, $500". As the widow went by he called out, "One cent". Those watching would have shaken their heads in disbelief that anyone could give so little.
But Jesus sees things differently. He praises her generosity. He points out that she has given away everything. He implies that she has more understanding of what true giving is all about than all the religious leaders combined. When she files passed the offering box, she slips in everything she has, every penny of it. Her love of God is excessive, extravagant, lavish, and generous. And let me add it was not love of the temple that prompted this giving it was love of God.
In like manner the gifts we give ought to nothing to do with our feelings toward this congregation or the ELCA, but rather, our love of God, and that alone motivates our giving. At least that’s what Jesus says when he suggests that her small coins represents more love and more understanding of God than all of the thousands given by the rich. He sees what is the underlying motive behind her action. He sees what makes this somewhat insignificant person, someone far more important than all the others who were giving bags of money. Jesus says: "I tell you that this poor widow put more in the offering box than all the others."
We heard the story in 1st Kings of another widow this morning, one who lived along time before the widow Jesus observed in the temple. A terrible drought had fallen on the whole country and a widow and her son were about to bake their last loaf of bread from the little bit of flour they had left. After they had eaten that, they faced starvation. A stranger arrives - Elijah – who is also very hungry. He makes some weird promise about the flour bowl always having flour in it and the olive oil jar never running out.
Like the widow in the Gospel story, she could have easily kept everything for herself and her son. But instead she trusted God and generously, sacrificially, and unselfishly fed the stranger.
The only way we can make any sense of the actions of these two women is to note the sacrifice, the risk, "the leap of faith" as some have called it, their complete surrender to doing what is the will of God, in spite of the fact that many would have called them irresponsible and foolish. The selfless and generous giving of the widow in the temple is a prelude to the self-giving of Jesus. Remember, Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, on the way to the cross. In just a couple of chapters Jesus will be arrested, put on trial, beaten. He will lay down his life, extravagantly, sacrificially, and generously. Jesus is on his way to lay down every cent he has for us on the cross. Just as the widow took the risk and gave everything to God in the temple, so also Jesus must take the risk and sacrificially give himself as a ransom for all people.
The story of the insignificant widow offering so much is part of Mark’s explanation of who Jesus is. He is telling us that the insignificant criminal on the cross has given everything he owns. The widow gave so extravagantly because of her love for God. Jesus gave his life so generously because of his love for us.This incident in the temple also gives us a hint at what kind of lives we should have.
Firstly, it is a call to absolute surrender and trust in God. Just as both the widow in the temple and the widow who fed Elijah her last morsel of food, we are called to trust. It made no logical sense to these women to give everything so generously, but they did it because of their love for God.
Secondly, the story of the widow in the temple is a call to complete dedication and commitment to God. They were prepared to sacrifice everything because of their dedication. They were prepared to demonstrate their love in an extravagant and selfless manner.
A mother wanted to teach her daughter about giving. She gave the little girl a quarter and a dollar bill for church. "Put whichever one you want on the offering plate and keep the other for yourself," she told the girl. When they were coming out of church, the mother asked her daughter which amount she had given. "Well," said the little girl, "I was going to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man in the pulpit said that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I'd be a lot more cheerful if I gave the quarter, so I did."
You might say that about every aspect of dedication to God and sacrifice for others. It’s a lot simpler to take the easy way out. It requires a lot less effort to give a minimum effort than to be generous and sacrificial. There is a lot less pain involved in giving less of our time and money than to go out of our way to be liberal and extravagant.
You see it’s not that the widow only gave 2 small coins but that she gave all that she had to live on. That’s where the challenge is for us - to be extravagant with our love, to be excessive in our kindness, to be extreme in our trust, to be generous in offering to God of our time and money. Not for one minute will I pretend that this kind of sacrifice is an easy thing. Too often our giving to the Lord is very much a token thing. We don't have the faith or the love to take the risk, to take God at his Word, to trust his promises, to give ourselves totally to Christ and the Christian life.
If you struggle with this whole idea of becoming like the widow in our text, you are not alone. Our sin wants us to be selfish, self-centered, and to look out only for ourselves. And for this Christ died. He hung on the cross to free us from the guilt of our sin and to make us clean and to give us a fresh start.
The person remembered in the gospels as a person of great generosity, a person who was a model for the disciples, was a person who actually gave very little as far as the world judges. We may feel that we haven't much in the way of material things, or personal gifts to give to Christ.
But, I can assure you-- if we were put what we do have, and what we are, at Christ’s disposal, if we were able to take the risk and give of ourselves sacrificially and recklessly, then you will be surprised what great things God can do through us and for us on behalf of both our neighbor in need and to the glory of God. Amen
Pastor Stephen Blenkush
Zion Lutheran
Milaca, MN
www.ZionMilaca.org(Sermon Archive)
