Season of Thanksgiving: The Gift of Giving
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 8, 2009 Stewardship Sunday
Mark 12: 38-44
Mary and John had been married for about 60 years. Almost every one of those 60 years they had gone to the State Fair. For a number of those years, at the fair, they saw the signs “Airplane rides for $10.00.” Every year John saw that and said, “Boy, I’d love to go on that airplane ride.” Mary, always shook her head and said, “John, $10.00 is $10.00.” And John never went. Finally, it was their 60th anniversary. He said, “Look, it’s our anniversary, we’ve come all this way and they’re still offering this plane ride for $10.00. I want to go, let me go.” “John, $10.00 is $10.00.” Well, the pilot overheard this conversation. So, he said, “I tell you what, it’s your anniversary. I’ll give you a deal, two for the price of one. You can both go up and ride for $10.00.” John said, “All right.” Mary said, “$10.00 is $10.00.” The pilot said, “All right, I tell you what I’m going to do. Since it is your anniversary, if the two of you can go up and not say a word during the entire flight, it’s on me. The flight’s for free.” John looked at Mary and Mary looked at him, “Why not, we can do that.” They’re in the plane and off they go. The pilot flies loops, barrel rolls, up and down and not a word from the back. Tries it again, goes all over the sky. Not a word. Finally he lands the plane, turns back to John and says, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the two of you were able to go through that whole flight and not utter a word.” John says, “Well, you know, I almost said something when Mary fell out, but $10.00 is $10.00.” I don’t know if that’s a stewardship story, but it sure reminds us that our use of money is a powerful a statement about our priorities.
A second stewardship story, this one told by a minister: “When I was a young pastor, we had an emergency appeal for funds to shore up our defunct heating system at the church. We had to raise $10,000 in the dead of winter or close the church until spring. Joel, our stewardship chairperson, stood up on a Sunday morning and appealed to the church membership, saying, ‘The way I figure it, if every family gives just $100 more this year we can make our goal.’”
Says the pastor, “My heart sank as I listened to him, for I knew that just over half of our families actually contributed to the church. And so, if each family gave just $100, we would never get our new heating system.
“That afternoon, I was visiting some of our elderly members. At the home of a retired schoolteacher, the appeal for funds was mentioned. ‘Did you hear Joel ask us all to give an extra one hundred dollars this year?’ she asked. I stated yes, I had heard him, recalling my disappointment that he had put the matter the way he did. ‘Well, one hundred dollars is a lot of money,’ she said, ‘but I have been praying about it and God has shown me a way. I subscribe to the newspaper for $40 a year. I also subscribe to National Geographic. ‘I’ve called a friend down the street who has consented to let me come down and borrow her newspaper and her Geographic after she has finished reading them. So now I’m able to give the money Joel asked for.’”
Says the minister, “Her words filled me with shame. Here I was, calculating, quibbling, bothered over what was to me a relatively small amount of money, but what was to her nearly everything. I gave from my abundance, from my excess. She was ready to give all she had.” Again, our use of money certainly says a lot about our priorities in life. And so, “A poor widow came and put in two copper coins…”
I once heard it asked, how could we possibly have a Stewardship Sunday without the widow and her coins? It would be like Thanksgiving without turkey, Christmas without presents, Easter without the eggs. This is the all time great story about Christian giving, this story of the poor woman who literally gave everything she had. How many sermons do you church veterans suppose you have heard on this text? How many have I preached on this text? Maybe I should pass out copies of those old sermons on this text and we can be done with all this stewardship business. Two weeks ago, while visiting in Phoenix, I went to church on Sunday with my father – Church of the Beatitudes, UCC – where I grew up and where I was ordained. And wouldn’t you know, it was Stewardship Sunday! On the way home my father told his son, the minister, how much he hates Stewardship Sunday. “Why do they need to talk about this in church,” he said. He went on and on and on. “You know I’m here dad? Remember what I do for a living? “A poor widow came and gave two copper coins…” Indeed, why is it necessary to talk about this stuff in church?
But first I should tell you if I preached about money as much as Jesus preached and taught about money, you would hear about it a lot more often than one Sunday in November! Now there is a frightening thought to take home with you. But for today, let’s once again spend some time thinking about this poor widow and I promise I’ll try to be gentle.
Why do you suppose Jesus focuses his attention, his disciples’ attention and our attention on her? I mean, of all the people in the temple that day, why her? I think it is because in this widow and her story, there is more going on than simply a comment on money and giving. I believe that what we have in this text is a concrete illustration of what a life of faith, a life lived before God, truly looks like.
You have heard me talk before about the position of widows in the first century. In the words of Lutheran pastor, Mary Anderson, “The woman at the temple was not a poor widow, she was poor because she was a widow. Women were totally dependent on their male relatives for their livelihood. To be widowed meant not only losing someone you may have loved; but it also meant that you were losing the one on whom you were totally dependent. Widows were forced to live off of the good graces of other male relatives and anyone in the community who might provide a meal here, a little money there.” She was the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, the one on the bottom, unnoticed and invisible to the legal, religious, political, and social eyes of her society. Invisible, that is, to everyone but Jesus.
There they are in the temple. The religious leaders, the wealthy people, the decision-makers, the movers and shakers of Jerusalem – Jerusalem’s elite. There they are with their fine clothes, their flowing robes and their large donations to the temple, they are the ones to watch. Everyone knew that. They knew that. They were used to being the center of attention, to occupying center stage, to having large church rooms and buildings named after them because of their great gifts. Every minister in town wanted these folks as church members. They were the ones to watch.
Except, Jesus wasn’t watching them. He was not paying attention to center stage. No, he was far more interested in what was going on over in the wings, and in one woman in particular. As I said, she had become invisible to her world. No one saw her anymore, no one paid attention. But he did. Reflecting on this text, Barbara Brown Taylor describes the scene with these words: “Jesus saw her walk to the temple treasury to give up her two coins, and something about the way she did it - the length of time she stood there, maybe, or the way she cradled them in her hand like her last two eggs – something about the way she did it let him know that it was the end for her, that it was everything she had, so that when she surrendered them and turned to go, he knew she had nothing left that was not God’s. Her sacrifice was complete, so complete that he called his disciples over to witness it. That is why we know about her today, that nameless woman. Because she gave all the little she had, holding nothing back, which made her last penny a fortune in God’s eyes. “Don’t look to those who are giving out of their abundance,” he says. “She’s the one, she’s the one to watch.” He invites his disciples to sit down beside him and contemplate the disparity between abundance and poverty, between large sums and two copper coins, between apparent sacrifice and the real thing. He invites us to sit with him as well.
Why this woman? Could it be another of his dizzy lessons on the upside down Kingdom of God, where the last shall be first, the great shall be the servants of all, and where the truly free are those who know that true security lies in the love and grace of God, in understanding that finally we are people without any resources except the riches of God’s mercy? Jesus says, “Look at her,” but we don’t want to look, don’t want to see. Because that poor woman is a threat to us. Oh, she probably doesn’t even know she’s a threat, but she is. For in noticing her, we notice how odd our system of values has become, the way we speak of and hold on to what is “mine,” while she is interested only in what is God’s, in the God who has given all.
United Methodist Bishop, William Willimon, shares this story: “I know a woman who grew up in an atheistic home. She had no church background at all. She lived most of her life quite happily with no Jesus, no Christian faith. Then, at age forty-one, she found Jesus. She began attending church every time the doors opened. But she did not limit her piety to church. She began a ministry to the poorest of the city’s poor. She began inviting the homeless into her home. Her life was consumed with thoughts of how she might show her love of Jesus. Now, to us, in the church, it seemed a bit, well, extravagant. She seemed to some, out of control.” Certainly sounds like it to me.
I mean, after all, we are a church of reasoned deliberation and cautious examination. We are rational people who don’t get carried away with a lot of emotion when it comes to our faith. Reckless extravagance is just not our style. When it comes to giving, we are careful, we consider and calculate percentages and proportions. Let’s not get carried away with this thing. As you will note, ten dollars is ten dollars.
Trouble is, Jesus never uses that language. Percentages? No, he talks about loving God with all of our soul, mind, heart and strength, and then calls our attention to a widow in the temple and to her reckless extravagance. What came over that woman? Something had released in her an energy, vitality and passion beyond the bounds of our measured faith, beyond our ordinary standards for common sense. She seemed to know things that we do not yet know – such as how to let go of the little you have in order to receive the more that you do not have, or how to trust what you cannot see more that you what you can see. Something had a hold of her life, something which made this poor woman seem rich beyond measure, something which shows us who come mostly from safe and secure places, and who so guardedly hold ourselves back, what life before God truly looks like.
Ah, Stewardship Sunday…gotta love it! Relax, I’m not going to tell you how much you ought to give, or better yet, how much, of all that God has given you, you ought to keep for yourself. No, I think I’m content just to invite you and me to think about that widow, and about Jesus’ invitation to model our lives on one we would normally overlook. Let’s just sit with Jesus for a while and allow ourselves to see what he sees. Truly she is the one to watch. In this season of thanksgiving, I give thanks for her challenging witness, her courageous faith, her clear priorities. And I pray that as I struggle along the path of faith, I might someday be as free as she is.
I close with a prayer by James Howell:
Lord Jesus, I give you my hands to do your work,
I give you my feet to go your way;
I give you my eyes to see as you do;
I give you my tongue to speak your words;
I give you my mind that you may think in me;
I give you my spirit that you may pray in me;
Above all, I give you my heart that you may love in me;
I give you my whole self that you may grow in me,
So that it is you who live and work and pray in me.
` Amen.