A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — October 25, 2009
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts: Ruth 1:1-5 & 4:13-17;  Mark 12:38-13:37 —  Stewardship & Giving

[Ruth] bore a son… he became the father of Jesse,

the father of David.  — Ruth 4:13 & 17

[Jesus] said, Beware of the scribes, who… 

[and] a poor widow came… — Mark 12:38-42

It’s once again that time of year when we here at IPC, along with people in churches all over, begin considering new and renewed commitments to doing ministry in the next year.  It’s Stewardship Season.  What will we give as individuals to support those missions and good works that are part of who we are as a living community of faith?  So I’m going to limit my sermon to the portion of the reading from Mark often referred to as the Story of the Widow’s Mite.  I suspect someone made sure when putting together the Common Lectionary that this story would show up at about this time every three years.  After all, it has long been a staple of ministers’ stewardship sermons.  We’re all supposed to be inspired to “dig a little deeper” by the example of this widow’s amazing generosity in giving, according to Jesus, “everything she had.”  Add a few more stories from the files about especially generous givers, and the sermon almost writes itself.

But there’s a problem here.  I preached about that problem nine years ago in 2000.  I’d only been here just over a month, and it was my third sermon and first stewardship sermon from this pulpit.  And if I go by the number of you who have recalled the point of that particular sermon to me over the years, it has to be the most memorable sermon I’ve ever preached.  The problem with the Story of the Widow’s Mite (or as the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible labels it, “The Widow’s Offering”) is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with offering.  The widow didn’t put her “two small copper coins, which are worth a penny” into the temple treasury because she wanted to.  She did so because she had to.

It’s important for us to recognize that the story about the poor widow is not about giving. In fact, the Greek text of Mark’s story never once uses the word “give”—not even where the translation I read from refers to “contributing to the treasury.”  In Greek there is a perfectly good, very common word for the verb, “to give.”  That word is didomi (did-oh-mee), and it’s never used in the story.  That’s because these are not offerings.  The widow and others—the rich people putting in large sums—are not giving.  Instead of didomi, various forms of the Greek verb ballo (ball-oh) are used everywhere throughout the story.  Ballo means “to throw” or “to put.”  Most English translations speak of the crowd and the widow “putting” money into the treasury.  Actually, they were, quite literally, throwing it in.

Don’t think here of church offering plates being passed, but of 13 collecting boxes in the temple, called “The Trumpets” because of their funnel-like shape.  They were metal, something like the bell of a tuba or sousaphone, and they rang as money was thrown into them—not paper money but coins—all the better for the watching priests and scribes to know that people were, indeed, paying up.  And that’s the operative term here—“paying up.”  For the people are not making voluntary contributions.  They’re not in worship, and they’re not giving.  No, they are, in fact, paying their taxes—specifically, the Temple Tax.  We should be hearing the story of the poor widow more like this:

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd throwing their tax payments into the trumpets.  The fat cats sure were making those trumpets ring!  Then a poor widow came and threw in two small coppers worth but a penny.  The trumpets hardly made a sound.  Jesus pointed the poor widow out to his followers, saying, “Truly this woman paid more than all the rest.  They could well afford their tax payments for they have way more than they need, but the temple has taken from this poor widow every last penny she had to live on.”

Note that Jesus never praises the widow here.  He doesn’t lift her up as a good example.  His words are more a lament about the injustice that impoverishes this widow while having a relatively minor effect on the wealthy.

“Beware of the scribes,” said Jesus, “who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!”  Why “beware”?  Because “They devour widows’ houses,” while keeping up a front as prayerful, religious folk.  These scribes live in extravagant luxury—their long robes and other perks are the Rolex watches, designer Italian suits, and multi-million dollar bonuses of his day.  But the system that supports such excesses does so by devouring the resources of the poor.  The scribes, as experts on scripture, should know full well that exploiting widows is to be condemned.  God’s warning in Exodus 22 is clear:  “You shall not abuse any widow or orphan.  If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.”  When Jesus points out that poor widow, he’s trying to spark outrage in his followers.

A few weeks ago I noted how Karl Barth (the theologian quoted on the bulletin cover) said that pastors should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  Here are a few lines from an editorial by Bob Herbert in Tuesday’s New York Times entitled “Safety Nets for the Rich” (10/22/09):

We’ve spent the last few decades shoveling money at the rich like there was no tomorrow. We abandoned the poor, put an economic stranglehold on the middle class and all but bankrupted the federal government—while giving the banks and megacorporations and the rest of the swells at the top of the economic pyramid just about everything they’ve wanted.

And we still don’t seem to have learned the proper lessons. We’ve allowed so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one… has a clue about how to put them back to work.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is living it up [with yet another round of obscene multi-billion dollar bonuses]. I’m amazed at how passive the population has remained in the face of this sustained outrage.

The Bible, as a whole, contains some 500 verses about prayer and a few less than 500 verses about faith.  But it has 2000 verses in all on the subject of money.  Again and again the scriptures call for justice in the use of money, and they highlight providing both resources and justice for the poor, especially the widow, the orphan, and the alien.  The nation is judged by how it cares for those at the bottom.  We’ve seen how Jesus works to teach his disciples compassion by connecting them with aliens and children.  Now here’s a widow, and there’s that marvelous story in scripture of how the house of David itself is rooted in a time when two widows named Ruth and Naomi were provided for. 

“Beware of the scribes,” says Jesus, “for they devour widows’ houses.”  Then he points out a widow who had to throw “all she had to live on” into a system that lines the pockets of the temple authorities and kowtows to the wealthy in the land.  How ironic that the followers of Jesus look back as they leave the temple, and all they can see is its magnificence: “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”  Jesus’ followers, those closest to him, are blinded by the grandeur and opulence, which comes at the expense of people like the poor widow, and they completely miss the point…yet again.  But then, people have always gazed up at penthouses and missed the plight of the homeless below.  Oh, the life styles of the rich and famous!  We are enticed by opulence and conspicuous consumption—ads for the new $100,000+ Porche four-door sports car, the latest technological marvel, the newest fashions, even the backgrounds of ads where the view through the window shows us an acre of lawn down to the lakefront—that makes us feel like we don’t have enough.  Check out the September issue of Columbus CEO—did you even know there was such a magazine?—with its glossy ads in the back for “Executive Living.”  The lead article is “Home Sweet Home: Four Executives Show Off Their Spaces”—“from a twice-remodeled Bexley Victorian to a sleek Miranova condo.”  That one is more than 3300 square feet of sheer opulence in the sky.

We in the church can miss the point, and we can misunderstand or even misuse (!) many of the stories of Jesus—trying (sometimes with the best of intentions) to make people do things we want, like dig a little deeper at pledge time.  Oh, there are indeed many reasons for us to give in support our common ministry as a church, to do those things we want to do together as children of god.  But the story of the poor widow is not a lesson in giving generously so much as it is a lesson in the need for our ministry to include a deep and abiding concern for social and economic justice in the world. 

The gospel—the good news of Jesus Christ—is not about power and control.  It’s about love, and love can never be coerced or forced.  Neither can giving.   Having to give is an oxymoron.  Having to give would be like paying taxes, which always seems hard, because taxes come out of what I feel I’ve earned and put away for myself, and that never seems to be enough.  When I think of what I have as mine, I feel I must protect it, and I only part with what I have to pay.  But when I realize, even a little, that all I have comes from God, given to be cared for and enjoyed and shared (that’s what stewardship is all about), then it becomes easier to give, sometimes even to actually want to give.  And giving starts becoming a part of who I am, and I worry less about what I have and don’t have.

Karl Barth points out the close connection between grace and gratitude: “[They] belong together like heaven and earth.  [He says.]  Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo.  Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning.”  Giving is intimately connected with both, as is wanting to give.  In fact the three—grace, gratitude and giving—interweave in a kind of joyous dance.  In the experience of grace, we know gratitude.  In gratitude, we find ourselves wanting to give, to share, to pass it on.  You can’t pay back grace; you can only share it.  In giving, the grace bubbles up and overflows, showering our lives and the lives of others with grace upon grace.  The amazing thing is that it doesn’t really matter where you start.  If you feel deprived and “graceless,” look for things to be grateful for, or try deciding to give.  Think of it as a kind of “scientific experiment,” if you want.  Give, not because you have to, but because you want to.  And be on the lookout for grace, gratitude, and giving to make their presence felt more strongly in your life.  Begin the process anywhere, and all three inevitably are strengthened and increased.  Round and round they go in a dance of love.  Such is the wonderful mystery of God’s steadfast and abiding love for us.  Alleluia and Amen.