Listen to the gospel lesson and sermon here.
Mark 12:38-44
38 As he taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!40 They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.
At first glance it would seem as though today’s Gospel text has all of the makings for a good, classic, and what most folks would call, a “stewardship sermon”. More specifically a sermon about, dare I say, money. Financial stewardship. After all, it is the season of pledge letters and budget planning.
And honestly, I lament that we wait until November, which is ironically budget season, for the church to talk about the stewardship of money. It seems to me that if the conversation of financial stewardship was daily, weekly, even year-long, then a sermon on today’s text about stewardship and generous giving wouldn’t be so taboo. We might not be so hesitant to talk about giving, if we talked about it more often.
Quick poll, how many of us have heard a sermon on stewardship around this time of year? More specifically, how many of us have heard today’s story of the poor widow as a text used to encourage us to be generous, faithful givers? Giving all we have back to God, even if it leaves us with nothing?
Too often we reduce this poor widow and her miserable experience of life into a model of faithfulness by which we should tithe our money to the church. Her experience is manipulated and set it as the benchmark of generosity. How often do we exploit her story of financial and social emptiness for the sake of our church budget and annual pledge campaigns? Too often, perhaps.
Well today’s sermon my friends is not that. This is not going to be a sermon that critiques the giving of the rich, haughty religious elites against the poor widow. Furthermore, it is not my intention to abuse the widow and her story for the sake of convincing, convicting, or guilting anyone into a more faithful and generous way of living and giving.
I don’t want to give a good ol’ classic stewardship sermon today. And I should be clear, I believe that faithful, generous tithing is important. More than important, it is part of our life in Christ. It is part of our fellowship within the Body of Christ and our membership in this community of faith. I believe that God has first given all things to us, ourselves, our time, and our possessions. God has gifted us with every gift, financial and otherwise, and has called us to be stewards. Managers of those gifts. None of it is truly ours. God’s has just called us to faithfully and generously manage it.
And to be even more clear, this IS a generous and faithful community with regards to giving. It’s no secret that St. Mark’s has experienced a time in which it felt poor. Like the widow. Poor, with not much to give. And yet, this community of faith was faithful. Trusting. Giving...of yourselves and your time and your money. Investing in this community for the sake of our call to ministry and mission of the gospel in this place. This is a generous and faithful congregation. It is also a generous congregation with regards to money. It is budget season, and the finance committee is hard at work. But the generous commitments of this body of Christ make the finance committee’s work so much easier. And rather than scrape and squeeze, thanks be to God, we celebrate a time of growth with great excitement. We look to the future with assured hope, new vision, and opportunity. Because God provides.
But as for today’s text, as promised, I want us to notice something that perhaps is more often than not overlooked. I think we’re so quick to juxtapose the giving of the richest with that of the poor widow against our own generosity, that we miss a bigger picture. And feel free, pull out the bulletin, or I dare you, the Bible in front of you and look at today’s text.
In the 12th chapter of Mark, Jesus is constant conversation with the Pharisees and Scribes on the Temple mount. Their conversations have not always gone well, and they seek new ways of challenging Jesus. Jesus confronts them of the topic of taxes, convicts them with a parable. He schools them on resurrection and finally, right in front of them ridicules them for their excessive egos.
He critiques their pompous presence and their self-absorbed show of false religious piety. Jesus tells the disciples, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,to have the best seats in the synagogues. They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
Then notice verse 41. “Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money in the treasury.” Jesus noticed the rich elites putting in large sums from their abundance. But then Jesus notices a poor widow, who comes forward and drops two small copper coins, the worth of a penny into the treasury.
Now Bible scholars have concluded that within the Temple Treasury there were 13 coffers for the purpose of receiving offerings. And I imagine the rich elites carrying their abundant offerings to the treasury and dropping their coins in one by one by one. Taking their time so all could here the excessive clanging of their generous gift. And then the widow, who I suspect no one notices, approaches the treasury and lays in her last two coins.
Offerings were given in the Temple treasury as part of their religious obligation. Their offerings went to support the Temple, it’s leaders and workers. We might understand this as say that the offerings not only kept the lights on, and the leaders employed, but the offering was intended to support the mission and ministry of the Temple mount as well as those who members of faith who sought the Temple mount for spiritual needs.
So in comes a poor widow. And she’s not poor just in the sense that she has no money, no earnings. She is socially, physically, emotionally poor. Because she is widowed, she has no status in society. She is ostracized and on the margins. She in vulnerable and cast out. And as she approaches the treasury she offers her last two coins. Everything she had, Jesus says. Every she had to live on. As to say that offering those two coins may as well have sealed her fate. She had nothing left to live on.
And if we walk closely with the text, we might notice that as Jesus pulls the disciples aside, he doesn’t lift her up as an example to the disciples or us. Jesus never says, “be like this poor widow..” Jesus doesn’t commend her sacrifice or even her faith. Simply, he notices her.
Rather, we might notice, as Jesus does, that this woman who has nothing due to the societal and cultural systems in place...is giving all she has back into that very system.
She invests her tithe into the Temple. The very religious community that wouldn’t even give her the time of day. She invests into the same community that views her as an outcast, oppresses her status, and removes her voice. The community that will take and demand her offering, but fail to notice her as she fades to nothing. She places her offering into the very Temple system that Jesus vows to destroy. She gives, out of faithfulness to God, to a broken system.
Reading closely we might notice that this story isn’t so much about the generous and faithful stewardship of a poor, discarded widow, but rather this story might notice and call out atrocious, broken, and abusive stewardship of the community of faith that surrounds her.
Jesus doesn’t elevate her as an example to the disciples. I think Jesus laments and offers a stern warning to the disciples that systems of power have as great a responsibility, privilege really, to be good stewards of the resources invested in them. To care for each and every person, especially those who have nothing left to give.
Jesus does, what Jesus always does he notices those afflicted by unjust systems. He notices those ostracized and abandoned by the very community called to support them. Jesus notices this poor woman, and even more so I think Jesus knows that after giving all she had to live on, she was destined to die, lonely, unnoticed.
Friends, I think the significance of today’s text is not about individual piety or individual stewardship. I don’t think is about faithfully and generously giving everything you have left to live on.
Rather, I think today’s text is a lesson and reminder about the stewardship of trust and commitment to the other. About the stewardship of community. Confessing that the size of the offering is irrelevant because it isn’t ours in the first place. Confessing that generosity has less to do with the amount given, and more to do with sharing in the abundance God has given us.
Today, we might be reminded that regardless of who pledges and tithes, and regardless of how much or how little, the call of this congregation is to be a communal steward of God’s resources.
That together, as a community of faith, share all that God has entrusted to us, we might live in such a way that no one goes unnoticed and no one is in want. That together, we might faithfully and generously steward each and every coin of our tithes and offerings. That is our responsibility. It is our privilege. It is God’s gift to us. Together as a stewarding community, we are called to do so much more than we can on our own. Together we provide housing for families who may feel unnoticed by the systems of power. Together we are able to provide a place of education for children 6 weeks to 5 years of age, for kids like my son. The St. Mark’s Ark also provides employment to more than 30 siblings in Christ. Our collective stewardship empowers LSS and their presence in the community, as they provide food pantries, refugee resettlement, an AIDS clinic, and much more.
Faithful stewardship leads to partnerships with UCOM, OneBlood, seminaries, camps, campus ministry, and so many local organizations. Faithful stewardship means joining God’s resources with the whole Christian church by supporting our synod and Church wide expression, as they extend the mission of the gospel in a way we cannot on our own. As they work globally to combat aids and cure malaria. As they support future church leaders in education and empower more that 250 missionaries across the globe. As they provide disaster response, advocate for changes to corrupt and unjust policies, and all their work for peace, justice, and equity.
The truth is friends, stewardship is so much greater than you or me pledging our tithes for next year. We give because God first gave to us. We give because together we can do so much more. Together we can serve as a beacon of light and hope into our community, so much so that God willing, no one may go unnoticed. And the good news is that it’s not about how much or how little we each can give. It’s not even about money.
It’s about noticing that all we have is God’s. Ourselves, our time, our possessions. Yes, even our money. It is God’s. And our ability to give is God’s gift to us. God notices us. God notices you. God notices each and every uniquely and beautifully created person. And God desires us to live abundantly, sharing in God’s good, good creation.
And as long as we remember that God is our original steward, that God is the provider of abundance, then there will always be more than enough to share. Amen.
© Pastor Daniel Locke, preached Nov. 11, 2018 @ St. Mark's Lutheran Jacksonville, FL
