November 10, 2024
The Junior Sunday School Teacher asked her eight eager children if they would give $1,000,000 to the missionaries. “YES!” they all screamed!! “Would you give $1,000?” Again, they shouted, “YES!” “How about $100?” “Oh, YES we would!” they all agreed!! “Would you give just a dollar to the missionaries?” she asked. The boys exclaimed “YES!” just as before except for Johnny. “Johnny,” the teacher said as she noticed the boy clutching his pocket, “why didn’t you say ‘YES’ this time?” “Well,” he stammered, “I HAVE a dollar” (Sermons.com).
We just heard about a widow giving the last of her food to Elijah. Now we are about to hear from Mark about a widow who gave “all that she had.” This will be in direct contrast to what the scribes are doing. READ Mark 12:38-44
We have all but wrapped up our stewardship campaign, almost hitting our goal. I want to thank everyone for their generous support of our church and the work of God. We have a few people to hear back from and hope to get that done soon. So, you might be wondering why we are talking about the widow’s mite this week? It is the lectionary passage, and I have to admit I’m hoping to find a message beyond giving everything you have.
Let’s start with widows. As you know widows were extremely vulnerable in ancient times. Without a husband’s care and protection, they had no means of support or refuge. Exodus commands don’t wrong a foreigner, and you shall not afflict a widow. The penalty for doing so is death (22:21-24). That is the stick, but God also offers the carrot. God promises to care for widows and commands his people to do the same. The Psalmist writes, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling” (68:5). Isaiah teaches, “Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow” (1:17). How a community cared for their widows was a sign of how faithful they are to God.
Yet in both passages, the widows are not the ones provided for, but the ones giving. The widow who helps Elijah is not only a widow but a foreigner. When she is asked for water and then bread, she does so out of hospitality. But only after stating her dire circumstance. The drought had left her with only enough for a final meal for her and her son, before they die. Yet as she provides, as she gives to Elijah, Elijah shares God’s promise with her, her jar of meal and oil will continue to provide until the rains come. She gave away the last of her food, trusting in God’s word and provision.
Likewise, Jesus sees a widow give her last two coins, two coins worth only a penny, to the temple treasury. She gave all that she had! This is in direct contrast to what the scribes were doing and giving. The scribes were reveling in the privilege of their office, parading around in long robes, praying long prayers, and seeking places of honor. The scribes here, with their ostentatious robes and prayers and their insistence on being first have lost their tether to the demands of God. They have placed themselves above the people God has commanded them, and us, to care for. Jesus condemned their actions. Did you notice Jesus saying, the scribes “devour widows’ houses?” Strange right? Earlier Mark used the same word to describe the birds “gobbling up” the seeds in the Parable of the Sower. Jesus likens these birds to Satan and is likening the scribes as well by using the same word. Jesus is asking us to “reevaluate value. In the Kingdom of God, what is valued and important is different from that of human kingdoms” (Working Preacher, Micah Kiel).
Many rich people gave to the temple treasury, but Jesus values what the widow did more. He said, “All of them contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
“Ruele Howe tells about growing up with his parents in the country. When he was 15 years old, the house caught on fire. They escaped with only the clothes on their backs. There were no close neighbors to help so he and his father walked to a distant village to get supplies. As they returned they saw something that stayed with Ruele all those years after. Beside the charred remains of what had been their house, his mother had laid out lunch on a log. She had placed a tin can filled with wildflowers on the log. It was a symbol of hope in the midst of tragedy.
She didn’t try to cover up the disaster with flowers, but in the midst of that gloomy scene she had placed a symbol of hope. These two coins that the widow placed in the temple treasury were her wildflowers. This was her symbol, her way of saying I know God will provide” (Sermons.com, King Duncan).
We say that all the time. But do we really mean it? Do we believe that God will provide? Recently I noticed when that happened. We have had dedicated people working to beautify our campus, taking care of our gardens and watering system. All on a voluntary basis, out the kindness of their hearts. Carol Lark, Pam Arnsberger, Dee St. Clair, Holly Edwards Marsha Gonzales, Linda Walker and Bob Zimel. But when the group got too small and the job too big, people stepped back and we started looking for landscapers. But just as that happened a member called needing community hours and asked what we needed help with. I quickly said the campus garden and watering. Something he knows a thing or two about. When we needed help, help came. God provided!
Do you see those moments as God moments, as God’s provision? It takes some practice to see the world that way. But when we do, we are blessed for it. We see God’s hand in many large and small ways.
This week Carolyn Crocker sent me a text about this passage. She has a coin like the widow’s mite, and she had just led a Bible study on this story. She had an interesting insight. She wrote, “Perhaps God is less concerned about how much of ourselves we give than he is about how much of our SELF we have left, kept for ourselves.” Remember Jesus spoke about others giving out of abundance and the widow giving all that she had. All she had to live on. All of herself. Then Carolyn asked, “Have we really given God our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind and our whole strength? Now is the time to draw nearer than ever.” Do you hold back on giving your entire self to God. Saying something like, God you can have this money, this time, this part of me, but I will keep the rest and do with it as I please. Or have you surrendered completely to God, leaving nothing withheld from your Maker? You may recall that was the lesson last week, Jesus declaring loving God with our whole self is the first commandment. And loving neighbor as yourself is exactly what caring for widows is all about.
These two widows, these two marginalized women, are showing us how to give, to give God everything, not just the parts I want to share. They may even “challenge us to look differently at those people in our midst whom we barely spare a second glance: the immigrant, the homeless, the person from a different religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, race, class, culture — or whatever barriers manage to divide us. Just as surprising as the widow of Zarephath’s intervention in the life of Elijah, (and Jesus valuing the widow giving all that she had) would have been, so we may find ourselves surprised and blessed by those whom we would least expect to serve as our source of survival (and renewal)” (Working Preacher, Juliana Claassen). Amen.
