24th Sunday after Pentecost – November 11, 2012
38As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
41He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.43Then 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. 44For 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.” – Mark 12:38-44 (also see the first reading for the day, 1 Kings 17:8-16)
Have you ever seen one of those pictures where you’re supposed to find in a seemingly normal picture the one absurdly out of place element? They can be frustrating because we’re trained to take in information as a whole and not look at every single detail. It’s really bad when everyone else around you gets it, and the harder you stare all you see is the same ordinary picture. One of my favorites is a nice family photo of a couple with their children sitting on a couch in their living room. Until all of a sudden you notice, barely visible, a face peeking out, and you realize that the whole family is sitting on top of what is presumably another member of the family. But this is common – it’s the premise of many a magic trick. We can be directed to see what we expect to see and thereby miss what is most important.
That’s what is happening in the gospel reading today. Jesus has taken a seat opposite the temple treasury, and they are all happily resting as they observe what must have been a fairly ordinary line of people depositing various amounts, some a lot, others a little. Nothing out of the ordinary. But Jesus pays particular attention to one that no one else seems to notice. What everyone else sees is a woman contributing what she can to the temple. What Jesus sees is a widow who has just sacrificed everything.
What isn’t clear is what anyone is supposed to do about it. Because let’s be honest, this is not a smart move on the widow’s part. There is no promise that her extreme generosity will cause a heavenly windfall of blessings for her to live on. It is quite clear that given Jesus’ scathing review of the temple scribes in the preceding verses that her help is not going to come from temple treasury where those with more have contributed out of their wealth but where scribes devour widow’s houses. Perhaps she is about to go, like the widow in the old testament story, to prepare a final meal and then to die, though in this case there is no promise of never-ending jars of oil and flour.
What is wrong with this picture is that no one notices her. She is of no consequence to anyone but Jesus. No one notices her tremendously reckless act of faith, and no one notices the injustice that has been done to her by those scribes who devour widow’s houses. No one will even remember she was there. It is deeply painful to be the one ignored and forgotten.
I see over and over again in these days following the election Christians raising the concern that in an election cycle that lasted seemingly forever and cost an estimated almost 6 billion dollars that we only saw what we wanted to see. We as a nation did not even talk about the poor, in favor of appealing to the middle class. We did not talk about climate change. We did not talk about gun violence. Even the discussion about the impending fiscal cliff doesn’t really talk much about those at the bottom.
I see myself choosing to ignore some of the same things when the issues become too overwhelming. We cannot notice them all, we cannot take in every detail from the world around us. We could, like the nameless widow, open our hearts and wallets til everything was gone and these problems would still be there. It doesn’t mean that our generosity does not go a long way, but it does mean that we face a difficult world, where if we believe Jesus’ words, we can’t even trust the religious establishment to be trustworthy.
In this stewardship season as we look to discover how we together can give more of our resources away to help others and to learn a deeper trust in God, I don’t see how even doubling or tripling or quadrupling our giving can solve poverty or end distress for widows and orphans and all the vulnerable in our modern world. It doesn’t mean those resources aren’t vitally important, they just aren’t going to save us or the world.
I’m honestly a little angry at Jesus for not proposing a solution to all of this. He does not stop the widow, he does not tell her she has been noticed, he does not even yell at the scribes. He certainly doesn’t instruct the disciples to do anything about it.
What he does instead is to become the widow. He takes her path of giving everything up. Jesus throws his last two coins in and gives himself up. Like her trip to the temple treasury, no one much notices when Jesus goes to the cross to give himself up, except for a faithful few who watch from a distance and a few strangers charged with his execution. Jesus himself cries out feeling forsaken by God. The Holy One is on a cross dying for the world and no one much notices. There is certainly something wrong with that picture.
But that’s the kind of God we have. We have a God who shows up as a recklessly generous widow. We have a God who looks at a meager offering of two coins or a little bit of meal and oil and sees abundance and generosity. We have a God who notices us, who gives up everything to be “all in” with us. There is something wrong with that picture, but something wonderfully, ridiculously, delightfully wrong with it.
Through baptism we, too, are “all in” with Jesus. We have thrown our two last coins in with the one who came to give everything up to us. It’s absurd recklessness. But that’s what a life of faith is all about. It’s about trusting that God walks with us when we do not know it. It’s trusting that there will be enough for us when all we see around us is scarcity and fear. It’s learning that the never-ending jar of meal and jug of oil are just as real as the fiscal cliff. It’s about learning to see and care for the vulnerable. It’s about finding a way to let go of the things we hold onto that burden our lives. It’s about learning to live into life with a God who has given everything up for us. We have a God who loves us beyond our wildest imagination. That love begins to free us to let go of ourselves, to begin to take the crazy, reckless journey of faith.
So today we take notice. We take notice of the widow who has nothing. We take notice of a God who gave up everything. We take notice that the world is not always as it seems. Because everywhere around us, if we could only see it, God is giving God’s self up to us and for us, here and now. Do you see it?
-Pastor Steven Wilco
Stewarding the Word 