November 11, 2012
Courageous Widows and Copper Coins
- Mark 12:38-44
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
What great scriptures for today – a passage from Mark and a passage from Ruth. Ruth and Mark. Mark and Ruth. How could I ask for more? Since my name is Ruth and my husband’s name is Mark, I was sure I would be able to write a sermon for today that would say something wonderful about our relationship. (Because contrary to popular opinion, there are some wonderful things about our marriage!) But that is not what these scriptures are about. So then I thought that I could at least write a sermon about the virtues and example of two widows who teach us how to live Godly lives. And I could write that sermon – in fact I already did that. I preached on these scriptures three years ago. Since this has been a busy week for me, I thought I would just tweak the old sermon, it would be fine, and since none of you would remember that sermon from three years ago, I would be good to go. But I didn’t like the old sermon. It didn’t reflect my struggles with the gospel passage, so I started over.
Now my Tuesday morning bible study ladies told me not to struggle so much with the text. They thought I was trying to find something that was not there. Teri told me not to over think either. After all, the theme for today is about giving and we are in the midst of our stewardship campaign. We all need to be thinking about how we can give of our time and talents to this congregation so we can continue the work that God has called us to do. As Teri told us last week, our offerings to the church are one of the ways we show our love to God.
But I think when you prepare a sermon it is ok to grapple with what the gospel writer is trying to tell us. I try not to take scripture at just face value. In fact I take it more seriously than that. So I thought an easy way out would be to preach from the passage in Ruth. That’s not a difficult story – it’s a story of loyalty and devotion and family. Those are topics I know about – I could preach that more easily. But that widow putting her two copper coins into the temple treasury – her actions almost haunt me. Why would someone so desperately poor give all her money to the temple? What was she going to use to buy food? Why didn’t she at least keep one of the coins for herself? Is that how God expects us to give to the church?
My struggle with the gospel passage concerns trying to figure out what Jesus really means when he tells the disciples, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of those who are contributing to the treasury. 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.” (vs. 43 and 44) I wonder what his tone of voice was as he spoke. What is the impact of his words? Just like in emails and social media communication, we can’t tell the tone of Jesus’ voice here, and the scripture gives us no information on the reaction of those around him. So it seems to me that we have two possibilities here.
First, and this is the more traditional take on this passage often called the Widow’s Mite, we can imagine that Jesus is praising the widow. After all, he lifts her up as an example of profound generosity and faith. As Jesus says, her two pennies equal far more than the much larger sums given by the wealthy. The scribes have given out of their abundance and so are probably not much affected by their gifts. But the widow has given everything she has. The widow then becomes an example of extraordinary generosity. And Northminster has a history of widows being very generous to the ministry of this congregation. We also have the example of many widows giving smaller gifts, but the size of the gift is not what matters – it is the manner in which they are given – joyously, generously, sacrificially, and in thanksgiving. They give everything their hearts and pocketbooks can stand for the church that they love so much. This is what we call faith. This is what we call trust. The offering of the widow in Mark, and the offerings of so many of you in this congregation, show all of us what it means to have a genuine trust in God. A trust that says I will give to God’s work and I will trust that even if my giving seems to be too much, that God will provide for me. While the story of Ruth is not about the giving of resources to the church, she too is a widow without support who puts her faith and trust in God. So somehow I feel like there is more than a lesson about money that we are to learn from these two courageous and faithful women.
The second interpretation of the gospel story links the few verses about the widow to those that have come just before – the ones about the hypocrisy of the Scribes. The scribes were the educated class of religious leaders and while they loved to appear pious and wise and expected to have good seats at the banquet, they did little for those who were poor and vulnerable. In reality, they enriched themselves from their losses. And since these verses are in the middle of Jesus’ complaints about the Temple, I wonder if his tone and emotional affect is more lament than praise. I wonder if Jesus says what he says not so much to praise the widow, but to criticize those who would accept all that she has. Aren’t the Scribes taking advantage of her poverty by allowing and maybe encouraging the widow to contribute to the temple? Is she one of the widows that the Scribes are devouring?
I don’t believe we are the Scribes Jesus is talking about. I believe that at Northminster every gift is valued and interpreted in the spirit in which it is given. But it is that spirit that is worthy of our attention as well as our definitions of offering and giving.
So let’s imagine ourselves not as watching the poor widow, but as the two small cooper coins. These coins represent more than money. They represent faith and belief and how these must be lived out in our lives in concrete acts – just like the scriptures we have read today about 2 courageous women. The coins represent a faith-filled offering found in presenting all of who we are and all we hope to become to God for service in the world. That is what your offerings every Sunday represent too – they represent all of who you are and all of what you hope to become for God. So then if we become those two small coins, we must live our lives in such a way that our offering is truly shared with others.
So where do we give and participate in this kind of authentic offering? Where are you being the cooper coins? I see them in our small group leaders who lead our Christcare groups. I see cooper coins in the HOSTs who welcome all of us to worship. I see offerings of love in the support we give each other during difficult times. I see cooper coins when people build Habitat Houses, go on mission trips to Mexico and Kenya, and tutor at School 55. I see you representing the coins when the deacons visit the homebound, or the Men’s Prayer Breakfast sends a card that they are praying for someone. We are the cooper coins when your gifts are used to buy Thanksgiving baskets for the families of School 55 or you contribute to Clothe a Child so we can buy children warm clothes for the winter. I see us being the cooper coins when we support Presbyterian Disaster Assistance as they minister to those affected by Super Storm Sandy. Stewardship is not just about money. It is also about being the money that enables us to be stewards of all that we have and all that we are.
So in the end, I do believe that Jesus is holding the poor widow up as a model for giving, just not in the way I thought about it before. The key point to remember is that Jesus calls his disciples to notice that this widow gives all that she has – literally it is translated as “the whole of her life” She gives her whole life to a temple that really doesn’t care about her very much. In fact you could say that she gives “the whole of her life” to a system that is corrupt and a temple that Jesus is going to condemn in the very next section of this gospel. So looking at the widow in this light, she is offering us a glimpse into what Jesus is also about to do – to give “the whole of his life” for something that is corrupt and condemned – all of humanity – the whole world. Jesus uses this poor widow and her manner of giving as an example for all of us – for the church – to give the whole of its life for the sake of those who do not really deserve such a gift – just like he did with his life.
And how do we do that? Well, the Presbyterian Church’s Book of Order – its constitution and rules can help us. This document declares that, “The Church is called to be a sign in and for the world of the new reality which God has made available to people in Jesus Christ.” How will it be such a sign? By, “healing and reconciling and binding up wounds,…ministering to the needs of the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the powerless,…engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, fear, oppression, hunger and injustice,…giving itself and its substance to the service of those who suffer,…sharing with Christ in the establishment of his just, peaceable, and loving rule in the world. The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life.” (Book of Order, G-3.0200-3.0400.)
So this sermon may not be a typical stewardship sermon, but it is what Christian witness is all about. It is what giving and offering ourselves to God and others looks like. And it takes cooper coins in the offering plate to do it and it takes us as cooper coins to put it into practice. Every penny shared honors God, loves the neighbor and resists exploitation and corruption. So does the stewardship of our labors to change a system that does not often adequately address poverty, the widow, the outcast and those on the margins. I lift this up every Sunday when I call for the offering and I say, “Let us offer ourselves and our tithes and our gifts to God.” It’s really just two sides of the same coin don’t you think? May it be so. Amen.
Resources:
Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, Proper 27.
“Living by the Word,” Sunday, November 11, 2012, The Christian Century Magazine.
“Rethinking Stewardship,” 11.05.12, WorkingPreacher.org.
“Two Widows, true to type,” Blogging Toward Sunday, November 2, 2009, The Christian Century Magazine.