A Sermon for the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Johanna S. Morrigan
1 Kings 17:8-16
Hebrews 9: 24-28
Mark 12: 38-44
Psalm 146
Four weeks ago, Jesus was telling our rich young man to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor. I rather assumed that he wanted nameless widows, like the one in today's story, to enjoy the security of adequate food and clothing and housing. He didn't tell the young man to give the money to the Temple. Jesus told him to give it to the poor.
Today, however, he's extolling the virtues of our poor widow who has just given up her very last penny. She didn't give it to someone even poorer than she is. She gave it to the Temple. You know, some days, the more I try to make sense of what Jesus is telling me, the more I feel sorry for the disciples. You know, how when Jesus wasn't looking, they'd look at each other in total bewilderment and throw up their hands in frustration? Because they just didn't get it.
Well, last week when I was trying to make some sense of this gospel, I was doing exactly the same thing: "Jesus, I just don't get it!" Didn't you just get done blasting all those guys who are in charge of the temple - the scribes and pharisees and all? And then when I looked in the chapter preceding today's reading, I read about Jesus tearing the temple apart, driving out all those guys selling lambs and birds and stuff, and accusing the temple authorities of turning his Father's house into a den of thieves. So then I looked up the verses right after today's readings, and he's telling the disciples that not a single stone of the temple will be left - because it is going to be destroyed.
So here's this nameless widow who has access to absolutely no help or support from anyone - they didn't have widow's pensions in those days - throwing every last cent she has in the world into the Temple treasury box to support this corrupt institution run by a bunch of hypocrites, and Jesus is saying, "Right on, sister! Put it all in there - give it up! Sacrifice it all!"
And furthermore, he doesn't even bother to tell her that she's just done a great and selfless deed. He doesn't stop her and recognize her in front of the others. He doesn't say, "you shall enter the kingdom of heaven for your sacrifice." He just lets her go off to almost certain death without so much as a by your leave, and he tells the disciples what a great thing she's done. All of this leaves me wondering if Jesus has the right job description. Isn't he supposed to be saving the poor? Not watching them being duped out of what little they have by greedy charlatans?
It makes me think of my Great Aunt Annie. Now she was not a poor widow. In fact, she should have been quite wealthy when she died. Both of her brothers supported her dream to go to college, and she was the first member of our family to graduate with a bachelor's degree almost a 100 years ago. My grandfather and his brother stayed home and worked the small family farm ,scrimping and saving to send her to college to become a teacher. From those humble beginnings she worked hard, lived frugally, saved and invested wisely, and became quite wealthy. In her aging years, a minister befriended her. At least he said that he was a minister. And over time, she was giving more and more of her money to this man - "for the church and for the honor and glory of God."
I'm sure you know the rest of the story. A lonely old woman is bilked out of her entire estate by a religious charlatan. My aunt was a devout and wonderful woman - and she truly believed she was contributing all she'd worked so hard for to the greater glory of God. And it seems pretty likely to me that our widow believed she was doing the very same thing. And it just doesn't make any sense. Today we're sure we need to protect people like that. We'd probably take one look at the widow and go to court to have a guardian appointed for her. She obviously isn't capable of making sensible decisions anymore.
But not Jesus. Nope. Jesus seems to be strongly attracted to her, and to other people like her - maybe even identifying with them. What is it that draws Jesus' attention to this almost pathetic scene as he sits and watches people giving money away to the Temple?
As I was wondering about this, I realized that this story is the last of Jesus' dizzy lessons on the upside down kingdom of God; you know, where the last shall be first and the great shall be least, and the most unlikely people will turn out to have been Jesus himself in disguise. The widow's offering is his last case in point.
This story marks the end of Jesus' public ministry as told by Mark. When he leaves the temple with his disciples that day, his next public appearance will be four days later on the cross where he will make his final offering to the honor and glory of God. Where he will sacrifice everything he has to save a broken and sinful world. Like the widow, he didn't wait until the world was all cleaned up and rid of the charlatans and hypocrites. He made his sacrifice while we were still very much lost in sin... and when he was seen as a foolish preacher who didn't have the good sense to know when to keep his mouth shut.
I find myself wishing that Jesus had told the widow that it was she who was the Christ in that scene, when he told his disciples that she was the one to watch.. That she was the Christ who was willing to forfeit all that she had to the glory and honor of God...... Even if it didn't make any sense.
But as I think about that, I find myself wondering how many times I've completely failed to recognize the Christ in a scene as I walked on by. How many times have I forgotten that God's kingdom is upside down?
But isn't that the point? The upside down kingdom of God doesn't make any sense.
It's going to be done by giving up our arguments and excuses about why it doesn't make any sense, and trusting. Trusting that it's high time we stop trying to make sense of everything, and begin turning the world upside down.
AMEN
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Several points in the above sermon are taken from Barbara Brown-Taylor, The Preaching Life, 1993, pp.127-132.