Epiphany, which for church calendar devotees commemorates the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem not only stretches out Christmas (falling as it does on January 6), but historically ranks right up there in importance with Easter and Pentecost. Epiphany was celebrated not because three kings or wise men (actually we have no idea how many there were) traversed afar. Epiphany was celebrated because the Magi were not Jewish. Their meeting Jesus constituted the first revelation of Christ to Gentiles. This is of monumental importance to the Church because the church grew to be comprised almost totally of Gentiles, in fulfillment, ironically, of Old Testament prophecy. That the Magi bore extravagant gifts of worship to Christ signified their immense gratitude to God for reaching out beyond the bounds of Israel’s covenant to include even them. When it comes down to it, for all Christians our giving is ultimately an act of gratitude and worship. We see it with the Magi, we see it presumably with this sacrificial gift from a destitute widow who drops two copper coins in the Temple treasury.
The familiar account of the widow’s
two coins—or as the King James renders it, the widow’s mite—has become so familiar because of its frequent use as
a shining example of sacrificial giving. Unlike the pompous rich folks in the
Temple who sauntered up to the offering box and dumped over gratuitous sums of
cash out of their surplus, this poor widow gave everything she had to live on.
Jesus calls attention to her sacrifice presumably
because that’s how we should all act when it comes to our money. Presumably she exemplifies Jesus’
teaching elsewhere about loving the Lord with all that
you have; about how you can’t serve both God and money, about how wherever you
put your treasure is where your heart is, about how you’re not supposed to
worry about what you eat or wear because God will provide for your needs, about
how the kingdom of God belongs to the poor and how if anyone wants to follow Jesus you have to deny
yourself and lose your life to do it. It’s not that the widow’s two cents were really going to
help the church make budget, but if everybody would follow her example, church
finances would be in spectacular shape. It’s what makes this passage such a
favorite for Stewardship Sundays.
Of course to
follow the widow’s example would make your own personal finances a spectacular mess.
Which is why I keep saying presumably in
regard to the widow’s mite. Is destitute
poverty for all what Jesus intends? Some might say yes. After all, in another
passage from Mark that often gets pulled out for Stewardship Sundays, Jesus
tells a rich man, “Go, sell what you own, and
give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come,
follow me.” It interesting to note, however, that Jesus does tell the rich man
to give it all to the poor, not to
the church. So much for universal destitution. And so much for church stewardship.
Not that it matters. The rich man was so shocked by Jesus he walked away without
giving anything. He was not going to
sell all his possessions to follow Jesus. That was too hard to do. A lot harder
than it was for the poor widow. After all, two cents didn’t buy much more then than it does now.
Why not give it all?
It’s like the retiree down to her final
quarter in Vegas. She might as well take one last shot at the slots. Maybe
she’ll hit the jackpot. Or better, like the person at the end of her rope who
figures she might as well give God one last shot. What more does she have to
lose? Jesus did say, “If God so clothes the
grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,
will he not much more clothe you—O ye of little faith?” Fine, I’ll show a
little faith. Let’s see what God can do. Who knows, maybe once she got back
outside, she discovered a whole pocketful of money—like Jesus miraculously made
appear in that fish’s mouth when he needed cash to pay his own taxes. Or maybe
that rich man had a change of heart and decided to give all his money to her
anyway.
You know,
when you actually read this morning’s passage, you’ll see that Jesus doesn’t
exactly approve the poor widow’s
sacrificial gift. All he says is that she “put in more than all those who
contributed out of their abundance” because “she put in all she had to live
on.” Was this a good thing? Most commentators insist that the her simple piety
was a powerful contrast to the scribe’s pomposity and to the rich people’s money
parade. Surely Jesus approved. The children’s version of the widow’s mite that Dawn
and I read to our four-year-old Violet concludes, “This story shows what our
God thinks about the gifts we bring/ To help our church and missions too, to
honor Christ the king.” The children’s version goes so far as to have the now
destitute widow holding her dependent child by the hand—a child who will now
have to go without food because her mother gave their last dime to the church. Was
this what Jesus intends?
Flip back five
chapters in Mark and you’ll find Jesus letting loose a scathing indictment
against the scribes and Pharisees for the way they hoodwinked poor people into
giving when their own personal needs or the needs of their families were at
stake. Jesus says, “Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and
mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put
to death.’ But you say it is all
right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have
vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you let them
disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to
hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
You don’t even
have to go back five chapters to see how mad all this makes Jesus. You don’t
even have to go back five verses. Look at the context for the widow’s mite—both
here and in Luke where the story also appears—and what you discover is it follows
directly on the heels of Jesus lambasting the scribes and Pharisees again, this
time for bilking poor women out of whatever dower they inherit upon their
husband’s deaths. “Beware of these teachers of religious law!” Jesus warned, “For
they like to parade around in flowing robes and receive respectful greetings as
they walk in the marketplaces. And how they love the seats of honor in church
and the head table at banquets. Yet they shamelessly devour widows’ houses,
cheating them out of their property, and then pretend to be pious by making
long prayers in public. Because of this, they will receive the greater
condemnation.” Here in Mark and in Luke, Jesus condemns ministers for “devouring
widows’ houses” and then points out
the widow, a severely disadvantaged and vulnerable member in ancient Jewish society.
All she has left to her name is two cents which she gives entirely to the Temple—doing
what she thought she was supposed to do because that’s what the teachers of the
law told her to do. Her house has now been completely devoured. It’s like the
elderly grandmother of a friend of mine who was conned into handing over most
of her social security check each month to some huckster preacher she watched
on TV because he said he was doing God’s work. She said, “He preached that if I
truly believed I should give all my money to his ministry and I’d be blessed.” How
could Jesus ever approve of that?
Far from providing a pious contrast to
the pompous conduct of the scribes and the rich; this story darkly illustrates
of the dangers of misguided devotion (thanks to Addison Wright for insights). The vulnerable widow was swindled by the
religious leaders to donate as she does. Jesus condemns the ill-advised values
that motivated her action, and he condemns the people who conditioned her to do
it. Read on in the verses immediately after
this and Jesus condemns the
entire Temple system, labeling it corrupt and doomed to destruction. The disciples
marvel at the magnificence of the Temple itself—which people’s offerings had
gone to construct and maintain. They tell Jesus to check out the impressive
stones and the beautiful architecture, to which Jesus replies, “Yes, look at
these great buildings. They will all be completely demolished. Not one stone
will be left on top of another!” How is it possible to feel inspired by the
widow’s offering now? Not only was her contribution totally foolish, thanks to
her being manipulated by the ministers, but given the future of the Temple
itself, her gift was a total waste.
Obviously this has turned into a train
wreck of stewardship sermon. How to salvage it? Let me try by suggesting to you
what may in fact be the main points of this passage; namely, four reasons not
to give or pledge any of your money to this church:
First: If your giving is in any way coerced
or manipulated by ministers who have every motivation to manipulate you since
our salaries are paid by your generosity, do not give or pledge any of your
money to this church.
Second: If your giving is in any way motivated
by a misguided sense of religious guilt or shame or fear whereby you worry that
God will condemn you harshly for not forking over enough, do not give or pledge
any of your money to this church.
Third: If your giving in any way threatens
your ability to feed your family, pay your bills or keep a roof over your head,
do not give or pledge any of your money to this church.
And finally: If your giving in any way comes
with any implicit strings attached, or if by giving you seek recognition or
applause for being such a generous person, do not give or pledge any of your
money to this church. The church does not want your money—at least we’re not
supposed to, not under circumstances or motivations like these.
There’s this beautiful stone
congregational church near Boston that I used to bike past all the time. It’s
called Wellesley Hills Congregational Church, and I was reading about they had
launched a recent stewardship campaign in order to raise $100,000 to renovate
their rundown Sunday School space for kids. Their pastor, Matt Fitzgerald, turns out to be a Minnesota native. He grew up in Duluth and lived
for many years in the Twin Cities with his family and is familiar with Colonial
Church. I found this out after emailing him on the heels of reading his story. As
the stewardship committee stuffed the last pledge card and licked the final
stewardship campaign envelope to go in the mail, a knock came at the office
door. It was a Hollywood movie scout. Having seen their beautiful church, he
was ready to give them $10K to shut down for three days so that his company
could film a wedding scene from an upcoming Adam Sandler movie. The movie plot
involved a teenager who gets his schoolteacher pregnant with the wedding scene taking
place several years later, when the offspring of this illicit union is a grown
man getting married. The scene had something to do with the guy punching a
guest who wouldn’t shut off his cell phone or something. Or maybe the minister
punched him, I don’t know.
Anyway, Matt wrote how he had seen
enough Adam Sandler movies to know they can be pretty funny sometimes, if not
pretty ridiculous. And making space for that particular kind of ridiculousness
in his somewhat stodgy sanctuary did make him smile a bit. Not only that, but $10K
would get the stewardship campaign off to a nice start. It’s not like they’d be
filming on a Sunday. So sure, he thought about saying yes. But then he
remembered what a pain it was to rent out the church for anything— there were always spills, odd requests, demanding guests
and insurance riders to worry about. All the clean up afterwards. At best his
church was good at being a church—they didn’t do much else that well, certainly
not as a site of a major motion picture. For better or worse, Matt described
his church as a classic mainline, main-street, tall-steeple,
in-bed-with-the-larger-culture kind of place. But he couldn’t see his church as
a Hollywood kind of place. “I am not the sort of Christian who would boycott a
movie (I might even wind up watching this one),” he wrote. “And we could use
the money. But the church I serve is not mine, and I found myself wanting to
protect its true owner from the world.” He said no.
So the Hollywood scout upped his
offer to $60K. That’s $20K per day just to use the building.
Now according to congregational
polity a pastor has the authority to turn down money, but Matt wasn’t sure he had
the authority to turn down this much
money. So he called a Congregational Meeting. At the meeting, most of the
congregation turned out to be pragmatic types—with a few Adam Sandler fans to
boot. They thought it would be fine to take the money. Congregationalists don’t
believe the church to be the building. It’s the people. Besides, times were
tight. This unexpected windfall would be a huge help to the kids of the church.
They’d get a brand new Sunday School wing. And the renovation would make that
part as beautiful as the rest of the building. Why look a gift horse in the
mouth?
However a small number of the
members, five to be exact, thought the gift horse looked more like a wolf in
sheep’s clothing. They felt very strongly that no matter how lightly the
treatment might be, their church should not be involved in a story that gets
laughs from the sexual exploitation of an adolescent. The Congregation Meeting went
round and round about this for several hours, desiring to reach a consensus
which for Congregationalists signals the confirmation of the Holy Spirit.
Unfortunately they weren’t getting confirmation. And it appeared as if they
would have to settle for a lack of consensus—albeit one with a nice payoff. By
majority rule, they’d take the money and try to patch things up with the people
who were offended afterwards.
But just then one of the deacons, one
who supported taking the money, stood up and said, “Look—it seems as if saying
yes to this offer is going to hurt some members of our congregation. Not most
people. Obviously not the majority. But some people. So I guess the question
isn’t about a movie. It’s about us. Is $60,000 worth hurting a part of our community?”
Five minutes later the congregation
voted unanimously to turn down the Hollywood offer even though most of them
thought it was OK to accept it. They went from polarized to selfless in a
matter of seconds. Matt the minister wrote, “I have mouthed unanswered prayers
inviting Jesus to join our meetings dozens of times. I have interrupted agendas
to speak confidently about his presence when he is nowhere to be found. This
time I kept my mouth shut, and he walked right in.”
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