Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Kansas City, MO

November 12, 2006
(Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 27)

Poverty is Relative

1 Kings 17:8-16 • Psalm 146 or 146:4-9 • Hebrews 9 24-28 • Mark 12:38-44
(From The Lectionary Page)

For the last two years, I’ve begun the sermon on this day with a very bad joke. I want to assure you that this year is no different.

A devout Scottish Calvinist minister wished to preach on the evils of drinking, smoking, and gluttony, and decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon. Four worms were placed into four separate jars.

• The first worm was put into a container of alcohol.
• The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke.
• The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup.
• The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil.

At the conclusion of the lengthy sermon, the Minister checked the four containers and reported the following results:

• The first worm in alcohol - Dead.
• The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead.
• The third worm in chocolate syrup - Dead.
• Fourth worm in good clean soil - Alive.

So the Minister asked the congregation, "What do we learn from this demonstration?"

Angus who was sitting in the back, was the first to stand and proudly proclaimed, "As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won't have worms!"

On behalf of the people of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral I wish to welcome members of the St. Andrew’s Society, and other visitors who are here for the 31st Kirkin o’ the Tartan. This year is the 700th anniversary of the crowning of Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland at Scone and the raising of the Royal Banner of Scotland, an event that fueled the long struggle for freedom and independence.

We have entered this liturgy led by the Royal Banner of the Holy Cross. Let us now Break open the Word of God as we approach the Holy Table and the Breaking of the Bread. For it is in Christ that we are truly made free.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Buried in the 12th Chapter of Mark's Gospel is our reading for today. Jesus is standing outside the temple treasury. Just a bit earlier he entered Jerusalem for the final time, riding on a donkey.

Our Lord caused quite a scene by literally overturning the Temple culture by driving out the moneychangers. Still in the Temple square, Jesus is in the area known as the Court of the Women, where containers for offerings stand along the wall. The containers are shaped like upside-down funnels; narrow at the top where coins are dropped in, and wider at the bottom where the coins accumulate. Here Jesus sits and watches people.

And there are lots of people to watch, because pilgrims are in town to celebrate the Passover, and many of the pilgrims are wealthy. They can, and do, deposit large sums. But there are also other people of more modest means scattered throughout the crowd. Along comes one such person, a woman. She wears the traditional dark veil and garments of a widow, and from the looks of her clothes, she must be nearly destitute.

She drops coins into the funnel-shaped containers, two copper leptons, the smallest coin in circulation, each worth about 1/8 of a cent, the minimum, the absolute smallest contribution allowed by temple regulations. And for this gift, she receives the highest commendation of anyone who gives anything in all of the Gospels. [M. Wenger, New Proclamation, Yr B, 2003, pg 246.]

Her 2, 1/8 of a cent coins will do nothing to keep the temple running, her gift means virtually nothing in terms of buying power. So why is she the Gospel model for giving? Jesus said, because she put in more than everyone else.

The Rev. Gordon Cosby, tells of an incident from his first church, a small Baptist congregation in a railroad town just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia. As Cosby tells it:

My deacon sent for me one day and told me that he wanted my help. "We have in our congregation," he said, "a widow with six children. I have looked at the church records and discovered that she is putting into the treasury of the church each month $4.00 - a tithe (10%) of her income. Of course, she is unable to do this. [Pastor,] we want you to go and talk to her and let her know that she needs to feel no obligation whatsoever, and free her from the responsibility."

I am not wise now [writes Gordon]; I was less wise then. I went and told her of the concern of the deacons. I told her as graciously and as supportively as I knew how that she was relieved of the responsibility of giving. As I talked with her the tears came into her eyes. "I want to tell you," she said, "that you are taking away the last thing that gives my life dignity and meaning."

"I tried to retrieve the situation. I was unable to do it. I went home and pondered the story of Jesus in the temple watching the people put their offerings in the collection plate. Jesus' attitude amazed me. He had the audacity to watch what people were putting in the offering plate. Not only did he have the audacity to watch, he had the audacity to comment. Of the rich who put in large sums he said, "They put in what they can easily afford." Of the poor widow who dropped in two coins, he said, "She in her poverty, who needs so much, has given away everything, her whole living." [Letters To Scattered Pilgrims, by E. O'Conner, quoted by K. Kubicek, Sermons That Work.] I now know that In return, she received meaning and dignity.

Jesus contrast's the commitment of the widow at the Treasury with the commitment of the religious leaders. They do not live up to the prophets' strongest teachings to care for widows, orphans, and strangers. Instead, the religious leaders devour women like the widow.

Our Lord could not be clearer: when the poor are consumed by the greed of others or by the greed of society, and when the poor are created by society’s indifference or outright actions meant to keep the poor poor, the Temple, the House of God and the people who call that House “home” have a responsibility to act and act boldly. Our personal commitment to God and the commitment of this cathedral is alive and strong when widows never have just ¼ of a cent in their purses.

And Jesus is making a second point. The Bible almost always refers to the poverty of widows, as in the story of Elijah as well as the Gospel. Widows were almost always poor, because male relatives were their only benefactors. And in the case of the woman at the Temple Treasury, if all you have is two coins, it really is easy to give them away. Because if all you have is two coins, you are totally dependent upon others for your next meal and place to sleep. Jesus is saying, when you and I are just as dependent upon God, then our giving will look just like the widow's. We will put into the temple treasury everything. The more dependent we are on God, the greater our gift. [M. Wenger, New Proclamation, Yr B, 2003, pg 246.]

My sisters and brothers: You and I, and the Church, need what the widow had. We need her sense of dependence on God, we need her ability to absolutely trust in nothing less than God's grace. And like Gordon Cosby's widow, we need the sense to know that dignity and meaning for our life comes from giving.

This poor widow put in more that all who are contributing to the treasury, Jesus said. She sets an example that has a definite Scottish ring to it, a desire to do what is right despite the odds and the arguments against such faith. Living with such dignity, meaning, and generosity is a goal for all of the actual and figurative descendants of Robert the Bruce. It’s a challenge all people of goodwill can embrace. In this widow is an example we cannot afford to ignore. We need more of this widow’s spirit.

What a Cake Will Get You

by The Rev. Dr. Michael Johnston

Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them gave out of their abundance; but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had to live on.

Now there’s a little piece of Scripture to make you squirm in your pew, strategically placed for a Sunday in this season of stewardship. Its guilt-producing message is clear: If that poor widow could ante-up with everything she had to live on, surely you can cough-up a few extra copper coins to keep the treasury of this temple full. And forget about tithing; 10% gets you off too easily; God demands that you commit everything you have to him! Your last pair of pennies.

That’s pretty much how fund-raising preachers have read this text throughout the ages. And they will hasten to tell you that the story of the Widow’s Mite is a penetrating insight into the superior piety of the poor and the religious hypocrisy of the rich. In fact, the first half of this evening’s Gospel would seem to underscore their interpretation. Because Jesus paints a scathing picture of the scribes -- who were the elite custodians of institutional religion in their time. They loved walking around in better dress; relished the friendly waves of the staff at Starbucks; and expected first-name recognition by the synagogue ushers. In short, in every aspect of social and religious life, the scribes wanted to be endowed with special status -- precisely the attitude that is most antithetical to Jesus. In fact, when you place this story in Mark’s historical context, the indictment is even more severe. As it turns out, there was an economic institution in Second Temple Judaism called the Scribal Trustee, which managed the estates of widows. Women, of course, couldn’t be entrusted with the affairs of their late husbands. So the scribes, because of their public reputation for piety -- hence Mark’s allusion to the pretext of long praying -- earned the right to administer estates. As compensation, they got a percentage of the assets. But the practice was notorious for abuse, if not embezzlement. Many a scribe seems to have run a widow’s money to ground on his own behalf. By contrast, Torah Judaism was supposed to protect the vulnerable:

Leviticus, for example, is quite specific on the details of economic justice:

• Leave your field for the stranger to glean;
• Do not steal or deal falsely;
• Do not oppress the neighbor, exploit your employees, or discriminate against the disabled;
• And -- here it is! -- do not take the widow’s cloak in pledge.

Do not take the widow’s cloak in pledge. In other words, do not rob her of the very last thing she’s got. And that seems to be precisely what the scribal system did. So Mark, ever critical of the political economy of the Temple, denounces scribal piety as a thin veneer for economic exploitation. Prayer, he says, has become perjury! And he uses the story of the widow’s pledge to illustrate his point.

This text is not an accolade for her giving; it is a lament on the value system that prompts it.

And, with that assessment, Jesus “exits” the Temple. It is his last visit there in Mark’s gospel.

But let me spin this in a slightly different direction. The truth of this text, it seems to me, is neither a criticism of the rich nor a commendation of the poor. In fact, Jesus doesn’t really comment one way or another on either reality. He simply notes that two groups have contributed: the rich out of their abundance, the poor out of their poverty. No judgement is offered on either pattern. And that takes me to the Old Testament Lesson and the other widow, the one called Zarephath. But a little background first.

Zarephath was a town in Philistine territory, somewhere in the strip of coastal plain, along the Mediterranean Sea, that runs from Gaza in the south to Haifa in the north. The ancient Israelites never really penetrated this region and never really displaced the Philistines. So Yahweh never had much draw in that piece of beachfront real estate that today includes greater Tel Aviv.

The Philistines, in fact, were worshipers of the god Baal -- something of a deity for the upwardly mobile, who promised prosperity to his followers and sufficient rain for their crops whenever they needed it.

Now Elijah, ever the cranky defender of Yahweh, said, “Oh no! That Won't Do!” And so he asked the true God of heaven to demonstrate that heaven cannot be manipulated by the worshipers of good luck. Accordingly, God shut up the skies for three and a half years, and there was no rain at all, no prosperity, and no food. Which is basically where we come into the story this evening. Turns out the famine was so severe that Elijah himself got hungry, and God said “Go! Go over to the widow of the Philistines, that Palestinian woman, that stranger. She will feed you.” And, of course, she does. Peasant hospitality and sharing is, in fact, an ancient tradition in what we call the Third World. However, at the front end, things in this story don’t look much better than the one about Mark’s widow in the Temple. Another woman ripped-off by the commands of the cult. “Make me a little cake first,” he says. Destitute and dying, gathering just enough small twigs to fire a small oven, to bake a small loaf -- so that the pains of death will not be aggravated by the pains of hunger -- she is nevertheless instructed to share her last piece of pieta bread with a prophet of a foreign god. But consider what happens when she does the hospitable thing. Her little flask of oil keeps filling itself up, and her little jar of meal is never emptied. “And she, and he, and her household ate for many days.”

What has happened here, of course, is that the God who frees and feeds has walked in on the story. But perhaps more to the point, the widow has been given the chance to invest in the future of God’s people, to share in the miracle meals of God’s abundance: “And she, and he, and her household ate for many days.” Likewise, I think, for the widow in the Temple.

The quality of a gift is never set by its inherent cash value, but by what it represents for the giver. Is it a small percentage of abundance, a "drop in the bucket," as we say? Or is it the whole bucket? What commitment has gone into the gift? How much does it reflect the giver’s life, her values, and the investment he is willing to make in the future of God and God’s people? God, of course, will use any gift -- large or small -- and any talent. But none of us is off the hook -- neither the rich nor the poor. Nor the widow, nor the worker, nor the unemployed. Not even the unbeliever! It is God’s expectation that we will all invest in preserving the prophetic voice of Israel and in promoting the message of the Gospel. Thus does the woman of Zarephath give to Elijah; and thus does the widow in the Temple toss away her last two coins. They have given of their lives, which is the only measure of their giving.

And that is what our Stewardship Campaign also asks of you. If you’re going to squirm in your pew this evening – and I would like to imagine you might -- it should not be because of some sense of guilt that your gift to Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is too small. Of course, the bigger the better. It is not my design or desire to stifle the generous impulse. But if you are going to sit uncomfortably, do so because you’re trying to figure out the connection between your values and your gifts. Shift in your seat not about the size of your pledge, but because God asks you to take the measure of your life in terms of your commitment to the future of his Kingdom in this place. And remember that every measure of oil poured in helps to ensure that the cruet never runs dry. That every measure of grain feeds us, our children, and the work of the Gospel here. That we all may share in the meals of many days ahead.

Some years ago, about this time, there was a piece in the New York Times, on the front page of the Arts and Leisure section, about Oscar Wilde -- who died a hundred years ago that month. It is said of Wilde that he gave us one of his better quips as he lay in his final illness in a run-down hotel in Paris: “I am dying,” he said, “as I have lived, beyond my means.” Wilde, so far as I know, was not a robust believer. Perhaps no believer at all. But his words, however apocryphal, mirror the actions of the ladies in our lessons for today. They too lived life beyond their means. Love, after all, is always written in red ink. Maybe, just maybe, to have lived for God beyond our means, in this place and time, is the exit line for us all.