Enough to Share - Part 2 of our Series on Generosity (All Saints Sunday)
How many of you have read at least part of this story from Mark’s gospel over the years as an illustration and celebration of sacrificial generosity on the part of a poor widow who is giving all that she has for the good of her community?
Because that is definitely how I was taught from childhood to hear verses 41 – 44 of this story. I can still envision the illustration from my Sunday school handout, a poorly dressed woman, stooped and devoted, dropping her coins in the appointed place with an expression of happiness or at least one of neutrality. One image I found for preschoolers even had the text from 2 Cor 9:7 – “God loves a cheerful giver…” inscribed beneath it…although for copyright reasons, that is not the version you are seeing right now…(there is an image for this)
As we’ve learned over the past few weeks of our journey through Mark’s gospel, holding the parts of this text together and looking at why one teaching or one illustration follows another can reveal something much more nuanced and complex than perhaps the first understanding we have developed.
So let’s look back at the first part of our reading, too.
I was taught to hear the first part of this text – the one about long prayers and long robes – as a critique of religious hypocrisy – a warning against gathering the accolades and power of religious roles without living in a way that really exemplifies a love of God. It was a teaching about pride. And that alone is probably sufficient for some moments.
But when we link these two moments, we have Jesus tying together some key observations. Rather than taking these teaching moments as distinct lessons, let’s hold them together and see how they inform one another. And while we’re at it, we should tie it into the bigger arc of Mark’s teachings about the Kin-dom of God.
Remember that last week, Josef brought us a good word about the commandment to love God and one another. Jesus taught that this was the vital thing – loving as God loves. That episode from Mark is just a few verses before our verses for today.
In that teaching, Jesus draws on a teaching from Deuteronomy – a text foundational to Jesus’ Jewish identity. Love for God and for the community is the work of honoring God. And so in the Temple courts, in the location from which one would expect all religious authority to flow, Jesus is reminding those present of some very fundamental values in their faith.
Love your neighbor.
In today’s text, Jesus continues teaching, warning about religious officials spouting piety in their fancy robes and long prayers heaped with words, all while a poor widow drops all she has in the Temple treasury.
(I confess that as I stand here before you today in a robe and stole, this is a hard text for me. I wrestle with this here and now.)
Somewhere in our history, the verses about the widow’s two coins may have been explained to us as a teaching about cheerful giving, but the text doesn’t actually say anything about the woman’s attitude as she gives. All we have is what Jesus says – some give from their wealth, and she gives everything she has to give. She is giving herself, in some ways, just as Jesus had described the life of discipleship over the past 6 weeks or so.
But when we tie this back to that teaching about the greatest commandment from last week, there is something more here for us to think about though…
As one commentator put it this week, the scandal of this text is that there is a widow who only has two coins.
The scandal is not rich robes and long prayers.
The scandal is not a widow’s generosity.
The scandal is that the widow is poor.
The scandal is that in the shadow of a faith community that claims to esteem loving God and neighbor, this woman only has two coins. While the leaders have more than enough.
Where is the love shown to this widow by the faithful of Jerusalem?
What does her poverty reveal about the generosity of those around her?
If we were to look at the financial accounts of those temple officials, those religious elite, what would their ledgers say about their priorities?
Today is the second in a four-part series that prepares us to celebrate God’s abundance in our lives as we build our church’s capacity for generosity in 2022.
Perhaps we hear that sentence to mean that we are considering our individual financial commitments to the church for the year to come in order to build together the church’s revenue budget – a budget that determines how we are able to pay bills like utilities and salaries.
And while that might be the technical reality, my prayer is that the work that we are doing this month is NOT a budget process – it is a process of learning and growing, getting to know and understand God’s abundant love and our response to that love better day by day. So that we can continue to stretch ourselves into the world and share from that abundance with the community around us. It is the work of letting our financial ledger – personal and communal – reflect what we value the most.
And I pray that what we value is love for our neighbor, and for helping people meet and know God. So that they know that God loves them. So that they feel claimed and embraced by a creative God.
I pray that we might take seriously the idea that there is enough to go around – and that all we have is enough. There is enough love. There is enough to share – enough wisdom, enough care, enough time and talent and treasure. God has created enough.
I pray that we might pour ourselves out so that others may have life…and have it abundantly.
One of my early conversations at Faith was with a long-time member who shared that much of his financial support went directly to specific causes, in part because they were not convinced that the church was committed to making a difference in the world.
That conversation crystalized for me the way that the Spirit was calling out to Faith United Methodist Church.
Since that conversation, I have enjoyed so many opportunities with that conversation partner to refocus Faith's energy how we serve the community. That conversation was, in many ways, the impetus for a challenge to tithe from our offerings. It was the impetus to reimagine Faith’s work of outreach, which already had a solid foundation but now seeks to involve more people in conversation and action. It was the impetus for stepping into hard conversations about anti-racism and the full inclusion of LGBTQ folx as acts of justice and compassion and mercy.
In so many ways, that conversation has guided my prayer and hope and our emerging shared visions over the past two years. It has challenged me to look at our expense ledger with new eyes – where do we do collectively with our treasure?
Are there starving widows in our Rockville community? Certainly there are.
Are there refugees seeking safety? Certainly there are.
Is there injustice? Certainly there is.
Today is the day we celebrate the feast of All Saints. In less church-y terms, we remember those we love and have lost in the past year, those no longer with us as living bodies, but those who are part of the fabric of who we are – genetically or otherwise.
It is also a Sunday when we gather at the table to share bread and wine – to remember – to literally re – member – to bring the parts of the body of Christ together once again in order to be nourished and fed and sent out as bread for the world.
Often when we gather, I remind us that we gather with generations that have gone before us….the generations that have occupied this particular Table, invited us to this particular table, and I remind us that the Table is not Faith Church’s table. It is God’s Table. And our work is to keep extending this table.
And as I worked to hold together the idea of an upside down kin-dom and what that had to do with our individual and collective sense of enough resources, and the beloved we have lost and the work we are called to, these lyrics flowed around me:
For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star overhead,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!
Can we hear this scripture from today – can we receive the critique of the religious elite alongside the image of a widow pouring herself out, can we lay all of that next to the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor – and imagine how we might work to be sure that indeed, for everyone born, there is a place at the table, clean water and bread, a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing…for everyone born, a star overhead.
Can we imagine God’s delight – DELIGHT – when we create justice. And let’s be clear that true justice – God’s justice – is a joyful thing. Where “joy” is so much bigger than happiness, where joy is a deep sense of connection and wholeness. Can we imagine God’s delight?
Now, I confess that I had this sermon all written by noon Thursday, and it was one of those Spirit led moments where it came together really quickly…what had been percolating in my brain and heart had come from the idea of a place at the table for everyone, and then I received a message on Friday from Melissa Lauber suggesting I listen to Bishop Easterlings sermon delivered to the Council of Bishops on Friday as they met online.
And she was talking about tables.
The Holy Spirit isn’t playing around beloved.
And Bishop Easterling nuanced her message – pointing out that in the institutional church, it is entirely possible that our universal table is broken …and part of the work is building new tables that are inviting, open, practical, what people really need.
Tables that maybe don’t gather on Sunday morning.
Tables where maybe folks get what they need in the way of language skills or health care or bread for the next day.
Tables where young folks who don’t understand the way some older folks do church and want to learn and build a new way.
Tables where families of all shapes and sizes and formations feel no barriers to belonging.
Tables we cannot even imagine yet.
This past week in an email exchange, a member shared, “There is no shortage of good work that could be done here.”
Indeed. That work is done by the intentional sharing of our time, our talent, our treasure – so that people know God’s love. So that there are tables for everyone. Especially new and different tables because the world has changed and is changing.
Folks, there is more than enough. There is enough to share.
May it be so.
Amen.
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