November 8, 2009: Mark 12:38-44
To all preachers who intend to squeeze a stewardship sermon out of this text: Warning! Stop reading here!
To the rest of my readers: You know the drill. God accepts the smallest gift if it’s given from the heart! God blesses those who give sacrificially! The least coin is worth more to God, and the church, than the fattest cheque! (But if you can write a big cheque, God will bless you too!)
Would Jesus really praise someone who guaranteed her own starvation for the sake of the temple? Jim Bakker (remember him?) or Joel Osteen might praise her. Ministries like theirs depend on widows and spiritual orphans.
In these last chapters of Matthew, Jesus is in a hurry. He’s rushing toward the cross. When opposition doesn’t come to him he goes looking for it. Mark wants us to see Jesus’ unquestionable authority, and the inability of the powerful to accept him for who he is.
Jesus rails against the system. He pronounces doom on a religious establishment that already hangs on compromise and corruption. As he watches the contributors parade through the temple treasury, he’s not looking for an example of good stewardship. He’s not there to teach his disciples a lesson about sacrificial giving.
He seethes with anger as the rich righteous make their donations to prop up a structure and bask in its glory. They give large amounts, at least the required percentage of income. Significant support, but no real sacrifice.
There’s no middle class in Jesus’ day. These men are the closest thing to it. They have assets. They do business. They own land. They employ people. They’re of the patron class of the time, though some of them are beholden to even wealthier men.
The really, really rich have inherited wealth or positions of influence in the Roman Empire. They don’t bother with religion. At least public religion. They may have their own priests at home. Or minions who go to temples on their behalf.
The poor are the largest class. And widows are the poorest of the poor. This widow is out in public, alone. She has a coin in her hand. Unless there’s a son, or a father-in-law at home, she has no one.
We want to hear Jesus speak of her kindly. “Look at her. She has given all she has. Isn’t that wonderful!” Resist the temptation to sand the sharp edges off Jesus’ temper. Imagine him shaking his head. “They’ve done it again! The scribes. The men in long robes. The men at the centre of things. The landlords. The creditors. The priests! Sucked the blood from someone who needs every drop, just to stay alive. Barely alive.”
Jesus doesn’t teach good stewardship here. Jesus condemns bad religion, and goes on to proclaim its certain end. Read on to chapter 13. Jesus doesn’t damn just the Jews of his day, or all Jews, or all religion. Beware those simple conclusions.
Jesus anticipates a new age dawning. Preparation for its arrival is as urgent now as it was when he stepped into the Jordan. For us, as urgent at the end of this Pentecost season as it was when Advent began last year. This is a time for putting things in order. First things first. Turning away from anything that burdens the over-burdened, takes from those who have nothing left to give, sucks the life from those already dry.
I imagine that poor widow loves her church building. It’s inseparable from her love of God and her identity as a child of Israel. If Jesus tells her the temple will be the end of her before its own end comes, she won’t believe him. But deep in her heart, I think there’s a question. Is this really what God wants?
As we draft our church budgets for 2010, will we dare ask out loud that same question? It’s in our hearts, too.
