Psalm 146; Mark 12: 38-44
Lordship Community Church, Stratford, CT
November 11, 2012
(Whenever song lyrics appear in my sermons, I sing them.)
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| Widow's Mite, JesusMafa.com |
This is a story that Jesus could have
told alongside the story from Mark’s gospel of the robber baron scribes and the
widow’s offering of all she had. It
comes from Calcutta, India, from the Missionaries of Charity and their superior,
Mother Theresa.
Unfortunately it was
nothing unusual for her, just an entire family in one of the slums of Calcutta
that was suffering from malnourishment, nearly on the brink of starvation. Mother Theresa put some rice into a sack, a
few handfuls—all that she could spare—and delivered it to this desperately
hungry family. The mother was so
thankful and joyous, she instantly took the bag of rice into their small
cooking and living space. In a few
moments she came out with half of the rice in a container and rushed down a
small alley. Puzzled, Mother Theresa
called after her, “Where are you going with that rice?” The poor mother replied, “I know another
family who has nothing to eat, who also needs rice.”
Prosperity
and poverty live side by side in Calcutta or Kolkata. In a city the size of Dublin reside more than
14 million people. Alongside beautiful
historic buildings and its educated middle class, reside the sick and the
dying, the starving and destitute outcasts, about 3 million people. Calcutta has a rich history of religious
tolerance, with Hindus, Muslims and Christians living together in community. Yet even though all three religions advocate
for the poor and decry the injustice of poverty, still 80% of those living in
slums live on $11 - $37 a month.
None
of us really like to sit through public service announcements picturing the
bloated bellies of children or gaunt-faced women breastfeeding a baby, asking
for our support. When we go to a city we
try to avoid panhandlers or anyone with a cardboard sign or we give the change
jangling in our pockets. None of us likes
guilt; none of us are truly motivated to give more because we may feel guilty
about the abundance we enjoy.
This
is not a sermon about guilt and money.
We’ve all heard more than our share of them, and they’re not highly
effective at changing our giving habits and money attitudes. Instead, I’d rather talk about knowing our own
worth as a human being, and thus knowing the worth of every other human being
on this planet.
There
are two interpretations of this reading from Mark. The traditional understanding is that Jesus
is praising the widow’s religious devotion, for giving all she had to live on,
in contrast to the offerings of the rich, who are giving what will not be
missed. The other explanation is that
Jesus is lamenting that this poor woman is being taken advantage of by the
religious authorities, paying for the expenses of the temple out of an already
impoverished pocket.
I
would like to propose a third reading of this passage. The widow, having no one else, sees herself
as connected to a larger, wider family, that of her faith; that in her giving
she becomes part of the community, that she too can give, like those around
her. The widow knows her worth as a
child of God and gives accordingly. What
Jesus praises is that she knows her own worth, that she has not devalued
herself because she is a poor widow.
When
Jesus observes the scribes in their long flowing robes, sitting in the best
seats, requiring acknowledgment and respect from others, and saying long
prayers just for show, I doubt these scribes saw themselves as connected to the
poor, the outcast, to the orphaned and the widowed. Most people who strut have not only an
inflated sense of self but are also fearful and insecure. They are more likely to be disconnected,
lonely, and isolated. When Jesus says
that they will receive the greater condemnation, I interpret that he is saying
that not only will they suffer the consequences of their actions and attitudes
but they will do so alone—separated and apart from others.
The
great gift of the incarnation, of God with us, is the realization that we are
all connected, one to another, and to the earth, to the creation itself.
Long lay the world, in sin and error pining,
‘til he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
If Jesus is lamenting
anything, I think it would be over the rich scribes and others who don’t yet
realize that their worth is not dependent on money or influence or power or
education but simply that they draw breath.
In the first creation story, when God made human beings and breathed
life into them, God declared them good before they had done anything. When as yet Jesus had not yet begun his
ministry but had simply risen out of the waters of baptism, God declared that
he was a beloved child.
But we human beings tend
to size up others based on actions rather than seeing the deeper kinship we
share. Often we put ourselves in the
place of God, forgetting that it is God who judges “people and nations by
[God’s] righteous will, declared through prophets and apostles.” It takes a lot of hard work to be able to see
all people the way God sees people—as beloved children. And that is because we don’t yet know our own
worth. We don’t yet see ourselves as
precious. We don’t yet see the hope that
God has placed in each and every one of us.
The Son of God lay thus in lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need; our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!
Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest in
Los Angeles, has been working with gang members for the past twenty years
through his organization Homeboy Industries.
When they are ready to leave the life of gangbanging, maybe when they
get out of jail, maybe when a close friend dies, maybe when they become a mom
or a dad for the first time, these young people come to Greg, or G as they call
him, for a job in the Homeboy Silkscreen warehouse or the bakery or Homegirl café
or in another offsite job that partners with them. In his book Tattoos on the Heart, Greg
describes, in story after story, how these once violent, risky kids begin to
see themselves as something other than a life that will end before the age of
25; as something other than a target for a bullet; as something other than a
waste of a human being. They begin to
see that their soul has worth.
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| Homeboy Diner |
But then the stories catch us up
short, because this young man or that young woman who saw their worth then dies
as a result of a stray bullet or one that was meant for them. Greg has baptized over a thousand gang
members and their families but he’s also buried over 160 of them. Over and over again he is asked the question,
and he asks it of himself too: What’s the
point of doing good if this can happen to you?
What’s the point of changing your life if you don’t even get a chance to
really live it? The answer that Greg
came to was this: these gang members
were human beings who came to know the truth about themselves and liked what
they found there. He says, “What is
death compared to knowing that? No
bullet can pierce it.” All she had to live on. And the soul felt its worth.
In the Monroe Congregational
Church we say our church covenant as a Body of Christ every Sunday except
Communion Sundays when we say the UCC Statement of Faith. In our covenant we promise ‘all that we are
and all that we have, to the fulfillment of God’s kingdom’. In order to promise all that we are and all
that we have we need to know our worth.
And of course it’s a journey that we’re on, a process that we’re engaged
in. I’ve yet to see a member of my
church ‘give it all up for Jesus’.
But we don’t come to know our
worth on our own. In Africa it is said
that we become a person through other people.
It is through our connections, our relationships, through a sense of
belonging that we know our own worth.
The more connected we are, the more engaged we are with others—others of
all stripes and not just our own—we begin to see ourselves and others the way
God sees us: as something other than abundantly rich or oppressively poor or
somewhere in between; as something other than one of the many labels that have
been placed on us or that we own with pride; as something other than just an obscure
person who can’t make much of a difference.
Do you, Lordship Community
Church, know your own worth as a body of Christ? Do you realize how precious you are in the
eyes of God? How have you experienced
the hope that God has placed in you? How
do you connect with the wider church and have a relationship with it?
When we know the truth about
ourselves and like what we find there, we give not out of our abundance what we
won’t miss, we put in everything we have--even our hopes, our dreams, our fears--all that we have to live on, to the
fulfillment of God’s kin-dom. We give so
that others may know that we are kin to them and they are kin to all of
creation. Death can’t touch it. No bullet can pierce it. Love is its name.
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
Amen.
