A Richer Faith

Ruth 3: 1-5, 4: 13-17

Mark 12: 38-44

The month of November is often Stewardship month for many churches. This passage in the lectionary is a dream come true for a pastor searching for a way to inspire his or her people to give. However, I have never had any desire to preach a stewardship sermon in my life. It is not for me to tell you how much you should give to your church or to chastise you for not giving. That is an issue between God and yourself. Only God and you know what you can afford to give in both time and money toward your church.

Some of you are probably asking, “Then why are you bringing this up, Pastor Audra?”

Good question! The reason I bring it up is that this passage is not about giving money to a church or synagogue. It is Jesus commenting on people’s faithfulness to God. Jesus first looks at the teachers of the law. He commented to his disciples that these men appear to be the most righteous of people while secretly they were the worst sort of sinner.

The teachers of the law were men that had been given a lot of advantages in life. They could read and write and cipher. They had power in the synagogues and in the political arena. Everyone wanted to be their friend and everyone wanted to be in their good graces. These men had a lot of power and influence.

As it often happens, such power and influence may corrupt a person. They began to dress to suit their new station in life, and they began to pray with loud voices and long winded prayers to show how holy and righteous and important they were to God. They sought out the admiration of their fellow human beings and took what was not theirs to take. Someone had to finance their good lives and it was often the very people they were meant to protect.

These teachers of the law went from seeking the approval of God to seeking the approval of humanity. It is a fatal mistake and we are all prone to do it. The admiration of our peers is instantaneous unlike the admiration of God. Often God feels distant and elusive to us when we are down in the trenches of life. It can feel like we are constantly trudging uphill in our walk of faith as we seek to do good things and earn God’s approval and love.

I’m hoping some of you caught what I just said about earning God’s approval and love. The truth is that we do not need to earn anything when it comes to our Lord. Jesus did that for us. But society teaches us that nothing comes for free and if we want to be loved and accepted, then we need to be worthy of love and acceptance. This idea is so ingrained in our culture that it is hard to not try to seek God’s approval and love.

There are so many people in the world who think that they are these dirty, sinful people and that God could never love them. I’m not going to tell you that you’re not sinful. I’m not going to stand up here and lie to you. What I will tell you is that it is not your sinfulness that is a stumbling block to God’s love. The only thing that keeps you out of the Father’s arms is your own unwillingness to let go of your sin. The moment you accept that you are not perfect and that you have done wrong, and ask God to forgive you is the very moment you get to walk into God’s waiting arms, and feel the love and approval we all so desperately want. That is the gift Jesus Christ gave to us the day he offered himself on a cross for our sins.

But the world would tell us differently and so we fall for this trap. The teachers of the law fell for this trap of receiving admiration from those around them instead of seeking God. The moment we stop asking what God wants for us and what God thinks we should do is when we are in the most trouble, and risk being the greatest of hypocrites. Jesus is deeply disgusted with the teachers of the law who should know better than to seek others approval rather than God’s.

Then he turns to those who are giving to the local treasury and he watches these ostentatious displays as people give out of their abundance. We’ve all seen this kind of giving where a rich person hands a huge check to a hospital and gets their picture in the paper. Jesus is more impressed with the widow’s offering which is a mere pittance compared to what others are throwing in the offering bowl.

Perhaps because this woman does not march up in grand, flowing robes with her head high and her face shiny and clean. She does not make sweeping gestures that call attention to her. She does not announce loudly that she is about to give all that she has to live on to God. She does not say anything. She does not call any attention to herself. Instead, she humbly walks up to that bowl with money overflowing it, and she offers her two small coins and in that offering is a faith unlike any being offered that day. She was offering her very life to God because those two coins were all she had to live on.

Not twenty feet from her were the teachers of the law in their grand robes and loud voices, praying for the widows, the orphans, the resident aliens and the poor. They prayed for God’s mercy and Spirit to be with them, but they ignored the one that stood before them.

As a church we are called to take care of the widows, the orphans, the resident aliens and the poor. Not just to pray for them. Not just to offer a check here and there. We are called to invite them into our homes and our lives. We are called to suffer with them, to love them as Jesus loves them – by caring for their needs and listening to their stories.

Jesus asks the church not to be a place overflowing with beautiful windows and rich tapestries. Jesus calls the church to be his presence in the world. He calls us to invite those who are hurting to come inside and be comforted. He calls us to share our stories with each other, to share our lives, and pieces of our soul with those who have no one else to care for them.

It’s easier to pray in a loud voice. It’s easier to write a check. It’s easier to come on Sunday and forget what we heard on Monday when we see someone hurting. It’s easier to get caught up in church politics where this family is fighting with this family and Morty doesn’t come because we don’t sing the old reformed songs anymore. It’s easier to say, I’m busy or the church hurt me or if church was at a different time I’d come. We can pretend that the church is not worth our time because of the hurts we’ve experienced or the people that come to it.

Faithfulness is that old widowed woman who probably had a million excuses why she shouldn’t give her two coins, but did it anyway. Faithfulness is the teacher of the law who resists the power and influence, and continues to seek God’s face instead of the approval of those around him. Faithfulness is Jesus who will soon offer his body and soul for those that are not worthy of the sacrifice. You see, Jesus had more reason than any to offer up an excuse to not give to this unworthy place and these unworthy people. Perhaps that is why he feels such a connection to the widowed woman.

She offers her very life to God, puts it into his hands for an institution she knows is corrupt as the leaders pray nearby, but ignore her plight. Jesus offers his life and his relationship to God the Father for all of us who admit we are sinners and corrupt and unworthy. And because Jesus did that, we are made worthy. The church is not a perfect place and I will never be a perfect leader, just as all of us will never be perfect followers. But God calls us to worship Him, to care for one another, and to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

There is no excuse that will satisfy God for why we have not done His will, and there should not be an excuse that will satisfy us either.

Amen.

An Alien in Our Midst

Ruth 1: 1-18
Mark 12: 38-44

Ruth’s story is one of trials and adversity and begins with her mother in law, Naomi. Naomi and her husband were living in Bethlehem when the city that actually means “house of bread” had no food to offer its people. They decided to pack up their things and move to a land that was considered a place to be avoided at all costs – Moab. Nothing good ever came from Moab. And yet, in this strange land Naomi, her husband, and two sons not only find food and shelter there, they also find wives for their sons. Moab was the enemy and yet Naomi’s family found a home with that very enemy.

Then the unthinkable happens like it always does in life. Tragedy strikes. Naomi’s husband falls ill and dies. Ten years later, both of Naomi’s sons also die; leaving three widowed women which at that time in the world could be a death sentence because women had no way to provide for themselves. Being resourceful, Naomi begins to pack up the home she has made in Moab and decides to head back to her homeland which is now doing better economically.

Her two faithful daughters in law help her pack up their things and they head down the road. Naomi must have been scared, but she sees her two daughters in law, and she loves them so she turns and says, “Go back. Go back to your families and may the Lord bless you with new husbands and children.” But this story is about relationships and how God’s hand is deep within our relationships even when we do not realize it. These two women have come to see Naomi as a mother and they love her deeply so they do not want to leave her side.

But Naomi also loved them and she insisted they go back and so Orpah kissed her goodbye and headed back to her family. Ruth, however, is not going to be dissuaded from her mother in law’s side. She had accepted this woman as part of her family and believed deeply in the vows she had made to her husband. Ruth forsakes all that is familiar, all that is known to her to enter the enemy’s land and make a home there with her mother in law.

What we do not know yet in the story is that Ruth, this enemy woman from a land that nothing good ever comes from, will be the saving grace of a nation that hates the blood that runs in her veins. They hated her because she was different in every way. She looked differently from them, she spoke with an accent, she dressed in different clothing and even her gods were not the same. She was foreign; an alien. Ruth knew it was not going to be easy to leave behind the comfort of home, but she also knew that her place was with Naomi.

The promise Ruth makes to Naomi is one she fulfills. She tells Naomi, “Your people will be my people, your God my God. Where you die, I will die.” Ruth comes to Bethlehem with Naomi and begins a life there that has many consequences for the nation of Israel. From this foreign, alien, enemy woman came the line of descendants that give birth to King David, and consequently, the line Jesus was birthed from.

America is considered the great melting pot out of all the nations of the world. We tell ourselves and the world that immigrants are welcome to come and be a part of our society. We tell them that their ideas will be heard, and their differences will be accepted, even their religious differences. But then, the country of their birth will do something that negatively affects our nation and all of a sudden we look at these people not as immigrants, but as foreigners - different, strange, and perhaps our enemies.

Every generation in America has their own biases against people different from them. Many people who experienced WW2 still have a hard time accepting Japanese people as friends rather than enemies. The people who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s know what it is like to experience segregation and the terror of now having to integrate your life with people who you were sure hated you. Whether black or white, the fear was hard to fight. Those who experienced the terror of the Cold War look at Russians with distrust and fear. Then with what happened on 9/11 many people fear Muslims or anyone with darker skin or a turban on their head, assuming they must be Muslim or a terrorist.

Ruth’s story reminds us that not every foreigner is our enemy. Not every alien from a land we distrust is someone we must look on with fear. Ruth’s story reminds us that human beings are to be treated as individuals, that God has a far greater plan for each of us than we may ever know, and it reminds us that even when God is not directly mentioned in our life, that God’s guiding hand never leaves us.

The love Ruth felt for Naomi allowed her to face the fear of rejection, the certainty of isolation and discrimination all so she may help her mother in law reestablish her life with dignity in her old age. She could not in good conscience leave this woman to travel her new path alone and so she walks with her in faith and courage. From the enemy of Israel a new nation is birthed. From the homeless foreigner comes a home without equal. From the alien, widowed woman Jesus Christ our Savior is born.

As Christians, we all know intellectually that we should be like Jesus. Jesus who was as accepting of foreigners as he was of his fellow Jewish people. Jesus who understood a person may sin, but that does not make them evil. Jesus who loved each person on their own merits and not by what the world would say about them. In our heads, we understand this perfectly, and I think most of us even try to follow it.

It is when our hearts get caught up in our passion that the cool logic goes out the window. We all know that not every American is a good person just as we aren’t all bad either. We all know there are good Japanese people and bad Japanese people. We all know that there are good black people and bad black people as well as good white people and bad white people. We all know that there are good Russians and bad Russians and good Muslims and bad Muslims. But when a nation attacks us and kills those we love, that logic goes out the window as our hearts burn with vengeance, fear, and wounded pride.

It would be so easy to give in to our fear and hurt and pain. But in Ruth we are given a powerful reminder that God’s ways are not our ways. When we allow fear to rule us we make bad decisions. When we allow hate to cloud the facts, we inevitably do things we will regret. When we allow ourselves to only see a person’s differences we are never given the chance to find what we have in common. Ruth may have looked and spoken and even prayed to a different god than those in Bethlehem, but her heart was as pure as any to be found in that city. Her loyalty and love for an old woman saved a whole country and it saved all of us.

Through Ruth, we encounter the grace of God. Through that grace we have been given a second, a third, a hundredth chance to make it right. We need every single chance God gives us. It is time for us to start giving the same chances to those we deem different or strange or alien. It is time for us to remember God’s love is what makes it possible to be here today. It is time to remember that fear and hatred only take us farther from Jesus, and if Ruth had allowed fear and prejudice of those who were different from her to rule her actions, then our lives would be very different.

Amen.