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.