November 8, 2009
The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:24-28;
Mark 12:38-44
We are rapidly approaching the pledge drive season. And isn’t it interesting that the master minds, who put together the lectionary, chose this season to have us hear the pericopies (or bible readings) that deal with money? I assume it is no accident! And I have to admit that I have been chastised for speaking about money and the giving of money from the pulpit. So I approach this sermon with the same qualms that I imagine the widow had that morning at the temple when the rich and the mighty were making a big show of their “generosity” and she had so little to give.
Jesus was never afraid to talk about money, but few of us are like him. We all, not just the preachers in the pulpits, are a bit nervous about talking about money. It’s not considered polite, and it is one topic that we tend to keep secret or make excuses about – even if we handle our money very well. It is a topic, like politics and sex, that is considered taboo in most conversations.
So imagine if you will that all our money is made of coins, and that we lug it around in fancy, or not so fancy, bags. There is no credit card or check, no paper bills, just coins of the realm. And those coins come in various sizes, and are made of increasingly more valuable metals.
When it came time to take care of the extra needs of the temple, which you understand was not the time of tithing. The tithe was an automatic requirement: all were required to give ten percent in many different ways, from sacrificing animals to the first fruits of their labor. We see evidence of that first fruits in the story about Ruth and Naomi. Farmers were required to tithe a minimum one-tenth of their crop to the poor. It wasn’t an option. They were to leave food in the fields for people to take. They had no control over “who” but there was an ethos that said the poor would not starve. Farmers could not use that portion for their own use but had to give it away, off the top so to speak. They couldn’t ask questions like “one-tenth of my gross income” from the crops or “what I have after taxes?” And they paid the tax without question too!
Ruth and Naomi survived because of that Hebrew law/ethos. They came up with a plan B, told in shorthand in the lesson today – but that is the topic for another sermon!
So the people gave one-tenth off the top to the temple. They tithed. And the size of the “tithe” may have been pushed upward but it was never less than ten percent. Then, as was the case the day Jesus was in the temple court, this morning’s gospel, offerings were taken from time to time when people responded from their bounty, out of the sheer joy of giving, and without any restrictions about how the money was to be spent.
So here was this very poor woman – imagine her – clutching her two measly coins together, watching the others, especially the scribes and Pharisees who kept careful track of who was giving and who wasn’t and how much they gave – determined by the noise their coins made when deposited. They stood there judging, of course, making sure their offering was bigger and more noisy than the others.
The coins all made a different noise as they clanked into the metal box. Think about the difference between the noise a huge number of heavy coins would make and the tinkling noise a couple of copper pennies when they are tossed into the same metal box!
The woman gave all she had, and the religious ones, the high and the mighty, demeaned her meager gift.
But Jesus was quick to point out that she gave her all. They gave from their bounty; they wouldn’t even miss what they had given, maybe not even notice it. It make no material difference in their lives to give it away. The gift was really not a gift at all but a way of making themselves look good, or promoting their own agenda. It was not about giving in thanks to God. It was not a celebration of the wonderful things in their lives. It was a purchase, made for “show” that they might be recognized by others as generous and wealthy, that they might be given status and be honored because they could give so much.
Jesus saw right through them!
He extolled the virtue of the poor woman. She gave all she had.
As I read and thought about this widow this week, I had new insight into the difference between tithing and giving. Tithing is what we do because it is the least that is required of us. We tithe to the church because it is our responsibility, each of us, to provide for the well being of this community. However, it is when we give, really give, that we begin to understand what was going on the heart of the poor widow that morning. Giving comes from OUR hearts. We give in thanksgiving. Giving requires us to joyfully make financial sacrifices that we might be grounded in the values of God. Giving is not about asking how much is enough to give: ten percent, twenty percent, before or after taxes and FICA and pension plans. Giving “enough” is about offering what we have in joyful exuberance because of our relationship with God.
Do you suppose that widow ever thought her two measly coins would entitle her to ANYTHING? That it would buy her a place in God’s heart? Recognition of her sacrifice? I seriously doubt it. Yet that is precisely what her generosity did bring.
And so it is for all of us. When we are outrageously generous, we can focus more on what God values and less on what we think we need or want or have to have to survive.
To quote CS Lewis on the topic of giving, “ I do not believe one can settle how much we ‘ought’ to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.” – more than we can spare! – For each of us that is a different amount of course, but not one of us should give from the leftovers. What we deposit in the metal box should be our first gift, first “necessity.” Never should giving be the last thing we consider when we consider our necessary monthly expenses.
How many of us even “give off the top” the way the mandatory tithe demands? How many of us have ever really known the freedom the widow had when she gave it all away with no hope of another coin to give in joyful thanksgiving the next time the metal box was out and the folks paraded by with their offerings? How many of us have a sly smile on our faces when we deposit our offering in the plate, a smile that reveals a feeling not of smug self-satisfaction, but a smile of knowing something deeper about ourselves and our connection to Jesus who, even more than the widow, gave away all he had?
To give with no strings attached, no control, to give for the glory of God that has been revealed to us, to give freely, as freely as we have received, or as freely as we receive the joy of a sunset or a first snow or a child’s hand reaching for ours, is to begin to understand what giving is. Generosity of heart can be learned and cultivated. All of us can be as generous as the widow, all of us. May we practice her ways with each other, with our gifts to the church, and in every other aspect of our lives.
Amen.
The Reverend Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd