Sunday, December 2, 2012

November 11 - Pentecost 24


Text: Mark 12:38-44

So, in case you hadn’t noticed, here’s something to note: apparently, the world is going to end.  This is not a repeat from last October.  Or, last May.  Or, from any other time when people have said that the world is ending.  Nope.  This time, it’s for real.  December 21, 2012.

In the disaster movie 2012, the opening scene is of New York city, flooded after bearing the brunt of a hurricane.  There are terrible winter storms.  Earthquakes rock the west coast.  There are Democrats in the White House.  Obviously, these are all signs.  Personally, I advise all of you to take all your money, give it to the church, and anticipate a welcome reception at the pearly gates.  This concludes today’s message.

What?  I think that’s a pretty simple way of looking at the gospel lesson for today: the widow gives her two coins – all, Jesus says, that she has to live on.  And he likes that.  What he doesn’t like is the scribes, or the rich people, the comfortably middle-class making between $200-$250k, and just give a little bit off the top. 

But something doesn’t sit right with me about that.  In fact, there’s something about that particular way of teaching that irritates me.  I think that I find it irritating because there have been times in my life when I’ve made a choice between giving to the church and buying milk for my children – and let me tell you, the children win out.  There’s no way of glossing over this: you can’t ‘but if you give more, you’ll be blessed more’ your way out of this.  There are two ways of interpreting what Jesus says about giving:
1)  that you should give sacrificially, even to the point of abandoning all that you have to live on, to support the structure of the church; or
2) that perhaps the widow is an illustration of Jesus’ words – not an example of the godly life that is characterized by giving the church lots of money.

I’m not intending to directly challenge a good two millennia of teaching on this passage.  I’m not; there’s an important dimension to good spiritual discipline that is tied to giving of financial resources; perhaps especially when those resources are abundant.  But I do think that it’s time to liberate this poor widow from the shadow of money, and let her bask in the light.

Jesus is talking to the disciples.  Now, if you have disciples, you’re pretty important.  If you hang around people that you admire; chances are, you’ll come to copy.  Consider Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum and his sweater-vest army; Justin Beiber is surrounded by fresh-faced young people who buy his brands; and even Prime Minister Stephen Harper is surrounded by young and vibrant staffers who start wearing bad suits, fluffy sweaters, and not making a lot of sense.

Those disciples are maybe getting a bit tired of following Jesus.  He’s poor.  He’s dirty.  He stays in others people’s houses and eats with tax collectors and sinners.  They’re looking around at the other successful religious types in their neighbourhoods; the private plane, mansion on the hill, scores of admirers; snappy dressers, the lot of them.  That’s looking a little more like the sweet life; why toil for little or no pay, get a lot of people mad at you, and get threatened; when you can be the go-to person for all of life’s little conundrums?  You can pack stadiums, rather than packing groceries.

Jesus sees them looking, and adds a warning: you don’t want to be like those people.  Sure, they dress nicely.  Yes, they’re well-respected in the community, and are invited to the best parties.  But: they devour widows’ houses and the for the sake of appearances say long prayers.  They will receive the greater condemnation.

Here’s the problem: the scribes aren’t scribes because they’re good people.  They’re not successful because they’re good preachers, theologians, or pastors.  They’re successful because they use the religious law to help them get ahead.  People didn’t give to the temple out of their generosity: they were taxed, and the scribes and Pharisees were in charge of administering the tax.

So if, say, your husband died, you were left a lonely widow on your own.  Their interpretation of Scripture then held that you were inferior; and for your own good your property should naturally go to someone else; say, a trusted religious authority.  In the face of people looking and saying, gee, I don’t think that’s right, they could stand in their piety and offer up prayers as a testimony of their own devotion to the law – so nobody questions such a good believer.

Does that sound familiar?

So I wonder, is the house that the scribes devoured the one that offered shelter for the widow?  Is she at the treasury to offer her last two coins because she’s compelled too?  I don’t see the widow in this story as an example; I see her as a tragic figure, and I think Jesus does, too.  In Mark’s gospel, the next thing Jesus teaches is that the entire Temple – where that widow is leaving her coins – is going to be torn stone from stone.  All that money that everyone’s contributed to keep the Temple going will have been for nothing.

So, what is it that the widow is giving that Jesus sees as good?  The Greek text literally reads, but out of the poverty of her all, as much as she had, cast all the living of her.

Jesus isn’t talking about her money, beloved.  He sees her greatest contribution as her life; that as one oppressed and abused, that woman was still keeping the faith.  It is one thing to be the scribe, wealthy and powerful as long as the temple was there to be the symbol of religion for the people; but that widow’s faith was in God and not in the institution.

It seems, beloved, that around us all sorts of institutions are crumbling.  Indeed, there are earthquakes on the west coast.  That’s going to happen when you have a dense population on a fault like.  Yes, New York city is flooding and being batter by hurricanes.  That’s what happens when you build a substantial portion of a city on an island in the middle of a river on a coastline known for hurricanes.  And yes, the United States did just re-elect Barak Obama as president.  All sorts of old institutions are crumbling: old ways of doing things; the face of the world is changing..  But Jesus’ warning to the scribes is more pertinent now, than ever: those who cherish only the past will not be entrusted with the future (David Frum). 

Today is Remembrance Day; a time to remember the sacrifices made by members of the armed forces’ who fought to preserve some institutions, but also to destroy others.  As the world rushed towards war in their day, preachers proclaimed the end of the world as confidently as they do now.  And I wonder: what lessons have we learned from those who ‘cast all their living’…perhaps the most profound lesson learned is truly to beware those who use religion for power and influence.  In the First World War, armies on both sides marched to triumphant battle hymns that promised the continuation of their faith; by the time of the second the lines were just as clearly drawn and again, both sides marched to the assurances of divine favour and victory.

The reality was a bitter, bitter, pill to swallow.  But in the decades since then, conflicts have only gotten murkier; lines are not so clearly drawn.  Almost a decade in Afghanistan and young women still aren’t learning to read; warlords and corrupt bureaucrats are still the reality.  But into those spaces and places go those who are prepared to give all that they have to live on – not out of assurance of divine favour but out of conviction that the sacrifice would be worth it; that their own two coins given would be more meaningful than a lifetime lived standing on the sidelines and giving what they wouldn’t miss.

I don’t believe that Jesus looked at the religious world of his time and said that people who gave their lives to the system were more worthy that those who knew how to work it; I think that what Christ longed for and desired to see was one faithful person to actually trust God to fulfill the promises God has made, even in the face of oppression and evil.

On this day, may we all find that we can prepare ourselves to cast our lives to the care of God, even as we remember those who gave their lives for something greater than themselves: the lives of others.

May we all find, one day, that we would wake up to a world in which our Lord has returned; that tears are no more, that suffering, sickness, and death are no longer; that the sea and the grave have given up their dead; and that truly, the home of God is among mortals.

May we lift our voices then in the old prayer of the church: maranatha: our Lord, come.

Amen.

No comments: