To Give and To Take
Nov 8, 2009
Scripture: Mark 12:38-44
As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Sermon: To Give and To Take Pastor Doreen Oughton
True story: Sally was a single woman who lived with her mother in the family home. She worked an office job for many years. She travelled some, lived comfortably, and accumulated some savings. In her early 50’s she developed a condition which led to a few surgeries that didn’t quite take care of everything and left her disabled. Within a few years she was drinking heavily. Then her mother took ill and Sally’s siblings decided Sally was not providing adequate care and moved mama to a nursing home. Now even before mama took ill, Sally began to rely on a neighbor to provide her with rides since she had never learned to drive and her disability made it hard to get around by public transportation. He was a young man, out of work, and he regularly asked Sally to lend him some money to get by until he could find a job and pay her back. By the time I met Sally, she had given him over $6000. He found a job, had a argument with Sally and withdrew from her life, repaying her nothing. Sally reached out for support and got sober, got directed to helping agencies for rides, and also made some friends. When Sally’s siblings decided it was time to sell the family home to help support mama in the nursing home, Sally began looking for housing. Because of her disability, she was eligible for some public assistance, but the nicest places asked for a personal security deposit. Sally didn’t have the money. She’d given away everything.
When I hear the story of the widow who gives everything, I can’t help but think of Sally. For me, this scripture teaching is difficult. Let’s review it a little more. In the first part of the story, Jesus is teaching in the temple, cautioning about the scribes, pointing out their hypocrisy, seeking respect and honor all the while “devouring widows’ houses.” Then he sits opposite the treasury with his disciples. Now you may wonder, as I did, what is this treasury that is mentioned. The Temple treasury was a major financial institution. It collected resources from all over Israel, and from the Jewish communities of other countries. It was then supposed to redistribute the collections to where they were needed. There were taxes that had to be collected, and guidelines about what kinds of coins could be used to pay the taxes. This is why the temple needed money changers. The collections were guarded heavily by soldiers. At tax time collection boxes shaped like trumpets were placed all over the country, and letters were sent out reminding people they had to pay. In addition, in one of the courts of the Temple, thirteen of these collection boxes were placed year round, each with an inscription about what the collection was for. They might be for taxes or for Temple repairs, or free-will offerings. It was probably in this courtyard that Jesus sat people watching, watching what went into the boxes, which boxes they went into.
And Jesus observes this woman putting in her 2 small coins. How does he know she is a widow? How does he know it is everything she’s got? But I’ll trust that somehow he does know. And it makes me feel sad. But Jesus points out to the disciples the largeness of her contribution, how she gave out of her poverty while the others gave out of her abundance. Now I’ve heard the message of this story as one of praise for her great generosity. How it is better to give not from your abundance, but from your poverty. How much better it is to give so much that it hurts.
Have you ever done that? Given til it hurts? I’m not sure I have. And the idea doesn’t really turn me on. I am sad about the gift of the widow. I wonder what happened to her. Jesus doesn’t say, he doesn’t assure us that the Temple will take care of her, that her gift will be returned to her many times over. And I think of Sally.
So I was intrigued when I read a few commentaries that had a different slant on this story. They suggest that Jesus was not holding up this woman as a model for giving, but holding her up as someone who is truly affected by the scribes he warned against in the first part. Those VIP’s who make a big show of saying prayers all the while devouring the widows’ houses. It’s almost as if he is saying, “You think I’m exaggerating. Look at this woman. She’s been taught about sacrificial giving by her religious leaders, and look, she’s giving everything she has while they get the best seats in the synagogue and places of honor at banquets.” Jesus, they say, is not praising but lamenting. Perhaps, they say, her gift makes him sad also. He says she gave more than the others who gave from their abundance, but he doesn’t actually say this is good. She gave everything. So why doesn’t this inspire me?
I wonder how this woman felt as she was giving her last coins? Perhaps I would be inspired if I knew she felt excited or grateful. Perhaps she had been taken care of at some point by the Temple or one of its leaders and she felt compelled to give an offering in gratitude. Perhaps she had had a dream or vision from God that she didn’t need to fear, and made this offering as a symbol of her trust and hope. But what if she gave it out of a sense of obligation, or of fear? What if, like Sally, she gave because she suspected it was the only way she would get any attention at all. I knew another woman who got involved with a psychic. At first the psychic gave her many comforting messages, and this woman became more dependent on her for guidance. Then the psychic began to make frightening predictions of terrible things that would happen to her unless she gave money, then more money, then more money. Within 2 years the psychic had taken all of her inheritance, over a hundred thousand dollars.
I’ve seen fear used by religious leaders to encourage giving. The same message that God will reward you for your generosity can easily be tweaked to the message that you will be punished for your lack thereof. There is even a story in the bible, NT Acts, where a couple dies after failing to give the entire proceeds from the sale of their property to the common purse of the apostles. Did the widow in Mark’s story give in fear for her soul or even her life?
Back to Sally, she may have felt okay when she gave the money to her neighbor, but she felt awful afterwards. She was angry and embarrassed. She considered filing a complaint with the courts. She didn’t feel generous. She felt ashamed. In my mind she was generous and the shame was not hers. The shame belonged to her neighbor. The shame is on the psychic, and the televangelists. And even if the widow’s gift was a symbol of her generosity, I wonder if there was shame on the Temple for taking everything from someone who had so little.
You see, I don’t think giving should hurt. I really don’t, and I don’t think that makes me selfish or ungenerous. I am all for sacrifice, but the thing about sacrifice is that it is ultimately gratifying. You sacrifice one thing for another. You feel the pinch in one area for a payoff in another. By sacrificing, you are ordering your priorities. You are making choices that say what you value. You sacrifice play time for study time because you value education. You sacrifice a vacation to spend time building houses for the homeless because you value a just world in which all have housing. You sacrifice a day of eating, giving the money you would have spent to an agency that feeds the hungry because you value solidarity with suffering and being able to make a difference. Even when sacrifice hurts, it should thrill you as well. I had a pastor who once said “Give until it tickles.” What makes something tickle? I believe it is when there is a worthy cause, when you know that what you give will make a positive difference.
We are in our stewardship drive this month here at FCC. I will speak to you again about giving, about how it feels to give, about what an important spiritual discipline it is. But right now I want to talk to you as the receivers of the stewardship pledges. The church will receive these offerings, but I want to remind you that YOU are the church. I may be the pastor, but you are all ministers. You are the scribes and priests and treasury distributors of this church. We must ensure that we are not just looking for respect in the market place, the best seats at the banquets, the places of honor. We must be worthy of the gifts of people, whether they give from their abundance or sacrifice something for their gift. What do we offer? What should we offer? What could we offer? Here’s what we say we offer: L O V E (hold up mission statement & read)
This is what we say we will do with the gifts we receive, a worthy endeavor. Growth in faith, how do we do that? You come to church, engage with the scripture and sermon, let yourself be transported by the music. You come to bible study and share your thoughts on faith. You bring your children to be baptized, to renew to yourself the baptismal vows whenever you witness one. One of the parents at a baptism spoke of how she was surprisingly moved by the ritual, that she had been reminded of her faith and felt closer to God. You come to have your wedding blessed, knowing that God’s presence in our relationships is so crucial.
Offer love and support through compassion and understanding. We share joys and concerns, we pray for one another, we come together at times of loss. This stuff is VALUABLE. We seek to inspire our youth, offering dedicated teachers and thoughtful lessons, as well as inclusion in our worship and community. We show how much we value God’s grace by reaching out to the community. We offer our space, we share our gifts, we give generously to food pantry and Worcester Fellowship and the blanket ministry. We understand that our faith is extended through service to others. Can we do more? Always, but the ground laid is solid. As we consider our stewardship drive, let’s think about what seeds we can plant in this ground, what programs, what offerings will further our mission.
Giving shouldn’t hurt, it should inspire, it should thrill, even when it pinches. Have you heard the story of Oseola McCarty? So inspiring. She became famous in 1995 when she established an irrevocable trust through which 60% of her estate would be donated to the University of Southern Mississippi for scholarships for needy students, with preference for African Americans. The amount at that time was about $150 K, far from the school’s largest donation. But what was surprising was that Oseola McCarty had worked her whole life as a washer woman, doing people’s laundry, ironing their clothes. She left school after grade 6 to care for an aunt. She lived in a house given to her by her uncle, never drove, lived simply. She had received a little money from her mother and aunt when they died, but mostly just kept putting her earnings away. When people at her bank saw how much was accumulating, knowing that she had no family, they advised her to plan for her future, how she would be cared for if anything happened to her, and deciding what to do with her money once she died. She wrote down who she wanted to receive part of her estate, her church, 3 cousins, and the University. Using 10 dimes to represent the percentages, she showed what she wanted to go where. The bank officer was so impressed and moved that he got her permission to share her story and it took off.
It inspired others to add to her donation for the scholarship fund, it got her interviews and keys to cities and honorary degrees. She enjoyed the attention, but stayed clear in her message that being able to help people get an education was the most important thing to her. She wished she had more to give. It didn’t hurt her. She still had resources for her simple needs, right up until she died in 1999. And yet can anyone say she was not generous because it didn’t hurt? Of course not. She is an inspiring model of generosity.
In closing, I want to challenge myself on my sadness over the widow’s offering in the gospel reading, and over Sally’s generosity. Yes, part of me laments this foolishness, this seemingly wasteful and destructive giving. But I also have to remember that the core message of the Christian faith is pure foolishness. Jesus died for us. He gave up his life and died a shameful death on the cross. Pure foolishness. And to what end? There is still suffering, deceipt, violence, deep sin. But I so believe that this generous act did and does save. It is the hope of new life, it provides the guiding light to another way of existence, it inspires eternally. Perhaps the widow’s and Sally’s foolish generosity brought gifts that are not readily apparent. Perhaps Sally’s giving really did help this young man, and in time he will recognize that and pay it forward. Perhaps it was the loss of her savings that brought Sally into sobriety and into community. Perhaps it will bring Sally closer to her siblings, or in contact with more communities that offer support and friendship. Perhaps the widow was taken care of by the Temple, or someone else. Perhaps she received her gift back a hundred times over. That’s not too much to hope for in this, this world that has Jesus as its risen savior. May it be so.
Exploring this story brought up a lot for me, and perhaps I am not alone in that. I invite you, if you like, to pull up a circle of chairs during the fellowship and talk about it more. Did you ever give til it hurt? Did you ever give til it tickled? What makes giving a thrill? What stories of giving inspire you? Have you ever been given a gift that made you think hard about being worthy of it? What can FCC strive for that will inspire generous giving? So think, share and please keep me posted. Amen.
