November 12, 2006 Sermon of
Rev. Jay Vetter
Today
is commitment Sunday.One of my friends
who’s a pastor says that every United Methodist Pastor has a shameless,
money-grubbing sermon that they preach on occasion, usually on commitment
Sunday.But I have to tell you that
with today’s lesson from the gospel, money grubbing is not a very comfortable
thing to do.
I don’t
know about you, but that story about the widows mite has always made me
just a little bit uptight and anxious.Because
that’s a pretty powerful thing, to be able to give everything.Maybe
it’s easier if you don’t have much.I’m
sure it is.I’m sure that I have
so much that it’s hard for me to think about….giving everything.But
yet that’s the model that’s lifted up for us in scripture.
Jesus
must have been kind of awed by that woman’s gift as he was watching people
come by the treasury.It must have
been one of those moments where he sort of just had to take a deep breath,
because he realized that he was in the presence of some profoundly deep
giving.
I had
an experience like that when I was pastoring in Lincoln.It’s
the joy of a pastor to be able to witness people’s gifts.Not
just their gifts of money, but all kinds of gifts when people actually
get into the spirit of giving and become sort of taken over by the miracle
and grace of giving and receiving.We
had the opportunity to do that when we built an addition to our building
and I got to witness an older couple that didn’t have children who gave
the largest gift that we received for our building and who knew that they
would not live to be a part of it, but wanted to make that investment now
as an awesome gift.
The most
awesome gift happened one Wednesday night at the youth meeting.We
had a program and showed a video about what’s happening to children in
Africa.If you know anything about
what’s going onall over in Africa
there are literally millions of children who are in desperate straits in
many, many countries.I don’t even
remember what the specific context was.
But, I
remember that after the program and after the kids talked about it for
a while they decided they would like to donate some money for it.This
one young man who lived across the street from the Church, he must have
been about in the 8th grade, because it was a middle school
youth group, and who I’d witnessed out in the yard all the time, because
I lived across the street too.He
was always out playing games and he was a very good athlete.He
just jumped up and he ran out of the room and he said, "I’ll be back".Pretty
soon he came huffing and puffing back up the stairs and he had a twenty-dollar
bill in his hand.He’d run home to
get his twenty-dollar bill because he’d been so moved by the need of others.As
he came into the room he said to me under his breath. “My folks’ll probably
kill me, but I’m going to give this, and I was awed in that moment by the
fact that this young man gave beyond what he was taught to do.Beyond
what would be practical.That was
the biggest gift I witnessed in my 10 years in that congregation.A
young man so caught by the gospel and compassion for others that he gave
like the one who gave the two cents.
I’m inspired
by that kind of giving.I don’t know
if I’m capable of it, but I’m inspired by it.And,
I’m very grateful that God’s love extends beyond my capacity to give sacrificially.It
extends beyond it precisely because that’s the nature of God.
Nancy
didn’t read quite the whole gospel lesson for today.There’s
actually the section just before this in the gospel of Mark that troubles
me even more that the widows might.It’s
very curious that Mark would put these two stores together because in some
ways they seem almost opposite one another.This
is also from the 12th Chapter of….
Oh, I’m in Matthew.No wonder it
doesn’t look right.Nancy even has
these little tabs on her bible so I should be able to find it, right?You
probably found it already.Good job.
You know
what’s been going on in the gospel of Mark, don’t you?We’re
in the portion of the story of Jesus between Palm Sunday and Good Friday,
after Jesus entered Jerusalem.During
those days Jesus kind of hung around in the Temple.He
would teach people and other people would not be too happy with Jesus,
because Jesus made the sort of establishment of Jerusalem pretty nervous.The
Temple was the center of Jewish life in Jerusalem.If
you remember in history, this is the time when the Hebrew people were actually
occupied by a Roman government and the Roman’s allowed the Hebrew people
to have a certain amount of self-determination.They
could have their own religion.They
could also have their own sort of King, who was a Herod kind of a puppet
King. but there was this kind of alliance between Jewish leaders and the
Roman leaders that allowed some of them to prosper and for all of them
to get along., but underneath there was a lot of uneasiness.Lot
of people weren’t happy about what was going on.A
lot of them were anxiously awaiting for a change in leadership. So, they
were hopeful about a Messiah who would come and throw off the Roman rule
and the Jewish people would be able to have more self-determination and
they would do better.But there was
also around the temple this sort of symbiotic relationship between the
Romans and the secular Jews and the Jewish leaders of the Temple.And
those people were really nervous when Jesus came to town.In
the gospel of Mark last week we looked at a couple of the stories where
some of them came to Jesus and tried to trap him questions.They
wanted to discredit him because they were…they thought he could be very
disruptive to their way of life.That’s
something about the gospel that at lot of us aren’t very comfortable with.That
the presence of Jesus in our lives disrupts business as usual.Disrupts
and unsettles the alliances that we’ve made with one another and with the
world.It’s hard for us to realize
how important the Temple was.It
was not only the religious and the nationalistic center but it was the
economic center of Jerusalem.There
was a huge business that revolved around the Temple.That’s
why in all the gospels one of the things that Jesus did was go in there
and chase out the moneychangers.When
we read that we like to think that would be like saying the women shouldn’t
have a bake sale on the same day the middle school is selling greenery.But
it was the whole economic center of how they functioned.It
was big business.So those people
were pretty nervous and they began to kind of question Jesus.Remember
the Pharisees came with a question about taxes.The
Sadduceess…those where both like parties…religious political parties.They
had a different viewpoint.Both of
them were made nervous by Jesus, so they ask questions they thought could
get him in trouble.What more could
get Jesus in trouble that talking about death and taxes.Then
a teacher of the law came and ask a question.That’s
what we looked at last week.And so
here’s part of what Jesus had to say, just before he observed this woman
putting her money in the offering.
“As he taught,” this
is Jesus “he said beware
of the scribes
more nervous as we go..”and to be greeted with respect in the
market places and they have the best seats in the synagogues and
the
places of honor at the banquets” …save me a place in the potato line…
Jesus said, “watch out for those religious types”.
Whoa, that’s not very comfortable.If I identify with anybody…I mean I have the audacity to stand up and read the Bible to you and teach about it.Jesus is being kind of hard on us, isn’t he?
He says beware of those guys, and here’s why.
“They devour widows houses and for the sake of appearance
say long prayers.They’ll receive
the greater condemnation.
Whoa…I didn’t read that before I answered the call to the ministry, did you Nancy.To say..oh, it’s just male preachers that have to watch out for that?
So, here’s my shameless, money-grubbing sermon.Watch out for me!I could get it wrong.I could ask for money for the wrong reasons.Religious institutions and religious folks could devour widows.
In 1970 I went to Seminary in Kansas City.The Seminary is located in the part of the community in Kansas City that…well actually when I went there in 1970, it was mostly a white neighborhood, but by the time I graduated in 1973 it was mostly a black neighborhood.I went down there last spring and it was mostly a Latino neighborhood.There was great racial tension in Kansas City in the 1960’s.In 1969 there were race riots.
Many parts of the black community were burned.Stores and institutions and even churches.One of the most impressionable things that happened to me in my first year of seminary was to go to a worship service in one of those black Baptist congregations that had been in the riot torn area and hear Reverend Doctor John Preciphs, a black Baptist preacher, preach.I heard him say, “I think God has a special palace in Hell for black Baptist preachers
Whoa.And, what he was talking about what how insensitive the church had been to the plight of its neighborhood.He was upset that many preachers drove Cadillac’s and ask people to give offerings who couldn’t even afford a car.He was upset that the church hadn’t addressed the issues of human need and deprivation and unrest that existed in the community around the churches.I’ll never forget that sermon.
It was a warning much like the one I think Jesus issued just before he watched the widow put her offering, her little two cents, in the treasury.
What I want to say to you today about financial stewardship is that it doesn’t end when I or the Finance Committee or somebody convinces you to put money in the offering.It’s just getting started.The money that you put in the offering is an investment in ministry and Jesus has warned us that if we don’t take that seriously, as religious people,we have our reward waiting for us.That it’s a sacred trust.
This passage challenges us as a congregation not just to collect enough money to keep the doors open but to be in ministry, to be caring.To be good stewards of what people have instructed to us.
It’s curious to me that the writer of Mark, right after saying that, after saying watch out for those guys they devour widows, tells a story about a widow giving her last two cents into the treasury box.The one that he was at odds with.There’s a lot of wonderful truths in that story.
One of them is, and I hope you know this about giving, that there’s a blessing in giving.There’s an abundance in giving.Such an abundance that two copper coins could be more than a whole pile of money.That’s abundance.There’s a blessing in giving even if those to whom you give it waste it.There’s a miracle in giving that happens.There’s an abundance that is celebrated.I think you need to know that.I think we all need to know that.I’ve thought about that a lot.
You know, I’d like to only give my money where it does the most good and I wouldn’t like to see any of it wasted.I could become pretty neurotic, maybe psychotic trying to make that happen.Trying to control everybody else.Then I got to thinking about God’s gifts to us.What if God did that?What if God said I’m only going to give blessings, I’m only going to give gifts.I’m only going to give the gift of life.I’m only going to give the freedom to make decisions.I’m only going to give the opportunity to be a steward of the world to people who won’t waste it.
God wouldn’t have given anything to any of us.It’s the nature of God to give blessings and to trust them into the possibility of an open future.When there’s a possibility of that we have to acknowledge that there could be waste.That’s why Jesus celebrated the abundance of that widows giving right after he criticized those who ask for the gift.
I’m very grateful that God has chosen to give us life, and to forgive us and to give us new life.And, finally to hook us into eternity and give us life eternal.What a wonderful thing that is to celebrate.What an abundance that is for us to be a part of.These two stories strung together as they are by the gospel writer remind us that God has chosen to invest all the best gifts in humanity and that when we do that there’s an abundance that’s beyond the world’s way to calculate.
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