Jim Wallis, who wrote the book, “America’s Original Sin,” of which we have 3 copies available to you for free in the chapel, said the following: “Regardless of what the New Testament says, most Christians are materialists with no real experience of the Spirit, or individualists with no real commitment to community. An American Indian once challenged an audience of Christians in which I was sitting. He asked us to pretend we were all Christians who didn't want to accumulate material possessions but who actually loved one another and put everything in common and treated each other as family. Then he asked what kept us from doing that. And the question remains: What is it that prevents Christians from living like Christians?”
He continues, “I am increasingly convinced that it has less to do with ill will or bad intentions; it has more to do with how small our communion with God and with one another really is. Most of us in the churches have yet to find the spiritual strength and resources that would enable us to live out our faith.”
This isn’t a sermon about tithing (though it is that time of year); it’s about what all my sermons are about: God and Us and where we meet, and the results of that interaction.
Psalm 146 says, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.” I get it: princes are out for themselves. To gather more “princeocity” in order to make themselves even more princely. At whatever cost. And then they die, and with them everything they’ve gathered. God, on the other hand, is everlasting and needs nothing more to make them more Godly. It’s all there.
Psalm 146 goes on to say that the God of Jacob, “executes justice for the oppressed; gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.” Yeah. Thank you, God. But how? How does God do all these things? Because I haven’t seen any blinding light in the sky, or giant hands coming out of a cloud to lift up the orphan and the widow. Probably because I have DTS: “Doubting Thomas Syndrome.”
As Jesus says in Mark, chapter 12, "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." This is Jesus. This has always been Jesus: turning over the tables and not just against money changers and merchants in the synagogue during Holy Week. But everyone, everywhere. Which, in Jesus’s world, is the Roman government and the Israelites who work for them. From the day we’re born we’re taught to show respect for those in charge. Those who seek power. What has Jesus said about those in power? That they are the servants of the people they rule. They are the servants. Not us. But, alas, our society dictates that with power comes privilege. Would that that weren’t the case. Who would be the people running for office then? My guess is those who set the prisoners free; who open the eyes of the blind. Who lift up those who are bowed down; who love the righteous. Who watch over the strangers; who uphold the orphan and the widow. But, I digress…
Back to Jesus, and the widow: “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.’” According to Walter Burghardt, "this widow had been taught and encouraged by religious leaders to donate as she does and Jesus condemns the value system that motivates her action ... In a word, Jesus is condemning a structure of sin, a social injustice." In a world where too many leaders, religious and secular, gain and wield power at the expense of the weak, Jesus exposes such systems for what they are—an affront to God—and what they do: destroy relationship, dignity, and even bring death. “This poor widow" gives not out of her excess, like the privileged, but "out of her poverty." Jesus reminds us that what we give, of ourselves and our possessions, is of little importance; instead, how we give to others is what will show the world that we are followers of Jesus Christ.
And that is how God works in our world: through us. Through those who work to follow in the path of Jesus. Through those of us who find the spiritual strength and resources that enable us to live out our faith and do the work of God, for God, here on Earth. Amen.