Sermon: Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 12:38-4
November 10, 2024
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman
“Beware of the scribes…
who like to walk around in long robes….” (call attention to my vestments)
“And to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces” – I rather like that….
“And to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” (call attention to where I’m seated and to the altar)
“They devour widows’ houses” – I hope I’ve not done that, but I’ve had plenty of good meals in the homes of widows!
“And for the sake of appearance say long prayers” – and preach long sermons…. Need I say more?
Jesus concluded that these scribes “will receive the greater condemnation.”
Yes, Jesus is targeting for criticism the religious leaders of his day, or in terms of our day, the clergy. I hope I’m not egregiously guilty of the things that Jesus condemns, but there are plenty of religious leaders throughout history and today who use their religion for self-serving ends, and even to ingratiate themselves with the rich and powerful. That’s what Jesus is zeroing in on.
Think of TV preachers and their mansions and fancy cars. And when you connect the dots, the outcome of the presidential election this week is at least in some significant measure the fruit of how Christian Nationalists want to cozy up to the seats of power and wealth in our country. Some of them even lionize our president-elect as a new Billy Graham, their protestant pope, in effect, their holy warrior king to whom they have pledged their obeisance….
Religious leadership has always attracted those who seek such leadership in self-serving ways that feed egoic needs for attention and power and authority. I am not entirely free of those dynamics myself. It’s all part and parcel of our sinful human condition.
But these tendencies cause harms of all kinds – think of all the scandals of religious leaders who take advantage of vulnerable people by sexually abusing them or manipulating people of modest means – plenty of widows – to donate money literally to enrich themselves. This has resulted in horrible suffering among the innocent.
And then think of the many thoughtful people who are turned off by such religious leaders who then want nothing to do with the church or religious institutions which could otherwise help them in their need and spiritual hunger.
The growing percentage of the population that claims no religious affiliation at all is in part the bitter fruit of the abuse of religion by self-serving leaders.
The good news is that Jesus has no time for this kind of thing. And Jesus turns the world upside down with a new way of leadership, his own example being the ideal. For Jesus, the call to discipleship and then to religious leadership is all about humility. It’s what we’ve heard Jesus say before in Mark’s gospel: those who wish to be great among you must be servant of all. And the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
We see this humble approach in the witness of the widow in today’s gospel reading whom Jesus and the disciples saw at the treasury in the temple in Jerusalem. First off, Jesus and his disciples noted that the rich did indeed give large sums, but they were skimming off the top of their surplus with no real sacrifice at all.
But the poor widow put in the box “two small copper coins, worth about a penny.” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to his disciples, “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.”
We see in this act yet another reversal that Jesus is famous for: the humble poor have higher status in the logic of God’s reign than the powerful and rich. The widow here is the model of true, self-sacrificial discipleship. Remember what Jesus said to the rich young man? “Yes, you’ve kept all the commandments. Great. But you lack one thing; sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.”
When it’s all said and done, the example of the widow foreshadows Jesus’ example and what he was all about. Even as the widow who gave all she had to live on, so Jesus also gave everything he had, even in offering his life on the cross. But here’s the thing with Jesus: the poverty of the cross turned into the abundance of resurrected new life and the bounty of victory over death and thus salvation for us all.
As the author of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us: “Christ has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself…. [and] to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (cf. Hebrews 9:26b-28)
In short, Christ became poor like the widow and gave all that he had, even his very life, to make us rich in him. In Christ, poverty thus becomes abundance. And God’s abundance reveals just how paltry and poor human wealth and abundance ultimately are. For in death, you cannot take it with you. You don’t see U-Haul trailers attached to hearses of the wealthy dead headed to cemeteries.
We see this paradox of God turning poverty into abundance also in today’s story from 1 Kings. The Lord sent the prophet Elijah during a time of famine to be fed by a widow. And when Elijah met the widow, he asked her for some food. But the widow replied, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug.”
But Elijah insisted, instructing the widow to make a cake of what she had left to feed him. Which she did and, by the gift of God’s grace, she ended up feeding Elijah, herself and her son and household. Elijah promised, “The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” And so it was
Again, God makes abundance from the most meager of resources. God creates abundance out of poverty.
And this is exactly what happens every Sunday here at this table. A little bit of something that barely resembles bread and a little sip of the fruit of the vine become the fullness of Christ’s presence for us, bearing to us all of Christ’s gifts for us well. Here at this modest table are the eternal riches of God’s dominion.
And a little bit of water at baptism along with God’s word and the Spirit working through those means makes us children of God and inheritors of eternal life. More abundance from modest means.
And a sacred word or two from the bible goes the distance in comforting us in times of crisis. Such great riches even in a few words.
And all of this gives us what we need to go on, to live, and to trust the divine logic that in Christ our poverty becomes divine abundance. We come to trust God just as the two widows in today’s stories trusted God to provide, the one who gave all she had to the temple treasury and the widow who used all she had but ended up having plenty to feed everyone around her.
And by likewise feeding us, God gives us work to do to go out to the highways and byways to proclaim in word and deed that in Christ is abundance amidst our poverty. And God invites us to give of our modest means, that together as church we can make a difference in the world. When you give your offerings here, you help us sustain our ministry here at Faith-La Fe as a missionary outpost, a beacon of welcome and inclusion in this part of town.
And when you offer your gifts, a portion of what you give is sent to the wider church and is pooled with the gifts of other Lutherans such that we can make a hope-filled witness and difference throughout the nation and world, proclaiming that God in Christ is about love and mercy and welcome and compassion and humility – not about hate and vengeance and arrogance and judgment and exclusion.
This is just what the doctor ordered in a nation and world that tramples on the poor, devouring widows’ houses in the shameless and shameful greedy pursuit of more and more and more worldly wealth. And our witness as Lutherans is a counter witness to other churches and Christians who cozy up to the powerful and wealthy.
The election this week may have been a victory for the rich who seek to divide and conquer everyone else so that they can clamor after ever greater wealth and power with impunity.
But we fight with different weapons, the weapons of love and mercy and welcome. And by God’s grace, and in the power of the Spirit, one day, the humble way of the widows and the way of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, will prevail. Thanks be to God. Amen.
