A Little Story That Packs a Mighty Punch

"Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury."  - Mark 12:43

This little story from Mark is only four verses long, but it packs a mighty punch. In many ways it is a very troublesome story.  It’s a story that can unnerve and even aggravate.  

 Jesus had just arrived in Jerusalem that last horrendous week that we know as Holy Week. The first thing he did was make a bee-line for the temple and he began to preach and teach. The temple embodied all that their religion stood for, so Jesus went right to the center of things.  In summary he told them their religion was a hollow shell and empty vessel. A few days later he was nailed to a cross!

 After concluding His rather scathing indictment of the empty faith of the Pharisees, and weary from the discourse Jesus sits down and watches the people stream by and make their offerings.

 Jesus observes the wealthy deposit their large sums into the offering receptacles. Then, almost unnoticed, a poor widow woman makes her offering; an offering that, by our standards, is the equivalent of some loose change, and Jesus is swept away with amazement!

 Jesus' response to this woman is both amazing and disturbing, especially if we employ the values by which we live.  We live in a world that measures things by size – the bigger the better!  We live in a super-sized world of BIGGIE everything.

 And then, this poor widow woman comes along and Jesus is swept away by the few coins she places in the temple treasury. Speaking out of our BIGGIE value system we might ask, "What are a few coins?"  The BIGGIE gift of thousands and millions can do so much more than loose change!  

 In a BIGGIE world loose change doesn't cut it!  Loose change isn't going to elect my candidate. Loose change isn't going to pay the utility bills, mortgage, salaries, and programs of the church. Loose change isn't going to build the Habitat for Humanity House. Loose change isn't going to feed the hungry of the world. Loose change is irrelevant in the face of our BIGGIE value system, and the BIGGIE problems that the world faces, and the BIGGIE answers they require.  What is loose change?

 If you're the slightest bit cynical you might be tempted to say, "So what's the big deal?  She only had a few coins anyway, so how hard was it for her to give everything?" 

 Or we sentimentalize this story to the point of dismissal saying, "Wasn't it nice that she gave everything she had?  We too need to learn to be more generous."

 The thing that is so disturbing about this story is Jesus’ reaction, "For all of them contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty…"  With those few words Jesus turns everything we endear inside out and up-side down.  He blows away all of our excuses and rationalizations and he gets to the core truth of the Christian Faith.

 Jesus makes an important distinction in terms of giving.  Jesus is saying that as far as God is concerned the amount of the gift is secondary to the attitude with which the gift is given. 

 I would dare to say that a great deal of giving, if not most, is made out of the attitude of abundance.  Often we give with the silent attitude, "I'll give what I can afford.  I'll give what I can, but not in a way that is going to threaten my security, alter my life-style or demand a sacrifice."  I believe that is what Jesus means by "giving out of abundance."  Whether it is $1 or $200 million, if we give what we can afford it is giving out of abundance. 

 I am not demeaning or discouraging that kind of giving.  That kind of giving isn't bad. That kind of giving helps untold worthwhile causes in this needy world.  But it is not distinctly Christian giving!  Yes, you heard me right!  It is not the kind of giving that Jesus lauds in this story this morning.  That is precisely what is so disturbing and troublesome.

  It goes without saying that the large gifts of the wealthy that Jesus witnessed most certainly went a long way to empowering the ministry of the temple.   Jesus didn't tell the chief priest to give it back!  But again this is a part of what is disturbing.  Remember, it was after his intense observation of all who streamed by that that Jesus lauds the poor widow and her few coins as the greatest gift of all. Why?  Because Jesus is not merely concerned with the sum total of the gift compared to everyone else's gift.  Jesus is most concerned with the heart, spirit, motivation and attitude of the giver. 

 If Jesus is only concerned with the sum total amount of the gift, the bigger being the better, the biggest being the best, then I am basically off the hook for I don't have that much.  My "loose change" is pretty insignificant compared to the Bill Gates of the world.  They can give more sum total than I could ever give in a thousand lifetimes.

 Or, if the sum total amount is what ultimately matters then, to a certain extent, then I can compare my giving to the people around me and measure it that way.  I can rate myself, and I can make myself feel pretty good.  All I have to do is find someone who gives little and by comparison I look pretty good.  I might be able to say, "I give more than most.  I am a generous person, look at me. What a role model I am."  If that's the gospel truth then the rich people in the story would have been praised by Jesus.  But they weren't, it was the poor widow he praised.

 This is what unsettles me.  Jesus looks past the sum total, and he looks directly into the heart of the giver - my heart and yours. 

 I might say, "My giving is nobody's business.”  "Wrong, that is if I call myself a Christian. God makes it His business, and God made it His business, through Jesus, while sitting next to the temple treasury 2000 years ago!  He looks into your heart and mine and God makes it His business! 

 There are two kinds of giving in this world, and only one of them is distinctly Christian.  In the finally analysis perhaps that is what really aggravates me about this whole story.  There are two kinds of giving:  giving out of abundance and giving out of poverty.  Giving out of poverty is distinctly Christian giving.   It can also be called sacrificial giving; giving what you cannot afford to give; giving in a way that it to a certain extent jeopardizes your life-style and security.  You and I may not like or want to hear that, but that's what this story boils down to.   Distinctly Christian giving is giving out of poverty.

 Like a giant magnet drawing everything to itself, the cross stands at the very center of the Christian experience. Distinctly Christian giving is rooted in the sacrificial love of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Distinctly Christian giving mirrors back to God and reflects to the world what God has given me and done for me on the cross of Jesus Christ!  The question that each Christian is called to answer is, "Do my gifts and my giving reflect the incredible, lavish, outrageous, undeserved, sacrificial, costly love with which God loves (me and you) through the cross of Jesus Christ?  Do I give in the distinctly Christian way out of my poverty - or do I give as the rest of the world gives out of my abundance?"

 That's the basis of Christian giving.  That's where Christian giving begins and ends - with Jesus - at the cross.  Play "what if" with me for a moment.

 What if Jesus, after he arrived in Jerusalem that last fatal week of his earthly life, would have said, when things began to get hot, "OK, that's enough I've made my point," and would have simply slipped quietly out of town?   No cross!  No sacrifice.  No suffering.  No divine forgiveness we could trust!  No atonement for your sins and mine.  No reconciliation with God.  No resurrection that leads to transformed life.  No authentic power over death that conquers despair and gives birth to hope.  No salvation.  No peace with God. What if?

 What if Jesus would have stopped short of making the ultimate sacrifice for your sins and mine?

 What if Jesus would have stopped short of accomplishing the ultimate demands of unconditional love? What if? 

 What if?  For starters it would mean that giving out of abundance is the divine way to give, so it would be the acceptable way for the disciple of Jesus to give.  Sorry, but that's not how it is!

 Disciples of Jesus, we are called to be givers. We have so much to give!  We have time, talent, treasure, knowledge, wisdom, possessions, skills, homes, vehicles, resource, love in our hearts - we have much.  Are you a Christian?  Are you a disciple of Jesus?  Are you a giver?  I don't know how you can be one and not the other - and not just any giver; not merely as the world gives, out of abundance; but a distinctly Christian giver; one who gives out of poverty?  Do your gifts reflect your gratitude for what God has given you in Jesus Christ?

 Eugene Peterson tells a story how he saw a family of birds teaching their young to fly. Three young swallows were perched on a dead branch that stretched out over a lake. The mother swallow got alongside the chicks and started shoving them out toward the end of the branch. The first one fell off. Somewhere between the branch and the water four feet below, its wings started working, and the little bird was off on its own. Then the second one took off the same way.

But the third chick was not to be bullied. At the last possible moment his grip on the branch loosened just enough so that he swung upside-down, then tightened again, bulldog tenacious. Mama bird was merciless. She pecked at the desperately clinging talons until it was more painful for the poor chick to hang on than risk the insecurities of flying. He let go, and the inexperienced wings began pumping. Mother swallow knew what the chick did not—that it would fly—and there was no danger in making it do what it was designed to do.

Peterson said, "Birds have feet and can walk. Birds have talons and can grasp a branch securely. They can walk; they can cling. But they are designed to fly, and not until they fly are they living out their purpose."

Giving is what we do best. It's the air into which we were born. It's the action that was designed into us before our birth. Some of us try desperately to hold on to ourselves, to live for ourselves. We look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on to the dead branch of our stuff for dear life, afraid to risk ourselves on the untried wings of giving. We don't think we can live generously because we have never tried. But the sooner we start, the better, for we are going to have to give up our lives finally, and the longer we wait, the less time we have for the soaring and swooping life of grace."

 The issue finally is, "Will the gifts you give honor Christ?  Will the gifts you give reflect the incredible, lavish, outrageous, undeserved, sacrificial, costly love with which God loves you? Will you give out of your abundance or will you give out of your poverty?"