josephholubsermons


 

November 8, 2009 -  Pentecost 23
Mark 12:38-44

UNLIKLEY CONNECTIONS

It was the Fall of  2000, and I was in my office at the church building and the phone rang.  I picked it up, and a rather deep and husky male voice spoke from the other end and said, "Yah, my name is Larry.  I need help with gas and groceries.  I've been all over. No one will help me.  Will you help me?" 

My first thought was that this person certainly got right to the point!  I told him if he could come by the church I could perhaps help him out .  We had a rather well-stocked food pantry at the church and a pastor's discretionary fund I could use for emergencies.  About an hour later Larry showed up.  He appeared to be in his mid-sixties.  I remember he had plaid trousers, a striped shirt and well worn white sneakers. He had a facial expression that was almost blank/empty, kind of eerie, revealing little of what he might be truly feeling.  I introduced myself, extended my hand in hospitality, he momentarily hesitated but then extended his back in a very feeble and brief hand-shake.  Consistent with the phone call he got right to the point and said, "I ran out gas about a mile from here.  I walked from there to get here." 

So, I went out to the church storage shed where the gas can for the lawn mower was stored, and it happened to be full of gas.  We drove to his car and got it started.  I took him to the gas station, went back by the church, got him groceries from the panty.  Larry said, "Thank you!" and went on his way.  His immediate need was met, and I could feel like I had done my good deed for the day.  I thought that was the end of it.    

One month later almost to the day, the phone rang, and I picked it up and that familiar deep and husky voice spoke from the other end and said,  "This is Larry.  I need gas and groceries.  Can you help me out?"  - a connection had begun. 

To make a long story short, Larry had a mental illness.  Larry needed medication for his illness without which he could not function very well.  Larry lived off social security.  Larry ran out money about the fourth week of each month, a week before his next social security check came in the mail.  Hence, every month about the middle of the fourth week I would get a phone that always began  the same way, “This is Larry…”    

Early on in our relationship I went to get him groceries in the panty, and when I came out, he said, "You always give me things I don't like!"   OK, so our pattern became he would go back to the food pantry with me, and he would pick out the things he liked.  He liked canned pears and peaches, and chicken noodle soup and cheerios.  I made sure we always had a supply in the pantry. 

One day he called because someone had given him a T.V, but he needed help getting it to his apartment.  So, I helped.  I discovered he lived a low income public housing complex  in north Aurora in a little one bedroom apartment - maybe 300-350 sq feet at the most .  Larry had a green couch that was all frayed around the edges and had holes in it, and a tiny little table in the kitchen that looked like something from about 1955; and one kitchen chair  with a plastic padded yellow seat that was torn and the stuffing was protruding out.  For a bed he had a mattress on the floor.  That was it.  That was all.  Nothing else except for a car - a Mercury Topaz that was in pretty good shape that enabled him to get around.  Over time, I helped him find a few more things to make his tiny apartment more livable. 

This went on for several years.  During those years I got to know Larry little by little.  He once worked for Boeing in Washington State, but I suspect his illness was a factor in his job termination, and I sensed he may have been the victim of some injustice, but I don't know for sure.  We would talk.  We would sometimes argue about politics.  We would discuss religion. Some days he would thoroughly tick me off - and probably visa versa.   At times he was delusional, and when in that state he told some very interesting stories.  But every month the call would come. "This is Larry..."

One day the phone rang and that same deep and husky voice was at the other end - only it wasn't the fourth week of the month.  It was like the second week and that was unusual.  "This is Larry.  The doctor told me I got cancer.  Can you help me?"

I tell you this story because it's about what I think our three scripture passages are about this morning.  And the best way I can think of to get the point across is to tell this story.      

Our scriptures this morning are about connections.  Larry and I formed a connection.  We became connected, and it was a totally and utterly an unlikely and improbable connection.  It's a connection that I, never in a million years, would have ever sought out on my own.   It was a connection created by a man who reached out to me, and for whatever reason(s) that I cannot fully explain, I reached back and Larry and I became connected - our lives became intertwined.   I couldn't solve all his problems - didn't try,  I couldn't fix him-didn't try.  I couldn't heal his mental illness or his cancer-didn't try.   I felt no need to change him in any way or alter his political and religious viewpoints- didn't try.  But I could stay connected - because, you see, there had been so many times and so many instances in Larry's life that others had disconnected him which only served to further marginalize,  dehumanize and disparage him - cast him aside on some human trash heap of life.  From a deep place in his being, he simply was looking for someone to show him a little compassion, and where compassion exists connections are inevitable. 

It was time of great drought and Elijah, the first of the great prophets of Israel, perceived God was telling him to go to a most unlikely place and to a most improbable person, a widow who lived in Zarephath.  In other words, a prophet of Israel was to go to someone who lived outside the parameters of Israel, a foreigner who worshipped another God, in order to be fed - that is, to form a God-blessed unlikely connection - a connection from which they both benefitted.  Elijah was hungry and the woman had only enough for one more meal for her and her daughter and she then expected to die shortly thereafter.  Elijah's need and her sharing what she perceived to be her last meal resulted in the miracle of both being mutually fed.  It all happened in the context of their God initiated and God-blessed unlikely connection - and the implied message is it wouldn't have happened or couldn't have happened without their unlikely connection.

In the epistle from James this morning we hear James advancing the idea of unlikely connections between improbable participants – in this case between the rich and the poor of his own congregation.  If you read the letter of James in its entirety, (especially chapters 1, 3 & 5) it becomes clear that the biggest issue in James' congregation was the great disparity that existed between the rich and the poor.  And it wasn't the disparity that bothered James so much, but the tragic truth that some of the wealthy of his congregation had gained much of their wealth though unjust tactics; by oppressing and defrauding poor members of the same congregation. 

James says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God... is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress."   James was advancing, what I call,  a spirituality of unlikely connections between the rich and poor of his Jesus-based community.  One author says it this way, "Jesus leads us into a material spirituality - that is a way of being in the world that honors and treasures all humanity;" especially social and economic justice for the last and the least and the powerless.  

A similar thing is going on in our gospel passage today, which, to me, is one of the most misinterpreted, or narrowly interpreted,  stories in all the gospels.  This story is commonly called the "widow's mite."  The usual interpretation focuses totally on the deep devotion of the poor widow with her display and commitment of astounding generosity; that she gave all she had.   You need to know this is one of the favorite passages of prosperity preachers and televangelists to extract as much as possible out of people (in many instances poor widows) to support, in some cases, grossly lavish and extravagant  life-styles.

But let's look again at the context.  The passage begins, "Beware of the scribes... they devour widow's houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers."    

In the Hebrew Bible, widows and orphans are special objects of God's compassion, for, without a man, in what was an extremely patriarchal and hierarchical society, they were positively the most vulnerable of all – prime for exploitation.  The way society treated them was the means the social prophets used to measure the level of social and economic justice or injustice that existed in their culture.  The reference to the "devouring of widow's houses" was a direct reference to a specific practice and a corrupt system.  

The scribes were a literate and educated class, many of whom worked for the wealthy.  One of their responsibilities was to administer loan agreements, and when loans fell behind or could not be repaid they foreclosed, often on widows and children whose husbands had died and had little or no means of support.  Because the wealthy were also a part of the ruling elite collaborating with both the temple hierarchy and the Roman authorities, an alliance of the powerful was created to perpetuate power for all three over and against the poorer masses. 

Jesus' indictment of the scribes and the domination system they represented is followed by this story of the poor widow who puts all she had into the temple treasury.  Jesus contrasts her gift with the gifts of the wealthy saying hers was the greater gift.  I am certainly not saying that Jesus wasn't commending her for her great gift - for he was - but his comments can also be read as a lament and an indictment for the way the poor were manipulated to support the temple and its elaborate system of collaboration between itself,  the wealthy elites and Roman ruling authority stacked against them- the poor. 

What Jesus was lamenting, in this case, was the lack of connection between unlikely and improbable people symbolized by the whole system of corruption and this woman's astounding offering.   He was lamenting that the poor and rich were so disconnected - so far apart - all cultivated and fostered by a corrupt political/religious system.  It’s a gross and disgusting contrast with the rich arrogantly putting in their huge offerings, merely  a drop from their huge resources, and this impoverished woman humbly putting in everything not knowing if she would eat the next day – all to support a system that victimized and exploited poor people like her.   

When we look closely at the ministry of Jesus we see he was all about intentionally creating unlikely and improbable connections; connections that were forbidden and considered blasphemous among the super religious and  politically threatening to powerful elites.  Jesus connected with a community of people who were disconnected from the political and  religious institutions that looked down upon them, exploited them, marginalized them and cast them aside as so much human rubbish: prostitutes, political seditionists, women, children and more.

In God's realm, or the Kingdom of God as it's called in the gospels, we are connected to improbable and unlikely people.  The connections that Jesus mentors us in are connections that supersede and breach our instinctive tribal connections that are nothing more than connections of similarity, like-mindedness and security.  The question is will we attempt to any degree to live by those Jesus-connections; allow our lives to be shaped by those Jesus-connections; follow Jesus when he invites and leads us into to those unlikely and improbable connections.  Or will we only live within the safe and parochial boundaries of our narrow connections, and thereby insult Jesus and kiss off with disdain the improbable connections fostered in the Kingdom of God.

I challenge you to pursue in some way, if you already haven't, a spirituality of unlikely connections as mentored by Jesus.  In this congregation we provide some ways to do it , especially through service opportunities.  But there are a plethora of other ways in this community to establish God-blessed unlikely connections with improbable people – opportunities to be bearers of compassion.  And when you do, you will experience in some way what Mark meant by the “good news of Jesus.”

By the way, because I know you will ask, Larry had surgery for prostate cancer and then moved back to the west coast.  I have lost track of him, but a part of me sometimes still expects around the fourth week of the month for the phone to ring and for our unlikely and improbable connection to be renewed with the words, "This is Larry..."