St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – 23rd Sunday after Pentecost - Nov. 8, ’09
“A Sight To See – At the Edge!”
Text: Mark 12:43,44
If you are familiar with a magazine called NEBRASKA LIFE, you’ve probably seen or heard about the magazine’s November/December issue and the large, nicely written article titled, “Celebrating Minden.”
At the end of the ten page article complete with beautiful pictures of Minden & ads for businesses that do business in Minden there is also a page listing “Sights To See in Minden – Minden’s Attractions.”
Pioneer Village, the Kearney County Historical Museum, the Minden Opera House, The Minden Courthouse, the Town Square, Grace Elizabeth’s Bed and Breakfast, Burchell’s White Hill Farmhouse Inn Bed and Breakfast.”
Sights to see, or for us who live here, sights that are easy to take for granted.
It happens with stories in the Bible too. Sights to see! Sights that are easy to take for granted! That’s my overall theme for these final Sunday’s of the church.
This Sunday, according to the appointed Gospel reading from Mark chapter 12, the sight to see is what Jesus sees at what I am going to call the edge of giving – the offering box. What a sight Jesus saw when he sat down with his disciples at the edge of a placed called the treasury and watched people bringing their offerings who were not aware that Jesus was watching them and Jesus noticed like no one else could notice not much how much people were giving, but how people were giving.
To see the larger picture here, it helps to remember the context leading up to what Jesus saw. According to Mark 11 & 12, Jesus was at His journey’s end. He had arrived in Jerusalem. Upon entering Jerusalem, Jesus was given a king’s royal welcome. “Hosanna! Hosanna!” the people shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father, David! Hosanna in the highest.”
But that was Sunday, the first day of the week. With Passover less than a week away and Jerusalem filling up with pilgrims coming up to the temple from all over, Jesus spent a lot of time up at the temple, at one point, early in the week, boldly stepping forward to cleanse the temple, “driving out those who sold & those who bought and overturning the tables of the money changers.”
As the week progressed, so did tensions between Jesus and the Jewish leaders as Jesus challenged their authority, confronted the Scribes & Pharisees with their hypocrisy & self-righteousness and accused them of caring little for the welfare & well-being of widows & children to the point that they were even taking advantage of them.
So great was the tension between Jesus & the Scribes & Pharisees that finally the Scribes & Pharisees cut a deal with Judas for Judas to betray Jesus when the time was right so Jesus might be arrested, quickly brought to trial & silenced
While all of this was going on, Jesus was still busy teaching His disciples, pointing out to them signs of the new Kingdom of God He had come to establish – signs like one poor widow with her seemingly insignificant offering that caught Jesus attention.
What did Jesus see? That’s the point of this Sunday’s “sight to see.” The point being, in the Kingdom of God’s grace & mercy where God longs to rule in our hearts, it’s one thing to give a lot when you have a lot, but it’s something else to give a lot when it’s all you got. It’s something else to give all you got when you’re down to your last dime or your last penny but you are believing, you are trusting, you are focused on seeking first the Kingdom of God.
That’s what Jesus wanted His disciples to see, and Mark wants us to see as well. A lot of times preachers use this text to high-light greater giving, but the poor widow’s story is not really a story about giving. This story of the poor widow giving her last penny when it’s all she’s got is a story about trusting.
At the edge of the temple treasury, filled with offering boxes, Jesus saw a poor widow come and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.
And Jesus called his disciples to him and said to them.
‘See that! Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’
Do we in the church ever imagine Jesus sitting, standing at the edge of our worship, watching what we put into the offering plate, or watching how we live, how we spend our lives when we’re not in church
Let me be very clear on this point of seeing what Jesus sees, that we might see it too.
Jesus is not interested in seeing how much people give, but HOW they give. Jesus is not interested in the level of our giving. Jesus does not focus on are we giving 5% or 10% of all that we have, commendable as that might be. Jesus is much, much more interested in what’s behind our giving, what’s in our hearts. How passionate, how confident, how hopeful are we that whether we have a lot or a little we have more than enough -- and God will see to it that there is al-ways more than enough that we might be as generous as we can be.
Not too long ago I heard Nebraska football coach Bo Pelini say it’s one thing to have highly recruited, super-talented football players who give you a lot, but it’s something else to have average, determined, passionate football players who know the basics, practice hard, and they give you all they got.
I can’t imagine Christian pastors or marriage counselors saying to couples who want their marriage to work that marriage is a 50/50 proposition. If you give 50%, 60% that’s a lot, that’s good enough. No way! The key to a good, lasting, meaningful marriage is not a lot, but all you’ve got, the best you’ve got.
Marriage is not for getting what you want; marriage is for giving best you’ve got. What’s the best there is? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, counsels the apostle Paul.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgive you. Not 50%, 60%, but all you got, more than a lot.
This is giving & forgiving that is hard, that hurts, that calls for sacrifice, but it’s giving it all you got when it’s giving that is grace-based, Spirit-inspired, trusting fully in God who is the Giver of every good and perfect gift that comes down from above.
The bottom line here, the good news, is not that we all have to work harder on our giving. If that was the case, that would be nothing but LAW, got to, have to, work harder, try harder, give more than you’re giving. That kind of talk is not Good News, that’s Law, and Law always accuses, always exposes, always shows us falling short!
The bottom line here, the good news, is that the widow put in everything she had, all she had to live on, all for the glory of God all for the good that God would have us do for others, however rich or poor or middle income people we might be.
Despite her poverty, the widow acted with amazing faith, casting her future into the arms of God. That poor widow let believing in God & being faithful to God’s love & grace toward her, work in her such generosity, such gratitude, that she was able with what little she had to love God with all her heart, with all her soul, with all her mind, with all her strength, and with all she had, little as it was, -- and to love her neighbor as herself, poor as she was.
Not only is this a sight to see at the edge of the treasury, to see the generosity, the trust, the love Jesus sees in the widow’s offering as she drops her last two coins into the offering box, but may this be a sight in which we, by the grace of God, are moved to see ourselves and willingly, graciously put ourselves.
God does not ask us to renounce our possessions, but he does ask us to renounce a spirit of possessiveness & selfishness.
God does not ask us to give up necessities, but he does call us through the ultimate sacrifice of His Son “to be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, abundance, and blessedness.”
If there are sights to see in & around Minden that lead insiders as well as outsiders to take pictures & tell stories “celebrating Minden” . . . what a sight to see when we by faith see what Jesus sees at the edge of the treasury; when we see & we believe that the deepest, truest joy in life is not in getting all we can get, or hanging on to what we have, but in sharing all that we have got.
