Sermon on Mark 12: 38–44 and 1 Kings 17:8–16. Proclaimed at Trinity Lutheran in West Hazelton, PA and St. Luke Lutheran in Freedland, PA.
The widow’s two pennies, as taught by my Sunday school teachers, involved the kind of financial accounting appropriate to second-grade minds. The rich put in large sums of money, but had more where that came from. Maybe a 5% offering. And the widow put in much less, but it was all she had, so that makes 100%. 100 is bigger than 5, so of course God loves her more. Just do the math.
This story isn’t about math.
Holy Sepulchre Lutheran is a vibrant, living congregation. You can tell, just looking at their building, that they have tons of money, which is no real surprise in a wealthy neighborhood. They’re good people, who place a high value on their church. And yet, something’s not quite right.
Don’t get me wrong. The jazz band is wonderful, the third Sunday of every month. And you can’t help but gasp in awe at the guest musician series. But while people are friendly, they don’t really know one another. There’s nothing “community” about this community. A woman sits after worship one week, weeping silently to herself, and everyone just ignores her. Anything out of the ordinary is met with discomfort and complaint—No, communion is served from left to right, and the assisting minister sits over here. Nobody goes to coffee hour after worship. The Nursery School causes nothing but problems. And please don’t get too real in preaching, because we prefer our faith to be kept out of the rest of our lives.
When their pastor retired, they were livid with the Bishop’s office because it was taking too long to get a new one. “Five months! It’s been five whole months!” The shortage of leadership in that part of the country meant some congregations had been waiting for five years, but they had money, so couldn’t we speed things up? Maybe they’d just find their own. Why trust in the Holy Spirit when you can trust in the personnel search committee? Meanwhile, we’d better get this concert—I mean, worship service—under way. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that.
Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.
Joyful Spirits Lutheran is small. Twenty members meet each Sunday morning in their dilapidated building, but you feel at home the moment you walk in the door. Well, IF you walk in the door. Their neighborhood is best described as “Inner City.” Desperate poverty, trash in the streets, buildings falling apart, drugs and gangs and violence everywhere. And yet there, in the middle of the block, people sing the glory of God.
And boy, do they sing. Their gospel choir numbers five, on a good day. But, baby, they make you feel alive. On a bad day, the music director announces, “Our choir members aren’t here today, so we’re all going to be the choir.” And off they go, the whole church singing a choir anthem. Then out come the “King’s Daughters,” three young women in breathtaking liturgical dance, as we sing together, “This is the feast of vict’ry for our God, Alleluia.”
We tell the story and eat the meal, we sing and dance and praise our God, and then we have announcements. Oh, the announcements. Raymond is in the hospital again, but this time it seems like his leg isn’t nearly as bad and maybe he won’t be there so long, and we’re going to pray for him, and we do. And while we’re at it, we should stop and think of Nancy, who hasn’t been able to make it here since her mother died, because she just doesn’t have the heart to leave the house, but we know that God will fill her heart with joy soon enough, and we are going to keep visiting her until He does. And then old Bill Johnson gives one of his “recitations,” some poem memorized from a magazine decades ago, and people love it, not because it’s a good poem, but because it’s from Bill. And there’s a meal happening on Tuesday at our sister church in the glitzy part of town, and don’t forget that next week we’re going to be going over to the nursing home to sing with the residents; and clearly it doesn’t matter that this congregation and its members have absolutely nothing. They celebrate their community and the way God provides for them anyway. They bring what they have to God, not because they have, but because they do not have. They have nothing, and so they cannot trust in their possessions. Instead, they can only trust in God, and so they do, and it is glorious. Praise the LORD, O my soul!
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.
Abiding Faith clearly knew it was always going to be small when it built the sanctuary, the size of a postage stamp. There was no hope of growth, even in a heavily populated area. Sure enough, the neighborhood eventually gentrified, and most the members moved away. Those who were left couldn’t afford a pastor every week; their organist study a bit with the Bishop’s office, and preached the off Sundays. When he was playing the organ, nobody really sang. The choir had two members. The service was dry. When I asked them what they were proud of, they brought out the chalice engraved with the name of a great grandmother, the linen donated by someone we don’t even know anymore. After church, we had “cabbage struedel,” in honor of the congregation’s ethnic heritage, a heritage claimed by nobody who still attended. No excitement for today’s ministries—but you’d had better have the right number of flowers for Epiphany.
One Sunday, I finally asked why they didn’t even have somebody to read the lessons. (As the pastor, I had to do it.) As it turns out, there were very few people who could read. Some were mentally disabled, and couldn’t learn. Others had eyes muddled with age. The rest had physical disabilities and couldn’t walk up front. A congregation made up entirely of— I don’t even know what to call them. Misfits maybe. People on the margins? Not the community you’d expect to find gathered in any Lutheran congregation. This church wasn’t exactly vibrant, or even “functional.” But they loved each other. I imagine that if their little church has to officially close someday, they’ll still meet for breakfast on Sundays, and Jesus will still be in their midst, and God will still provide for them, and they will truly still be a congregation. Bless the Lord, O my strange and wonderful soul.
Do not be afraid… For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: 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.
Three churches, like the three people we meet in today’s readings. The rich who give from their abundance, trusting in their wealth, so that they don’t need to trust in God. The poor widow who gives the only two pennies she has, trusting completely in God who has always cared for her. The widow of Zarephath, a foreigner who never even met Israel’s God, who complains as she makes her last meal, but is willing to share it with a stranger despite her best judgement. One who does not trust, one who does, and one who just complains.
And God provides for them all. Because each one of them belongs to God, and is His beloved. No, this story isn’t about math, about who gives better than whom. Because God gives better than any one of us. This story is finally about trust. Jesus wants us to know that we can trust God, because everything we have comes from Him. God is the one who made us in the first place. God is the one who provides for us in our lives. God is the one who conquers even death for us. Whether we trust in God or not, all that we have comes from God, and God will never disappoint.
Which means that we can trust in God. Something I think we need to know this so badly. Juggling Attorney Generals and Legislative seats. Watching wildfires sweep through California and hurricanes tear across the southeast. Watching asylum-seekers outside our borders and mass shooters inside them. Experiencing disease in our bodies and financial instability in our homes. And worse. There is so much to fear.
We could trust in our own power and prestige. But ultimately it will run out, and disappoint us. We could trust in no one and nothing, picking up a few sticks to cook our last meal that we may eat it and die. In either of these cases, God will still take care of us. Not even our lack of faith, not even our despair, will keep us away from God’s love. But if we place our two cents, and our whole entire lives, in God’s hands, we don’t just receive the breadth and depth of God’s providence. We also receive the peace that comes from having our entire trust in the one thing that can never let us down. In the darkest of places, we can trust in the resurrection and the life. We can trust the promise of God’s abundance. The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!