November 8, 2009
Mark 12:38-44

“Giving on the Eve of Collapse”
Rev. Dr. Dave Davis

 

Jesus sat down and watched. There in the Temple, he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting in money. Historians describe several different donation spots aligned there in the temple. People would be going to various drop spots labeled to indicate where this or that chest of money would be going. Jesus sat down and watched.

This visit to the Temple is an eventful one in Mark’s Gospel. Just as Jesus and his disciples arrive at the Temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approach demanding to know by what authority Jesus had been doing all these things. After that brief Temple entrance exam Jesus begins to speak in parables and he told the one about the owner of the vineyard whose tenants kept beating the slaves sent to collect the rent. So the vineyard owner sent his beloved Son and they killed him. The audience of religious leaders there in the Temple didn’t like the implications of the parable so they sent a few Pharisees to entrap Jesus, to try to outsmart him. That’s the conversation about taxes and render unto the emperor the things that belong to him and give to God the things that are God’s.

Next, it’s the Sadducees turn and those who say there is no resurrection, they come to Jesus to ask about a wife who married all seven brothers after each had died, wanting to know who she would be married to in heaven. And then one of the scribes comes to ask Jesus about which commandment is the first of all. Jesus answers with “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…and love your neighbor as yourself.” Question after question, from chief priests, scribes, elders, Pharisees, Sadducees; question after question, answer after answer until finally, as Mark describes it, “no one dared to ask him any question.”

Stopped at the door to defend himself. Teaching a parable. Question. Answer. Question. Answer. All of it there in Temple. And as Jesus continues to teach, he says, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplace, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

And then Jesus sat down and watched. In the midst of quite a busy day there at the Temple, amid all that back and forth, all the give and take, amid all the dissonance, Jesus sat down and watched. There in the Temple, opposite the Treasury, Jesus sat down and watched. The crowd is putting money in. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow comes, a poor devoured widow comes and puts in two small copper coins, worth about a penny, maybe less. Jesus, sitting and watching, he calls to his disciples and says to them, “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.”

Jesus, the disciples, the hearers of the Word that is Mark’s Gospel, Mark’s intended audience, Mark’s readers, the church, you, me…sitting and watching the poor widow who put in two copper coins. Commentators point out that this scene is the last act of public ministry for Jesus in Mark’s gospel. Readers of Mark chapter 12 will also notice that is the last thing that happens, not only in chapter 12, but in this particular temple visit so full of conflict and teaching and parable and Great Commandments. Sitting and watching the widow here at the end of chapter 12, here at the end of a tumultuous trip to the temple, here on the eve of a significant twist in this Jesus story that is Mark’s gospel.

I was by myself in London for two days on my way to South Africa gawking my way around the city. One of the things about doing the tourist thing by yourself; museums, double decker buses, historic places, is that you move on whenever you want. You never wait for someone, or round up the family, or run to catch up with a guide. My hunch here at the end of the temple visit and the change of pace sitting down opposite the treasury, and the widow and her widow’s mite, my hunch is that the disciples, and Mark’s listeners, and Mark’s readers, and the church, along with you and me, my hunch is that while we are all lingering here, while we are still sitting and watching, Jesus is ready to head out. Jesus is moving on.

Mark 13:1 “As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples says to him, ‘Look Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asks him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another.; all will be thrown down.” We’re still watching the poor widow and Jesus is out the front gate predicting the destruction of the temple! Talking about nation rising against nation and earthquakes and famines, talking about false messiahs and false prophets, and the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. About that day or hour no one knows, only the Father in heaven…Beware! Keep alert! Keep awake!  Jesus can’t we just sit and watch, this poor widow who put in all the living that she had!

Can’t we just sit and watch this paragon of giving idolized by history? Jesus, can’t we just rest here, forgetting for a moment your stinging condemnation of the rich who give for all to see and the corrupt religious leaders who devour widows (including her)?” Who really wants to wrestle with the thought that she was giving her very last cent maybe to those who already took all she had to live on?  When we follow Jesus out the Temple Gate and listen to what he has to day about this Temple’s destruction, it will soon occur to us that she was giving all she had to an institution that was on the eve of a complete collapse. It’s much easier to watch a generous soul than ponder a victim. Can’t we just stay here, sit and watch, and admire and enshrine her generosity! The trouble is, you look around, and Jesus is long gone. And in Mark’s gospel, when Jesus heads out of the Temple, he’s heading to the Mt of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane and to Golgotha….talk about a collapse.

Professor Don Juel, who before his death taught at Princeton Seminary and worshipped with us here at Nassau Church, Professor Juel had a gifted ear when it came to listening to Mark’s Gospel. In his book on Mark re-interpreted, A Master of Surprise, he argues that the intended audience for Mark’s gospel is a group of sleepy believers, believers who, like the disciples in the garden, find that their eyes are weighed down, heavy with indifference. As Juel points out, there’s a difference between Jesus shoiting out “Hold fast”, “stay the course”, “live strong”, there’s a difference between all that and “Hey, wake up!”  The more traditional assumption is that Mark is writing to a church enduring persecution and apocalyptic-like suffering. However, Mark’s Jesus. Professor Juel writes, “addresses a readership whose greatest danger is not a failure of nerve as much as a tired lack of awareness both of the dangers and the possibilities that lie ahead.” It is a church that has “tasted success, found it satisfying, and now takes the gospel for granted.”  A church “that no longer sees the world painted in dramatic colors.”  Sleepy believers numb to the power and the promise of the gospel, even, and especially, on the eve of collapse.

What if the infamous widow with all her might, her one or two mites, what if she is more than an example of selfless generosity? What if she is not simply intended to be a foremother of all victims of religious, political, and economic corruption? What if when Jesus sat down and watched, he was trying to show the disciples that the world, and the powers of the world, and life, this poor widow’s life, is not at all what God intends? After all the banter and the teaching there in the Temple, what if Jesus was trying to shock, to wake up the disciples? Do you think this is the way it is supposed to be? What if when Jesus  heads out the door, leaving the rest of us still staring at the poor woman, what if he really intends to shock, and shake us, to re-acquaint us with the power of the gospel and a vision of the kingdom, where life rises out of death, and power is unleashed in weakness, and the lame walk, and the outcasts are cradled, and all the hungry are fed, and the poor are uplifted, and the valleys are exalted, and the mountains are made low….what if Jesus sat and watched the poor widow because she ought to rock our world, like she rocked His. The Temple, the symbol of power and might, the culture of religious power that steps on a crushes those in its path, the economy that breeds and ever growing canyon between richer and poorer, it’s all about to crumble…she put in all she had to live on, not as a sign of philanthropy, not as a sign of humanity’s brutal brokenness, but as sign of the coming reign of God.

It is Stewardship season in the life of Nassau Church. Pledge Commitment Sunday is next week. Our congregational leaders remained committed to more information, not less, more transparency, not less. So over these last months you will have noticed talk of mission funding and cost with this building and investment in youth ministry and commitments to double our direct support of Crisis Ministry. Some might conclude that there is too much talk about money, or that your leaders are unaware of the challenges of pledging on a fixed income as investments still climb back, or pledging in the aftermath of job loss or overwhelming job insecurity or pledging when tuition realities turn a monthly budget upside down. No, your leaders, your finance committee, your session, your pastors are very well aware. We’re giving more information precisely because more of us are struggling, more of us are called to be wiser in stewardship, because it takes more of us, together to fund this ministry entrusted to us.
But to be clear, the information is not simply intended to be motivation. Stewardship: putting in our giving and living, it is our grateful response to the faithfulness of God. We give in response to God’s glory, an essential part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Stewardship: putting in our giving and living, it is our response to the needs of our community and the world, our calling to be the hands, the feet, and the body of Christ to one another, to the other, to the world.

But there is one more part of stewardship: putting in our giving and living. Charitable giving numbers for 2008 indicate that all giving dropped last year except that in the religious world and what is labeled international affairs (direct disaster relief). And the religious folks stop and watch and pat ourselves on the back for such generosity. No, I don’t think that’s it. What if people of faith give as a sign of the coming reign of God? What if those who crave visions of the kingdom of God give because they know this world is not the one God intends? What if those who have the ears to hear Mark’s Gospel, those who crave the Good News, those who have been with Jesus to the Mt. of Olives and the Garden and the Hill, what if we find ourselves continually elbowed and shocked by Christ himself? What if at Nassau Presbyterian Church, what if our stewardship, putting in our giving and living, what if our giving is one way, that together, as the Body of Christ, we celebrate what it means to stay awake, to keep alert, and to be a sign of the coming reign of God?

 

 

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