[Sermon preached on 26 August 2018, 14th Sunday after Pentecost / 3rd year, ELCF Lectionary]
Somehow, widows have been on my mind this past week. Last Tuesday, I was contacted by a woman whose husband had just died. She asked me to arrange the funeral.
That same day, I read the Bible readings for this Sunday. The story from the Old Testament is about three women, who had just lost their husbands: a father and his two sons. When you read the whole story, you realize how hard life could be for those women who lost their husbands or sons, and with them lost their social security. These three women each try to work out their own strategy for survival. Naomi goes back to Bethlehem where she has relatives, Orpah goes back to her family in Moab, and Ruth decides to follow her mother-in-law.
Being a widow in Bible times wasn’t easy. Except for the emotional loss and grief, there was also the economic burden. In those days there was no widow’s pension, no social security. When a woman lost her husband, she lost everything. If she was young, she might have a second chance by remarrying. But older widows were entirely dependent on their relatives and neighbors and on the charity of the rich. And if they failed to show mercy, the widows would be doomed to poverty. Think of this when you read the story about the widow in the temple.
But I want you to think of something else as well. Think of the context. I have said it before when we were studying the Gospel of Mark either in the sermon or in the Tuesday Bible Fellowship. When the evangelist Mark writes about encounters like this, he always sets them in context. We need to know what has happened before and what happens next, in order to appreciate the point of the story.
When we look back a few verses in Mark 12, we see how Jesus teaches about the Great Commandment. A teacher of the law asks him which of the commandments is the most important. Jesus answers:
“The most important one, is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
And the teacher commends Jesus:
“You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
But when the guy has left, Jesus turns to his disciples and to the common folk standing around him with a word of warning:
“Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”
And then comes the story about the widow in the temple.
So now we know what preceded the event. But we still need to know what happens next, in order to catch the full meaning of what Jesus is trying to teach here. As Jesus and his disciples leave the temple, the disciples admire the huge and massive stones that were used for the outer temple walls. When you go to the old city of Jerusalem to the so-called Wailing Wall, where the Jews go for their prayers, you can still see some of those immense stones there today.
But how does Jesus react? He answers,
“Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
So, do you see the flow of the story? Love God. Love your neighbor. No greater commandment than these. Love is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus and the teacher of the law fully agree on that—at least in theory. But Jesus warns the people that how the lawyers and the religious leaders live in practice is quite a different story. And he also prophesies how the temple would soon be destroyed—within forty years to be exact. Neighbors in need of their love would always be there, but the place to bring ritual sacrifices would soon disappear. There would be no more offering boxes where the rich and righteous could show off their generosity.
In this little anecdote about the widow in the temple, Jesus deliberately takes a seat opposite the place where thirteen offering boxes are placed in a long row. They are called the “thirteen trumpets”, because they have an opening in the shape of a trumpet. That way, you could hardly miss when you tried to throw your offering into the box.
The great festival of Passover is near, and there is a huge crowd of pilgrims and tourists from Judea, Galilee and from around the world. They all want to visit the magnificent temple that King Herod the Great had built.
Rich landowners and businessmen come to the temple and, without giving it much thought, they throw huge amounts of money into the offering boxes. It is a lot of money, but in their personal finances the gifts do not make a big difference. They give from their surplus, Jesus says.
But then he pinpoints a woman who by her dress can easily be identified as a widow—and a poor one, to be sure. When she puts two of the smallest coins into an offering box, Jesus calls his disciples and says, “You see? This woman gave from her poverty—from her lack. Now she is broke.” And that is where the little anecdote ends.
This story stands out from all the other encounters that Jesus had in the Gospel of Mark. Whenever there are people with needs—lack of food, a physical handicap or disease, or an evil spirit—Jesus not only teaches, but also goes out of his way to meet their needs. He feeds the five thousand at the lakeside, he heals the blind, the deaf and the crippled, and he drives out many demons. But in this particular story, Jesus does not go up to the widow. He does not do anything to lift the burden of her poverty. Or does he?
In fact, he does something important to help the widow in her plight. Do you guess what that is? — He tells his disciples. He tells the people who are standing around and listen. What he is saying is this: “Hey folks! Do you see this widow? She just gave her last money to the temple treasury. It is her gift to God in whom she puts her trust. But now she is broke. If nobody comes to her aid and supports her with a gift of food or money, she cannot survive. And listen, folks! You remember what we just discussed with the teacher of the law? There is no greater command than the one to love your neighbor. Love is more important than offerings and sacrifices. — Do you get me, folks? Do you hear what I am trying to say?”
Mark does not tell us whether the disciples got the message and got on their feet to help the widow. I certainly hope they did.
Loving our neighbor as ourselves… It isn’t easy. It doesn’t necessarily come naturally for all of us. Last week, after I had sent out the weekly email to invite you to the service today, somebody commented on the topic. The person said that the topic is uninteresting and irrelevant because we all know that we should love our neighbor. We need not repeat the same thing over and over. And what can we say that has not already been said many times before?
I think there is a good point there. Wasn’t that the problem with the teacher of the law and with the disciples and the crowds listening to Jesus? They had heard it all so many times before that it did not touch their hearts any longer.
So rather than repeating the same message over and over, what particular insights should I share with you today from this little anecdote? Let me give you three points to take home with you.
For the first point, look at what Jesus does in this story. He sits down and watches. He sits down and watches. All too often, we are too busy going from one place to another, from one appointment to another. Our minds are so full of our own business, our own thoughts and our own problems. So, we are not really there—we are not genuinely present. And therefore, we don’t notice the neighbor who needs us. We just rush past them, our eyes and our minds fixed on our next task or appointment. We need to slow down and observe. We need to open our eyes—the eyes of our heart—to see the one whom we are called to love in a practical and concrete way.
I can honestly tell you that this is one of my great personal weaknesses. And it is a weakness that doesn’t really befit a pastor. Someone called me up on a Monday morning and telling me, “Pastor, I tried to get your attention yesterday at the coffee hour, but you didn’t react. You did not notice me.” Or someone else is trying to share her problem in a discrete and diplomatic way, and I just don’t understand what she is trying to communicate.
But weakness is never an excuse. We just need to learn to live more mindfully and more aware of the world in which we live and the people who surround us.
Prayer can help. Many years ago, I was working in an organization with many conflicts and issues among our staff. It affected the business, it affected our productivity, our rates of sick leave were up, and it was burdensome simply to come to work in the morning. My pastor suggested that I would start praying for the people in the workplace—every morning before going to work. In those days, I had a 30–minute trip to work, so there was plenty of time to pray for all of them on the way there.
And soon I noticed things happening. First, my own attitude changed. Instead of constantly dreading what would go wrong next, I felt anticipation: Is God going to do something? I also noticed that my attitude towards my difficult colleagues changed. Instead of condemning them beforehand for what they were going to do wrong next, I started to look at them as people with personal needs, people who need sympathy and affirmation and support. I saw positive things in them that I had never seen before.
My attitude, in turn, changed others’ attitude. We were all becoming more positive and supportive, and less judgmental. Our coffee breaks together became more and more a time of genuine sharing and caring. And gradually, I came to understand that prayer works, if only I am ready to be a part of the answer.
Slowing down and showing a genuine interest in the people around us—that is the first lesson to draw from the story of the widow in the temple.
The second point we can learn from this story is that we cannot always help our neighbor in need, but we can always communicate that need to those who can make a difference. As far as we know, Jesus did not have a purse of his own. His inner group of disciples shared a common purse, which was managed by Judas Iscariot. His task was to pay for their joint expenses and—as we learn from the Gospel of John—to give alms to the poor. So when Jesus calls his disciples and shows them the widow’s gift to the temple treasury and explains that she is broke now, at least Judas Iscariot should get up and go towards the widow to give her enough financial support to help her through the Passover feast.
Last week, when a widow was in distress because she needed help and assistance for the funeral of her late husband, it was one of our members here who connected her to me. I often have people contact me and say: “So and so told me to call you because of an issue I have.” Sometimes I can help, sometimes not. Sometimes I can give them the name of a person who can help them, or I connect them one way or another. Church coffee hours are a good place to connect people in need with people who can help. Social media is another way. Remember, that we may not have the answers to everyone’s needs, questions and problems, but we may bring them one step closer to those who have.
My third point is this. Loving our neighbor is more than giving money to the poor. Not all people we meet are poor widows. But all people we meet are our neighbors. They become neighbors the moment we meet.
Over the years, I have found out that many people come to church, not because they are religious, not because they love the hymns and the preaching, but because they need people whom they can connect with. They are lonely. They don’t have a family. They don’t have friends. Their neighbors don’t talk to them. They are all alone in this world—at least that is how they feel. And so they come to church to find people who notice them when they come in, who greet them, who sit down at their coffee table for a chat—people who really care.
Then there are people who are being bullied and discriminated at school, in the workplace, on the street—everywhere. It is because the color of their skin is not right, their size or their looks are not right, or because they stutter or have a funny accent. People who are pushed down all the time, to the point where death seems to be the only way out of their distress. Have you ever thought of how a word of compassion, encouragement or affirmation can actually save lives?
I recently read an interesting book by Gary Chapman, called “The Five Languages of Love”. The book is meant primarily for couples, but what he writes about the “languages” in which we express and receive love applies to parents and children and to virtually any relationship. Chapman identifies five love languages. They are (1) gifts; (2) quality time; (3) words of affirmation; (4) acts of service; (5) physical touch.
The way people recognize and receive love from others depends on their personality—their native love language, as Chapman calls it—but also on their specific needs at the moment and their recent history. If you are broke, receiving a bag of groceries speaks a powerful language of love. If you are lonely, having someone sit down with you for some quality time means a lot to you. If you are being bullied and discriminated, words of affirmation and encouragement can change your life altogether. If you have an accident and are bed-ridden or tied to a wheelchair, or if you are like me, born with two left hands and unable to do even the most basic repairs in the house or put together an Ikea cupboard, you will specially appreciate acts of service. If you go through a time of grief or loneliness, a physical touch or a hug can make all the difference.
Loving our neighbor requires sensitivity to recognize our neighbor and their needs. It requires sensitivity to recognize the ways in which we—or others whom we can connect with—can meet those needs. For some of us that sensitivity comes naturally. For others, it requires a more mindful lifestyle, a more genuine presence, and a deeper compassion—the kind which we see in the life of Jesus. Let us pray, that God will make us more sensitive, more compassionate, and more loving towards the neighbor whom he puts on our path. Amen.
