THE GIVER GOD BLESSES—MARK 12:38-44
--by R. David Reynolds
Dr. Haddon Robinson is Co-host and teacher on the radio broadcast “Discover the Word,” a writer for the devotional guide Our Daily Bread, and Harold J. Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Writing in Leadership Journal he has stated, “When we discuss money, we’re talking about commitment, and commitment is our domain (--Haddon Robinson in
Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 4).” Leadership Journal is also famous for its cartoons, and two of its noted cartoonists are John Demchuck and Rex May.
John Demchuck once included a cartoon entitled “At the board meeting,” with the punch line: “The financial report, brought to you in living color—RED (--Cartoonist John Demchuck in Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 3.).” In another issue of the Journal Rex May’s cartoon pictured the head usher informing the pastor: “Your stewardship sermons are improving. Still no money, but a lot more IOUs” (--Cartoonist Rex May in Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 1.).”
Today is Stewardship Sunday in many Churches across the United States. Stewardship covers every area of a Christian and a Church’s life: (1.) our time, (2.) our talents, and (3.) our treasures. When the word “stewardship” is mentioned in Christian circles, our thoughts immediately turn to that third category, the one dealing with treasures, with money. In the future the Lord may direct me to preach on the first two, but because our text today is concerned with the third category, I believe the Holy Spirit wants to direct our hearts and indeed our commitment this morning towards the stewardship of money and giving. God will honor that disciple and that Church that return to Him His rightful tithes and offerings out of a loving heart.
Stewardship is based on the principle that God is the Rightful Lord, Master, and Owner of all of His Creation. In Scripture stewardship refers to “the ministry of managing God’s work through the Church.” The New Testament word for stewardship is a compound word consisting of two words, one meaning house and the other meaning an administrator or a manager. A steward, therefore, is “one who manages a household,” and stewardship refers to such management.
A steward was most often a loyal servant to whom a wealthy landowner entrusted the management of his property, estate, finances, or household affairs. A steward could be one’s “chief cook,” “his foreman,” or “his housekeeper.” As the steward’s responsibilities involved finances, in the parables of Jesus a steward usually means a “treasurer.” Oftentimes a steward would be the “guardian” over a minor child. In other words, since the Lord has answered our prayers in making us Sheila’s legal guardian, in the Biblical sense of the word, we have a ministry of stewardship over her.
A steward is one who “guards, protects, or takes care of another person’s property.” In the book of Genesis, Eliezer was Abraham’s steward, Joseph was Potiphar’s, and when Pharaoh elevated Joseph to the position of his Secretary of State, Joseph had his own household steward. All Christians are called to be faithful stewards in such passages of Scripture as I Peter 4:10, “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
In the ministry of stewardship each one of us is ordained by God to be caretakers of His creation, His property. He is the rightful owner of everything. Nothing really belongs to us. We are only temporary caretakers of the gifts He has entrusted to us. All money is His money; none is mine. Isabel Caroline Norton Ososki is a Professor of Nursing at Millikin University. She was in our first Church at Marissa and boards with our own Joyce Allen during Millikin’s Academic Year. Her Great-grandfather was the late Methodist Episcopal Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes, who was instrumental in bringing the former three major Methodist denominations together as the Methodist Church in 1939. Bishop Hughes preached a powerful message entitled “God’s Ownership.” It “put a rich parishioner’s nose out-of-joint. The wealthy man took the Bishop off for lunch, and then walked him through his elaborate gardens, woodlands, and farm. He demanded when the tour was complete, ‘Now are you going to tell me that all this land does not belong to me?’ Bishop Hughes smiled and suggested, ‘Ask me that same question a hundred years from now’ (--Bennett Cerf, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 2.).”
In our text Jesus introduces us to two people, actually one class of people and a poor widow. The group is that notorious class of individuals called “the scribes” that we have so often encountered in Mark’s Gospel. We learn a valuable lesson in stewardship through both of their examples. Remember that “the scribes” were the experts in the Law of Moses. They were teachers of the Law in schools and synagogues. They expounded on the Scriptures; they preserved them. They were also referred to as lawyers and served as judges in the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court. In today’s text Jesus warns His disciples “beware of the scribes.” He gives several reasons for His warning, but let’s note one in particular: “They devour widows’ houses” (verse 40). Many of the scribes exploited widows. Jews and Christians have always been charged with a ministry of caring for widows. A noted case in point is James 1:27: “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” The word that Jesus uses for “devour” literally means “to consume or destroy one another.” Many scribes did just this by exploiting widows rather than visiting them in their distress.
Scribes as judges also often denied widows justice in court. We remember the parable Jesus told about the widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18. He says: “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent. For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out” (Luke 18:2-5). Scribes tended to exploit widows and deny them justice.
Scribes were usually affluent citizens. Immediately after warning His disciples to beware of them, Jesus observes people putting their offerings into the Temple Treasury. Verse 41 states that “many rich people were putting in large sums.” Doubtless some of the scribes were among these rich folks making large contributions. Now enter the poor widow. Just how poor was she? The word “poor” suggests she was “utterly helpless, completely destitute, living in such absolute poverty that perhaps even needed necessities for survival such as food and shelter were lacking.” It was highly probable that she did not have another male relative to provide for her needs—no father, son, brother, or even a brother-in-law.
The gift she offered was very small, only two mites. The King James text tells us that this amounted to the value of a farthing, a former British coin equal in value to one quarter of a penny.
Who was the better steward? Which offering did Jesus bless? The rich people gave out of their surplus, out of their abundance, meaning they gave “large sums that they simply did not need, but this poor widow “gave all she had to live on.” She gave God everything, her entire livelihood. She gave not from her abundance but out of her want, her need, her poverty; she literally “put in all she owned.”
God will always honor and multiply the “widow’s mite.” Actually “the widow’s mite” is a misnomer. She gave “two mites,” not one. A “mite” was the smallest coin used by the Jews just as the farthing was the smallest one among the British. “The widow’s mite” has come to symbolize “any small gift or contribution freely given by one who can scarcely afford it.” It is given out of true love and devotion to Jesus and the desire to fulfill of His Great Commission through the Church. It is an act of total obedience, surrender, and commitment to Him.
Let me share a personal story from my home Church as an illustration. I could share several good illustrations from my library, but as a teenager personally knew, loved, and respected this lady. My parents and I often took her home from Church on Sunday mornings. “Mrs. Hazel Ramsey was a widow with no close relatives. She did not own a home but rented an upstairs apartment over a local business. Her husband had been a policeman. She had one son who had married and had two children. He too had died. His widow moved to Florida with the children, and they rarely saw Mrs. Ramsey.”
In December of 1965 I was a senior in high school and had answered the call to preach. “We were in the process of raising $40,000.00 to purchase the sight for our new church. Our Christmas March to the Manger Offering was for that ministry. Mrs. Ramsey brought her $5.00 March to the Manger Offering with this note included: ‘This is the widow’s mite, it’s small but best I can do.’ Jack Nichols, our Church treasurer brought the note to our Pastor Eugene Black. Gene took it to Harold Chase, the Chairperson of the Administrative Board and said, ‘We are going to build that new church.’ Harold responded, ‘I know we are, but what do you mean?’ Gene answered that ‘God would honor a gift from one who loved her Lord and her church to give under her circumstances.’ Hazel refused to go on relief and earned what she had by ironing clothes for people and taking campaign literature door to door for people running for office” [--e-mail note from the files of The Rev. Eugene F. Black (Sunday, November 02, 2003, 11:51 PM), Pastor Marion, Il., Aldersgate Methodist Church 1957-1966].” These power point pictures show God indeed honored “the widow’s mite” for Aldersgate United Methodist Church. They show the Church today as well as Hazel’s former apartment building.
My brothers and sisters, you and I can never out give God. The more we give to Him out of our need, the more He supplies our needs. We can stand as a Church and as individual disciples on the promise of Philippians 4:19. These are Paul’s final words before his closing: “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” “Your,” in “your needs” is plural, not singular. It is a promise to the whole Church Body at Philippi , not simply one particular individual, but it applies to the individual disciple equally as well. God supplied Hazel’s needs until He called her home, and I know He did the widow in the Temple that day as well.
The important factor is that we give in the spirit of love, commitment, and obedience to Jesus. Our spirit of giving must be directed by the Holy Spirit, as He outlines for us in II Corinthians 9:7, “Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” I would not be shocked if the rich gave grudgingly, under compulsion as well as giving out of their abundance. Hazel and the widow in the Temple gave cheerfully and out of love for their Lord. This is the proper attitude for giving.
John Byrd reminds us that “Giving a tithe means nothing if God has enabled you to give 50 percent (--John Byrd, Leadership, Vol. 3, no. 4.).” R. G. LeTourneau, the founder of LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, was an internationally acclaimed industrialist with a big heart and a limitless love for Jesus. “For many years, he lived on ten percent of his income and gave away ninety percent to Christian work, especially missionary ministries in Africa and Latin America. Even when his business was in financial jeopardy, he continued giving his sacrificial pledges to Christ’s work. ‘The question,’ he said, ‘is not how much of my money I give to God, but rather how much of God’s money I keep for myself’ (http://www.intouch.org/myintouch/mighty/portraits/rg-letourneau_213618.html).”
God will always bless and meet the needs of the individual disciple and the Church Body that give to Him out of their love, commitment, and need. He will always fully supply the needs for that disciple and that congregation. The Holy Spirit will “keep them out of the red.”
I close today with a story Heidi Husted shares in her sermon, “The Sermon on the Amount”: “In 1815 Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo, and the hero of that battle was the Duke of Wellington. The Duke’s most recent biographer claims to have an advantage over all his previous biographers. His advantage was that he had found an old account ledger that showed how the Duke had spent his money: that, says the biographer, was a far better clue to what the Duke thought was really important than reading his letters or his speeches.
“Can you imagine that? If someone wrote your biography on the basis of your checkbook or your income-tax return, what might it say about you, your loyalties, your focus, and about whom you serve (--Heidi Husted, “The Sermon on the Amount,” (Preaching Today, Tape No. 122.)?”
