Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: November 11, 2024
The Rev. Nat Johnson
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 | Psalm 127 | Hebrews 9:24-28 | Mark 12:38-44
I suspect that many of us here today have heard this story from the gospel. And if you’ve heard this story, chances are you’ve heard the interpretation that suggests Jesus was holding the poor widow up as an example of faithful, sacrificial giving in contrast to those who gave only out of their abundance. This interpretation calls us to be more like the poor widow, to give all that we have, to trust God more than our means for the provisions of life. I suspect, also, that if you’ve heard this gospel and heard the sermons that proclaim this sacrificial interpretation, you’ve also heard it connected to an annual stewardship campaign. What better way to get folks to think sacrificially about their giving to the church than to use the story of this nameless widow who gave all she had?
And I suppose that if we left the story of the widow isolated from the rest of Mark’s gospel, it would be possible to hold fast to that interpretation, to continue to commend her to Jesus followers as an example of proper giving and faith. But if we dare to look at the story more closely, if we take care to notice the larger context of Mark’s narrative, we’ll find it a little harder to maintain that interpretive project.
Starting in the previous chapter, we learn that Jesus has triumphantly entered Jerusalem in a parade surrounded people waving palm branches and praising God for his coming. He cleansed the temple, turning over tables and driving out those who’d been selling and buying, and he accused the temple authorities of turning God’s house of prayer into a den of robbers. He was confronted by the religious elite of Jerusalem about the authority by which he taught and ministered. He criticized the leaders’ hypocrisy in a conversation about taxes. He accused them of forgetting that God is the God of the living and not the dead and for misinterpreting the significance of King David’s lineage.
And then, we get to the story we heard today. Jesus warned those he was teaching to beware of the scribes who were more concerned with the power of prestige than with the meaning and implications of following God’s law. “The Scribes,” Jesus told them, “devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers…”
Then Jesus noticed the poor widow who moved through the temple with the throngs of others to place an offering into the treasury. At no point does Jesus commend the woman. In the context of Mark’s narrative, she is the living, breathing embodiment of the indictment Jesus has just laid against the temple and its economic system of oppression. Those who had come before her and those who would come after her gave their money to the treasury out of their abundance – they would not have to worry about where their daily bread would come from when they left the temple that day, or the next. But this woman gave everything she had and would leave the temple without the means to eat and to survive.
The traditional interpretation of sacrificial giving derived from this story is harmful and abusive. It perpetuates an economy of privileged elitism, an economy that keeps the poor poor and the rich wealthy. It suggests that it is the responsibility of the have-nots to sacrifice their all, in order to fill the coffers of the institutions that refuse to protect the poor. And, in the context of stewardship season, it subtly bullies and shames us in our consideration of how much we can pledge and give.
This morning, I want to invite you to take a different look at this story, to approach it from a different perspective. It seems to me that the most important part of this story is not the action of the poor widow, but that Jesus notices her and he bids his disciples to notice her. Notice how the system disenfranchises her, notice how she is caught up in an economy that would deny her the ability to live, notice that she has been led to believe that God demanded this act of sacrifice. Just as he bid his disciples, Jesus bids us to notice… to notice the poor in our midst, to notice the various systems of oppression and injustice that govern our lives, to notice who benefits from these systems.
When we approach the story of the poor widow from this perspective, its meaning and significance open to a much wider critique of our world. And, particularly as we navigate this post-election landscape, it calls us to double-down on centering the poor and the marginalized in our engagement with the world – to notice who is being disenfranchised, to notice who is suffering at the hands of the elite, to notice who is exploited and left without the means to survive. Jesus’ indictment of the temple economy in Mark 12 is equally applicable to the market economy of our own time and place. And our call, our participation in God’s mission of liberation, is to seek justice in a world that is hell-bent on injustice, to engage not just the poor but the systems that create the very conditions of poverty that shroud our world, to stand fearlessly as advocates for the dignity of every human being.
Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, reminds us that “the opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice.” Poverty, for Stevenson, is not simply an economic condition, but a socio-political condition of being disfavored and disenfranchised. It is about lack of access to resources that allow individuals, families, and communities to thrive like financial support, proper healthcare, livable wages, affordable housing and food, and education. Justice is the work of countering that lack, of advocating for policy changes that impact the most vulnerable, of being an accomplice alongside the poor and the marginalized to inspire and realize hope, of supporting and organizing local mutual aid.
This, my friends, is the work of walking in love.
As much as all of this is applicable to each of us individually, as much as it applies to how we engage the political systems and processes of our society as individuals – it is also, and perhaps more so, applicable to us as a parish, to the way that we live our common life. All of us here, right now, are united by something far greater than partisan politics. We are bound together by the power of divine love, made one with Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, citizens of a kingdom not of this world! We stand in this time and this place not simply as a refuge from a broken world but as ambassadors of another world, another world that is coming into being through the mighty will of God.
As a parish, Jesus is bidding us to look, to notice, the hurting and the suffering that surround us. We cannot do that work of noticing by keeping to ourselves. Nor can we do that work by simply being a community only for those who happen to find their way to our doorstep. The work of looking and noticing requires that we step fearlessly outside of our doors, that our welcome is offered beyond the threshold of our building, that we become agents of reconciliation and transformation in the community in which we gather and the communities in which we live. This is the collective work of stewardship that lies before us – being good stewards of our time, talents, and treasures is not just about how much we pledge financially. Being good stewards of our time, talents, and treasures is about the way we chose to walk in love in a world that is broken and hurting and fearful.
Though we must reject the traditional interpretation of the story of the poor widow, it still does provide us with an invitation to faithful stewardship. Faithful stewardship is practiced in our embodiment of justice and peace. It calls us to support the dismantling of poverty with our own money and resources, with our own bodies and gifts, with our own time and energy. The story of the poor widow invites us to evaluate the ministries of this parish, the use of our buildings and property, the partnerships we forge in this community and to stand boldly and fearlessly as a voice and agent of justice. As you prayerfully consider the stewardship of your own resources, I invite you to keep this story of the poor widow in mind, to allow its invitation to open you to the Spirit’s voice and calling.
My prayer for us, dear people of St Peter’s, is that we would heed Jesus’ invitation to look, to notice, and that God would empower us with the Spirit’s presence to faithfully walk in love alongside the poor and the marginalized. May it be so! Amen.