University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

A Sermon by Robert E. Dunham

University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time      November 8, 2009

(As the footnotes suggest, this sermon owes a considerable debt to the work of my friend and colleague Ted Wardlaw and a splendid paper on this text that he presented to the January 2000 meeting of the Moveable Feast in Stony Point, New York.)

            There was a man who called the church and asked if he could speak to the Head Hog at the trough. The secretary said, “Who?” Then she gathered herself and said “Sir, if you mean our pastor you will have to treat him with a little more respect than that and ask for the ‘Preacher’ or the ‘Pastor.’ But certainly you cannot refer to him as the Head Hog at the Trough.” The man said, “I understand. I was calling because I have $25,000 I was thinking about donating to the building fund.” She said, “Hold on for just a moment—I think the big pig just walked in the door.”

            It’s only normal, isn’t it, to defer to wealth? Of course, it is. But it was never so with Jesus.

            “Two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.” That’s the amount of the widow’s offering to the Temple treasury in the story we just read. It is not much money by the world’s standards. Wasn’t then; isn’t now. The King James Version of this story describes the amount as “two mites, which make a farthing.” And so the story has come to be known across the years as the tale of the widow’s mite.  This is a story that tells itself, a story whose message is clear.  What we have is a little morality play that depicts the contrast between the negative example of the scribes and the positive example of the poor widow.[1]  Too bad the lectionary didn’t offer us this text during our stewardship campaign.  Give everything you have.  That’s simple enough.  That, at least, is the traditional take on the text.

            There is no doubt the woman’s sacrifice is an act of remarkable piety. But the question is whether the woman’s generosity should be taken as an occasion for praise or for lament.[2]  The possibility that lament might be the better choice emerges when one reads this story in its larger context, which I did a while back when, trying to understand the context of Jesus’ last week in Mark’s Gospel, I re-read the gospel in its entirety.  From that re-reading I have come to agree with those who argue that this text is not so much a commentary on this woman’s extravagant piety as it is yet another comment on the one thing that has been at the center of Jesus’ attention from the moment he arrived in Jerusalem – and that is the Temple.[3]

Let me remind you of the sequence that leads to this story.  Upon entering the city Jesus went immediately to the Temple on some sort of scouting expedition. The next morning, after cursing a fig tree that was not bearing fruit, he went back to the Temple that was not bearing fruit to drive out the money-changers, which led to a plot to have him killed. He told the parable of the wicked tenants (whose foolishly destructive action against the owner’s son leads to their own destruction), and the Temple leaders knew it was told against them.  Again they plotted how to destroy Jesus. In the verses immediately preceding our story we find Jesus speaking to a scribe of the “first commandment,” and the scribe acknowledging that love of God and neighbor was “much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  That contrast suggests that more critiques of the Temple practices are yet to come. Then comes our story of the poor widow.  And in the very next passage, Jesus will speak of the destruction of the Temple.

            Read in that larger context, our story this morning becomes a bridge between the conflicts with Temple authorities and the actual forecast of the Temple’s destruction. Biblical scholar Don Juel once wrote,

The story of the widow who contributes her last coins – “all she had to live on” – serves not simply to emphasize true generosity – “an example of total self-giving on the eve of the passion”; it is [also] a graphic example of Jesus’ charge that the religious leaders live off the poor and the helpless rather than caring for them. A poor widow gives her last penny to an institution that has become a bandit’s den.  The move to Jesus’ prediction that the Temple will be destroyed is thus motivated by [this] story that precedes it.[4]

            Now, in the name of truth in advertising, that takes a bit of the zip out of this story as a stewardship text.  It is much easier to treat this story, as I have done in the past, as simply an example of incredible generosity.  It is much easier simply to point to this remarkable woman and her sacrifice and implore the faithful to go and do likewise. Seeing the story in this new light, I worry that this text about flaws in the Temple might get folks to thinking about flaws in our particular temple. I agree with a preacher friend of mine, who says,

I would prefer a text that gives [folks] a little pat on the back for keeping the institution in mind, come tax time or Christmas or whatever… I would prefer a text that shows pictures of the Temple itself filled with worshippers.  I would prefer a text that showcases all the ways in which the Temple does good – how it sends money to people in need, how it stands tall in a city reminding the city that God dwells there, too, how it functions faithfully as a beacon of social righteousness in the world.  I would prefer a text that teaches by example all the ways in which generosity toward the temple pays off.[5]

The reason I would prefer such a text is that I believe our temple, our church, does those things well.  We do provide for people in need.  We do stand tall in this town as a reminder of God’s presence here.  I believe we do promote social righteousness.  I think we cherish and teach and help form faith in our children, in all of us. I know your faithful stewardship in this place makes so much good possible.  I believe this church – this temple – is worthy of your support.

            But I am not asking you to do what the widow does. Nor, I think, is Jesus. As my colleague Gary Charles says, we need to

… Pay attention to the whole story. Jesus does not want to leave us destitute, impoverished, unable to care for ourselves, much less unable to care for those in need. Neither does Jesus want from us the little we can spare, as if discipleship is a cheap and inconsequential commitment. Jesus wants from us abundant and sacrificial and extravagant lives of faithful and courageous discipleship, forever thankful for the One whose love sacrificed all for us, with nothing left behind.[6]

            Indeed…this text is only partly about how we should live and give, for it is truly about sacrifice that is beyond reason, about a deep personal piety that has become oppressive. Here Jesus points out a poor widow who is completely vulnerable in the midst of a corrupt institution. Her husband is dead.  In her culture in her time she was left without a voice, without a vote, without income, without any means to carry on. She was in a very dangerous and difficult circumstance.  And what did she do?  How did she respond to the danger?  She put the last two coins she had into the treasury.  She gave all that she had to a soon-to-be defunct institution.[7] 

Such a context changes the way we perceive this woman’s gift, does it not?  Instead of being merely an admirable example, her part in this drama now changes in the light of context, and she is transformed almost into a poor fool.  Rather than thoughtful, incredible stewardship, her gift now seems to be a senseless sacrifice. Jesus notices her sacrifice, but it still seems senseless. And that, says Ted Wardlaw, is a troubling thought:

Here is faith being practiced in a context that makes a mockery of it.  Here is a woman who, in the midst of all the things that aren’t quite right, chooses nonetheless to give and be faithful to a vision of something bigger than what she can now see.  And what sense does that make?  On the face of it, the only reasonable outcome would be for someone to step onto the scene and intervene in her behalf – to reach down into that alms box and fish out the coins, and maybe [even] more than she put in, to give back to her.  That would be justice.

But that doesn’t happen.

Instead Jesus calls 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 has…”

What does it mean to give your whole life for people who, for all of your trouble, may not even notice what you’ve done? What does it mean to care [so much] about an institution, however human it is, that you stubbornly decide not to abandon it and instead dedicate yourself to a vision of what it might be at its best rather than what it often is at its worst? 

I don’t know what it all means, to be perfectly frank.  But this poor widow leaves me with … questions like those.

I know one thing: as much as I love the notion that God is busy setting up a kingdom on earth, I don’t support that kingdom like she does. I certainly don’t give like she does – not to this temple, not to any temple. [Not everything I have!][8]

In fact, I have only known of one other person who ever has given like that.  I have only known one other person who was willing to give everything he had for the sake of the Church.  And right back there we erected a memorial to him.  It’s right back there… on top of the retable… right back there. 

It points to another sacrifice beyond the limits of reason or sense, one to which the poor widow points with her sacrificial gift… and yet, friends, it is precisely there… at the foot of that cross, that the church… and our lives… and all of our stewardship and discipleship truly begin.