During the first day of Boy Scout camp, a scoutmaster was called home because of an emergency and was not planning to return until the following day. As he prepared to leave, he gathered his charges together and made Joe, one of the patrol leaders, the acting scoutmaster until he returned. As soon as the scoutmaster was out of sight, the newly appointed leader began to give orders. He had the younger boys set up his tent, sent another after candy, and told the rest to clean up the area, even though it was recreation time. “You can’t do that,” they said. “Mr. Whitten said it was recreation time!” Joe was not impressed. “I can do whatever I want to. And furthermore, I don’t care what Mr. Whitten said, because Mr. Whitten isn’t here!” He must have seen the smiles on the Scouts’ faces, because he turned around to see Mr. Whitten standing there. He had returned for his car keys, had heard everything, and, needless to say, appointed a new acting leader.

Joe assumed what the priests of Malachi’s day assumed, that they could act in any way they chose because the one who guaranteed justice was nowhere to be seen. But both Joe and the priests found out otherwise. The keeper of justice was seeing their deeds and hearing their words and would ultimately set things right.

A Jewish woman was fleeing the German Gestapo in France. She knew she was close to being caught and she wanted to give up. A Christian woman, a widow, told her it was time to flee to a new place. The Jew said, “It’s no use, they will find me anyway. They are so close behind.” The Christian widow said, “Yes, they will find someone here, but it’s time for you to leave. Go. I will take your identification and wait for them.”

The Jewish lady then understood the plan; the Gestapo would come and find this Christian widow and think she was the fleeing Jew.

The Jewish lady asked her why she was doing that. The widow responded, “It’s the least I can do; Christ has already done that and more for me.”

The widow was caught and imprisoned in the Jewish lady’s place, allowing time for her to escape. Within six months the widow died in the concentration camp.

The following is an excerpt from the diary of George Muller, who founded orphanages in Victorian England.

August 18, 1838: I have not one penny in hand for the orphans. In a day or two again many pounds will be needed. My eyes are up to the Lord. Evening. Before this day is over, I have received from a sister five pounds. She had some time since put away her trinkets, to be sold for the benefit of the orphans. This morning, whilst in prayer, it came to her mind, I have this five pounds, and owe no man anything, therefore it would be better to give this money at once, as it may be some time before I can dispose of the trinkets. She therefore brought it, little knowing that there was not a penny in hand, and that I had been able to advance only four pounds, fifteen shillings and five pence for housekeeping in the Boys' Orphan-House, instead of the usual ten pounds.

August 23: Today I was again without one single penny, when three pounds was sent from Clapham, with a box of new clothes for the orphans.

Muller was later to look back on the period from September 1838 to the end of 1846 as the time when the greatest trials of faith were experienced in the orphan work. They were not years of continuous difficulty: rather there tended to be a pattern of a few months of trial, followed by some months of comparative plenty. During the whole period, according to Muller, the children knew nothing of the trial. In the midst of one of the darkest periods, he recorded, "These dear little ones know nothing about it, because their tables are as well supplied as when there was eight hundred pounds in the bank, and they have lack of nothing." At another time he wrote, "The orphans have never lacked anything. Had I had thousands of pounds in hand, they would have fared no better than they have; for they have always had good nourishing food, the necessary articles of clothing, etc." In other words, the periods of trial were so in the sense that there was no excess of funds: God supplied the need by the day, even by the hour. Enough was sent, but no more than enough.

In the latter part of the 17th century, German preacher August H. Francke founded an orphanage to care for the homeless children of Halle. One day when Francke desperately needed funds to carry on his work, a destitute Christian widow came to his door begging for a ducat - a gold coin. Because of his financial situation, he politely but regretfully told her he couldn't help her. Disheartened, the woman began to weep. Moved by her tears, Francke asked her to wait while he went to his room to pray. After seeking God's guidance, he felt that the Holy Spirit wanted him to change his mind. So, trusting the Lord to meet his own needs, he gave her the money. Two mornings later, he received a letter of thanks from the widow. She explained that because of his generosity she had asked the Lord to shower the orphanage with gifts. That same day Francke received 12 ducats from a wealthy lady and 2 more from a friend in Sweden. He thought he had been amply rewarded for helping the widow, but he was soon informed that the orphanage was to receive 500 gold pieces from the estate of Prince Lodewyk Van Wurtenburg. When he heard this, Francke wept in gratitude. In sacrificially providing for that needy widow, he had been enriched, not impoverished.

After the first World War the United States gave vast sums of money to the dislocated orphans of Europe, but they still didn’t have enough money to meet the staggering need. In one of the places where they had set up an orphanage with funds from the states, a man came in leading a little girl. He was very thin, obviously suffering from starvation.

She also showed signs of malnutrition, eyes too large, her little abdomen distended, and her thin little legs and arms too small and too thin for her age. The man led her in and said to the person in charge, “I would like you to take in my little girl.”

The official at the desk asked him if she was his daughter and he said, “Yes.” He asked if the mother had been killed in the war and again the man said, “Yes.” The official then said, “We’re very sorry, but our rule here is that only full orphans can receive any help. If one of the parents is living then we can’t take responsibility, because we just don’t have enough room. There are too many full orphans for us to take a half orphan.”

The father looked down at his little girl, and then he turned and said, "You don’t understand. I’m sick. I was in a German prison during the war. I was half starved, and now I can’t work. I can barely stagger around. I brought her down for you to take care of her.”

And again the official said, “We’re sorry sir, but there’s nothing we can do. That’s the rule. We only care for full orphans.”

The father thought a moment and said, “Are you saying that if I were dead, you’d take care of my little girl, feed her, and she could live and have clothing and a home?”

The official replied, “Well, yes, that’s the rule.”

Then the father reached down and pulled his daughter’s thin little body up to himself and hugged her hard and kissed her. Then he put her hand in the hand of the hand of the man at the desk and told him, “I’ll arrange that,” and then he walked out of the room and committed suicide.

Often, we put "rules" and "restrictions" on God's love that we bestow upon others, according to our own preferences and ideals. But fortunately for us, God does not do the same. "For whoever knocks, the door will be opened."

Isaiah 18:2 - "which sends ambassadors by the Nile, in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation, tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divided."

Ezekiel 17:15 - "But he rebelled against him, by sending ambassadors to Egypt, that they might give him horses and a large army ..."

There are several ways in which we can translate the words used for "ambassador" in the Bible, but the most frequently used interpretation is that of messenger, from the Hebrew mal’ akh, or malach, which means messenger. This word has an interesting biblical history of its own. We are, of course, familiar with the Old Testament book of Malachi, and no doubt assumed that this was the author’s name. However, this was a clerical error at some time in the past, so that a word which meant "messenger" was wrongly given as the name of a man! We also find this as being used when referring to any supernatural messenger from God - an angel. Angels, then, can be considered ambassadors from God, carrying messages to men.

We can also use the Greek words in the New Testament, which translate into "to be older," or "aged, dignity," or "aged." This incorporates the idea of wisdom and experience, and certainly these were needed qualities, just as much as today. Why should this be so? Well, let’s consider the position of the ambassador.

These men were used to send congratulations, to make alliances, and to protest wrongs, among the more outstanding of their duties. Now, obviously, you can’t send just anyone on such missions. So, these men of wisdom, as we have said, and also men who possessed great education and ability. They were usually men of high rank, as Sennacherib’s chief-marshall, Tartan; chief eunuch, Rabsaris; and chief-officer, Rabshakey, met by Hezekiah’s house-master, scribe and recorder (2 Kings 18:17ff).

Today our ambassadors, our consuls, our emmisaries, and other statesmen who confer with heads of state of other nations, are representative of our government and its policies. Most of these positions are resident ones - that is, the individual is the personal representative of the President and Congress, living in a certain foreign land. He is a go-between in conveying messages from our nation to another. In that manner, his function is the same as his biblical predecessor’s. However, the concept of his actually living in another land is probably foreign to the biblical idea. An ambassador was sent out to wherever and whenever it was necessary, and then returned to home base.

In one other way, however, the ancient and the modern ambassadors share; that is, both had (and have) diplomatic immunity. We are sometimes upset because representatives of other nations violate our laws, and cannot be prosecuted. In just such a way 2 Samuel 10:4, did the poeple of Hunan violate the immunity of the ambassadors sent by David. There is really nothing new under the sun!

"Look down and see the beggars at your feet. Look down and show some mercy if you can. Look down and see the sweepings of the street. Look down, look down upon your fellow man!" Thus reads the text of a song from the most popular work of musical theater in history: Les Miserables. In the musical version of the classic French novel by Victor Hugo this song shifts the scene to the squalid streets of Paris: 1832. It is sung by "the miserable ones," those from whom the novel and the musical takes its name.

The beggars, the poor, the dregs of society sing to the upper crust. "Look down," they cry. "See our misery." Theirs is a cry as old as human history and as fresh as today's headlines. The world has always been filled with "the miserable ones," "the wretched of the earth," crying out for mercy and justice.

Soon after this cry of the wretched ones in Les Miserables the student revolutionaries swing into action on their behalf. These young idealists are out to see that justice is done. They sing together these words: "Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again!" The revolutionary youth go on to sing of "life about to start when tomorrow comes." A word of hope appears in the midst of human wretchedness. It is the word of hope that has been held tight by "the miserable ones" in every generation of human history. This theme of Les Miserables strikes a universal human chord. People in every age have cried out for a better life. It is no wonder that this story takes such a firm grip on our human heartstrings. Hope for "the wretched of the earth" lives deeply in the hearts of human beings in every generation. 19 As is so often the case, however, those who fight for the new world that tomorrow brings are slaughtered on the barricades. The women sing of their grief at seeing their young men dead on the battlefield. "They were schoolboys," the women sing, "never held a gun ... Fighting for a new world that would rise up with the sun. Where's that new world now the fighting's done? Nothing changes. Nothing ever will ... Same old story. What's the use of tears? What's the use of praying if there's nobody who hears?" Nothing changes. Nothing ever will. Despair grips "the miserable ones" once more. There seems to be no hope. No point of tears.

And yet the final chorus of the musical dares yet to proclaim hope for "the wretched of the earth." The last words sung by the chorus ask if we hear the distant drums. These drums pound out the hope for the future that will come with tomorrow. "Tomorrow comes!" These are the last bold words of "the wretched ones." These are the last bold words sung in Les Miserables. "Tomorrow comes!"

And such it has been and such it will ever be. The poor, the lowly, the hungry can only dare to face life each day if there be some such ray of hope. Tomorrow! That hope beats with mighty strength in the lives of all this world's wretched ones. It might be that tomorrow the whole world will be turned upside down and justice will reign at last. Tomorrow -- surely -- our tears will be heard!"

During a harvest festival in India, an old widow arrived at her church with an extraordinarily large offering of rice - far more than the poor woman could be expected to afford. The itinerant pastor of the church did not know the widow well. But he did know that she was very poor and so he asked her if she were making the offering in gratitude for some unusual blessing. "Yes," replied the woman. "My son was sick and I promised a large gift to God if he got well." "And your son has recovered?" asked the pastor. The widow paused. "No," she said. "He died last week. But I know that he is in God's care; for that I am especially thankful."

Many, many years ago a man moved into a small town. His little house was near the railroad tracks. Every morning he noticed an elderly lady walking along the tracks picking up something and putting it into a bag. The man got curious. He went to a small grocery store nearby and asked the owner about this lady. "Oh, that's the widow Jacobs," said the grocer. "Every day she comes half way across town to pick up the coal that is spilled on the tracks when the early morning train runs through town."

"But there hasn't been a steam locomotive using coal on these tracks for years," replied the new resident.

"That's right," said the store owner. "When the steam train stopped running, old Mr. Simpson who runs the hardware store was concerned that the Widow Jacobs would no longer have coal to heat and cook with. He knew she was too proud to take charity, so he decided to get up early every morning, take a bag of coal and drop it along the tracks. The Widow Jacobs still thinks the steam train runs by here every morning. I think Old Mr. Simpson has been doing that for about 5 years now."

A few lumps of coal dropped along a railroad track each day. It's not much to do, but it's some-thing. I believe God calls each of us to do something to make life better for someone else. That's what this text is saying to us, isn't it?

There was a young woman living in Washington, D.C. during the Second World War. Her husband, who had been stationed at a nearby Army base, was killed a year earlier during a training exercise - they had been married just four months. During that whole year, this young widow felt more dead than alive. She merely went through the motions of living. Her family and friends were worried about her and wondered if she would ever "snap out of it."

Easter Sunday came along and a friend asked the young widow to go to church with her. It happened that they went to hear the legendary Peter Marshall, who preached in an historic Presbyterian church which still stands in downtown Washington, a few blocks from the White House.

That morning, Peter Marshall spoke of Mary coming to the tomb and how her tears turned to joy. He described the sound of a wind rustling through the tomb as if the breath of God were blowing by. He described the sight of Jesus rising up from that cold, stone slab, swaying a bit on wounded feet and then walking out into the garden. He described the smell, "the whiff of strange scents which must have drifted back to the Man from that tomb, [the smell] of linen and bandages, spices and myrrh, close air and blood ...(Peter Marshall, The First Easter). By the time Peter Marshall finished that sermon, the people in that church felt as if they had been there in the garden to witness the first Easter themselves!

When the service was over, the young widow practically walked on air as she left the church and her friend couldn't believe the change which had come over her. "What happened to you in there?" she asked. "The weight has finally been lifted," the young woman replied; "now I can go on living again."

I want you to reach back into your Junior High school experience and remember something your English teacher taught you. For some of you that's going to be quite a stretch. For others not so much. You know who you are.

The concept I want you to pull up into your memory banks is the concept of a metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech in the English language where you use something totally unrelated to a particular idea, to describe that idea. Usually metaphors capture our attention, because in a few words, they accurately describe our emotions or the facts of a situation.

Let me give you some examples:

• That person is about as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
• I feel about as helpless as a trombone player in a phone booth.
• You can't tell how much gas is in the tank by how loud the horn honks!
• Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than going to McDonald's makes you a Big Mac.

But my all time favorite comes from the old TV program, "Cheers." Norm walked into the bar, and Sam the bartender asked him, "How's it going, Norm?" And Norm answered, "It's a dog eat dog world out there, Sammy and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear."

Then there are metaphors that use contrast to emphasize truth:

• Like the football player that stands 6'5" tall and weighs 300 pounds. His nickname is "Tiny"
• In the old Three Stooges comedies, the one guy who had no hair was called, "Curley".

I think you get the idea. Metaphors paint vivid pictures for us through word pictures or contrast in order to emphasize the truth about something.

Well, in the parable we're going to look at this morning, Jesus uses two metaphors to teach us something about God. And He uses both kinds of metaphors that I've just described, to do that. In this Parable of The Persistent Widow, he uses contrast to teach us about the character of God, that's the part about the judge, and he uses comparison to teach us about justice and prayer, that's the part about the persistent widow.

We are shocked by the message of the parable of the workers in the vineyard, for it goes against the grain of our natural expectation. It mocks our logical sense of justice. Perhaps we are more drawn to the message of the Norwegian writer Jens Peter Jacobsen in his novel Niels Lyhne, which tell about a man who rejected God. As he grew older, he secretly desired the peace of faith, but he refused to come to God weak-kneed toward life's ending. Fate had been harsh to him, with death visiting those whom he loved most. Tenaciously, he held on to disbelief and a philosophy of nihilism even though he wanted the peace of God. In the last hour of his life, he refused to see the pastor, though secretly he wanted absolution and faith's consolation. His physician, who loved him, was moved by his valor and whispered, "If I were God, I would far sooner save the man who does not repent at the last minute."

Deep inside, our sense of even-scaled justice admires the hardened skeptic. But Jesus' parable communicates the opposite message. It shatters all our preconceived assumptions about the justice of God. Here is a story with a coded message that brings us to the core of what Jesus of Nazareth is all about! The key to interpreting the parable is in remembering that the vineyard is always the symbol of God's kingdom, his new community, his new reality. In point of fact, the vineyard is the Church. Moreover, God owns the vineyard lock, stock, and barrel. We are privileged to labor in his vineyard (his Church) and receive the security that there will be adequate compensation for all. But the real pay is not the wage offered at the end of the day. The work itself is our gift, our immeasurable privilege! It carries its own reward. For the work in God's vineyard brings us near to our fatherly Lord and his care for us.

The nature of men and of organized society dictates the maintenance in every field of action of the highest and purest standards of justice and of right dealing.... By justice the lawyer generally means the prompt, fair, and open application of impartial rules; but we call ours a Christian civilization, and a Christian conception of justice must be much higher. It must include sympathy and helpfulness and a willingness to forego self-interest in order to promote the welfare, happiness, and contentment of others and of the community as a whole.

Donald Grey Barnhouse told the story (supposedly true) about Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. When he moved to Washington, D.C., to take up his duties as chief justice, he transferred his membership letter to a Baptist church in the area. His father had been a Baptist minister and he also made a profession of faith in Christ. It was the custom for all new members to come to the front of the sanctuary at the close of the worship service. The first to be called that morning was Ah Sing, a Chinese laundryman who had moved to the capital from the West coast. He took his place at the far side of the church. As the dozen or so other people were called forward they stood at the opposite side of the church, leaving Ah Sing standing alone. But when Chief Justice Hughes was called, he took his place beside the laundryman.

When the minister had welcomed the group into the church fellowship he turned to the congregation and said, "I do not want this congregation to miss this remarkable illustration of the fact that at the cross of Jesus Christ the ground is level." Barnhouse commented: "Mr. Hughes behaved like a true Christian. He took his place beside the laundryman, and by his act he prevented embarrassment to the humble Chinese; he showed, too, the love of Christ—he had this gift of standing by."

There was a man who called at 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 ‘Reverend' 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 $10,000 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."

Now I am sure the secretary wouldn't treat me like that, some of the laity perhaps but not the secretary! But we all are subject to changing our tune when money is suddenly involved. That is why this passage of Scripture has been an enduring image throughout the ages. We play favorites. We treat those who give more as if they are the pillars on which the church is erected.

But consider with me another image. Jesus, sitting opposite the place where the offerings were put, is observing the people make their donations as they come into the temple. He is not alone. Seated with him are the leaders—the Sadducees. It is startling to think of Jesus sitting with those whom he had scorned for their hypocrisy.  Remember that as they watch there is no paper money, so all of the offerings make a terrible noise as they roll down this long horn shaped object and fall into the pool of coins. And here comes this little old lady and she has two small coins worth nothing and drops them in. They barely make a noise. You can almost see the Temple leaders as they roll their eyes and hope for better results with the next person who walks in the door. Jesus then calls his Disciples over and says, "This poor widow has put more in to the treasury than all the others." To the Sadducees this woman is a waste of time, but to Jesus she is the stuff by which Kingdoms are erected. Thus, at its heart, the story of the widow's mite is a strong reminder to the kingdoms of this world…

1. That the Kingdom of God is built by the widow as well as the wealthy.
2. That the Kingdom of God recognizes the level of sacrifice.
3. That the Kingdom of God warns us about pride.

Evangelist Tony Campolo says that in his teenage years he was terrified by a visiting pastor's depiction of Judgment Day. This pastor claimed that one day God would show us a movie of every single sinful thought, word, or action we ever committed. And he ended his lurid description with the announcement, "And your mother will be there!"

But Tony claims that Judgment Day will more closely mirror what happened during the trials over the Watergate scandal. The prosecutor brought in a tape of a conversation between Nixon and his aides. Just at the most crucial part of the tape, the section that revealed their crimes, there was an eighteen minute gap of silence. Nixon's faithful secretary, Rosemary Wood, had erased the incriminating evidence! In the same way, Campolo says, Jesus will erase all the incriminating evidence against us.

The unanimous Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies in Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

• We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
• We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.
• We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare.

That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

• New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
• Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
• Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
• Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
• New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
• New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
• Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
• Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
• Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
• Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
• North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
• South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
• Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Background

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), approved the Declaration of Independence. Its purpose was to set forth the principles upon which the Congress had acted two days earlier when it voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee's motion to declare the freedom and independence of the 13 American colonies from England. The Declaration was designed to influence public opinion and gain support both among the new states and abroad especially in France, from which the new "United States" sought military assistance.

Although Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston comprised the committee charged with drafting the Declaration, the task fell to Jefferson, regarded as the strongest and most eloquent writer. The document is mainly his work, although the committee and Congress as a whole made a total of 86 changes to Jefferson's draft.

As a scholar well-versed in the ideas and ideals of the French and English Enlightenments, Jefferson found his greatest inspiration in the language and arguments of English philosopher John Locke, who had justified England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 on the basis of man's "natural rights." Locke's theory held that government was a contract between the governed and those governing, who derived their power solely from the consent of the governed and whose purpose it was to protect every man's inherent right to property, life and liberty. Jefferson's theory of "natural law" differed in that it substituted the inalienable right of "the pursuit of happiness" for "property," emphasizing that happiness is the product of civic virtue and public duty. The concept of the "pursuit of happiness" originated in the Common Sense School of Scottish philosophy, of which Lord Kames was the best-known proponent.

Jefferson emphasized the contractual justification for independence, arguing that when the tyrannical government of King George III of England repeatedly violated "natural law, " the colonists had not only the right but the duty to revolt.

The assembled Continental Congress deleted a few passages of the draft, and amended others, but outright rejected only two sections: 1) a derogatory reference to the English people; 2) a passionate denunciation of the slave trade. The latter section was left out, as Jefferson reported, to accede to the wishes of South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the importation of slaves. The rest of the draft was accepted on July 4, and 56 members of Congress began their formal signing of the document on August 2, 1776.

Before commenting directly about Mark 6:30-44, allow me to direct your attention to two Old Testament stories.

1. The first story is found in 2 Kings 4:1-7 and concerns the widow of a prophet whose creditors were about to foreclose her outstanding debt. Additionally, her two sons were to be carried away as slaves. Beside herself, the widow cried out to Elisha for help. Elisha asked her if she had anything in the house of value which might be sold to provide money toward the debt. "Only a partially filled jar of oil," she answered. Elisha surprisingly instructed her to go throughout the community collecting jars to be filled with her oil. We are probably safe to assume that if she did not feel rather foolish, there is a good chance her sons did. Here she went, gathering empty jars to hold the little bit of oil which did not nearly fill the jar it was in. When it was all said and done however, there was more oil than jars to put it in, enough money was available to pay the creditor, and the excess was sufficient for the widow and her boys to live on.

2. The other story is also found in 2 Kings and again deals with excess. A man brought Elisha twenty loaves of barley bread and was instructed by the prophet to feed a rather sizeable gathering. The man asked, "How can I feed 100 men with only twenty loaves of bread?" To make a long story short, let’s read the conclusion of the account: "Then he set it before them and they ate and had some left over" (2 Kings 4:42-44).

The account in Mark 6:30-44 bears striking similarities to the incidents mentioned above, especially the latter. For this reason, the feeding of the 5,000 is understood by many to be Jesus’ confirmation that his ministry was in the prophetic tradition of Elisha and under the authority of God. That is one way to interpret the miracle.

Another explanation was offered years ago by the distinguished Christian, Albert Schweitzer, who believed that the feeding of the 5,000 was an "eschatological sacrament" which was in fact a foretaste, or preview, of the greater feast to be held in the approaching Kingdom of God.

Of course, the simplest explanation is that Jesus was addressing a specific need at a specific time, and that that is the whole of it. However, let us not overlook the emphasis that Mark places upon the miracles of Christ as signs of his authority. We would perhaps be well within the mark to accept all three possibilities as legitimate.

I particularly like the quantity measure in the Elisha stories, the feeding of the 5,000 and other incidents throughout the Scriptures. The provisions were not merely sufficient for the immediate need, but always resulted in excess. Surely that must suggest something to us of the mind of God. His grace and love are more than sufficient for our needs.

An advertisement I ran across read: "Now you too can own a Genuine Coin From The Time of Jesus: The Widow's Mite. It's a minor miracle that this coin has survived and now people of faith can study, cherish, and protect it for future generations. It's yet another miracle that they're so affordable."

Then, the ad goes on to quote the Scripture we just heard, "While our limited supplies last, you may order the 2,000 year old Widow's Mite for only $39.95 plus shipping and handling. Remember this is the genuine coin mentioned in the Holy Bible and it makes a perfect gift for your child, grandchild, or favorite clergyman."

The advertisement makes it sound like your buying the actual coin the widow dropped into the receptacle. Of course, you are not. It doesn't exist. Harder still is to purchase the woman's attitude of generosity, which is of greater value in today's market.

A man from El Paso lived a good four miles from the main parade ground at Fort Bliss. On most mornings you could hear the whump, whump, whump of the thirteen-gun salute which was sounded every morning at seven o'clock. But on some mornings you could hear the sound of the drum corps as they rolled their cadences.

However, if the morning was clear and still, as in the winter time when the air was crisp and cold, you could also hear the sound of the music of the army band, the blast of the trumpets, the wail of the clarinets, and the mellow tone of the horns.

On the mornings where only the cannon could be heard, the man knew the drum and the horns were still there, whether they were heard or not.

Our fathers, in their theology, heard the cannon and the drum, the stirring of the wrath of God. Modern ears have heard the soft music of the flute and the horn, but have not listened for the cannon and the drum.

Before movie companies were careful about translations assuming no one in the U.S. would understand a language like Swahili, directors would have someone write something that sounded like it fit the part of the scene. So, in one movie the director needed an African messenger who was to gasp out a sentence to the big chief. The messenger is to be collapsing as he delivers his message, because he had run for days with this vital news. A local Englishman who spoke Swahili was asked to write an urgent-sounding sentence in the language. He did, tongue in cheek. An American actor played the part beautifully. All went well until the movie was shown in Nairobi (where everyone spoke Swahili, of course). The drama of the moment was reduced to high comedy. What the messenger actually said as he threw himself, exhausted, before the chief was, "I do not think I am getting paid enough money for this part."

Dante's Inscription above the Gate of Hell:

I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way to eternal sorrow.

Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
Primordial love and ultimate intelligence.

Only those elements time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

Note: "Sacred justice moved my architect." means: He who built me was motivated by a love of justice.

Charles Colson told the following story in an address at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi:

I love the illustration about a man named Jack Eckerd. A few years ago I was on the Bill Buckley television program, talking about restitution (one of my favorite subjects) and criminal justice. Bill Buckley agreed with me. A few days later I got a call from Jack Eckerd, a businessman from Florida, the founder of the Eckerd Drug chain, the second largest drug chain in America. He saw me on television and asked me to come to Florida. He agreed Florida had a criminal justice crisis, would I come down and do something about it? And we did. We got the attorney general of the state, the president of the senate; we got on Jack Eckerd's Lear jet; we went around the State of Florida advocating criminal justice reforms, and everywhere we would go Jack Eckerd would introduce me to the crowds and say, "This is Chuck Colson, my friend; I met him on Bill Buckley's television program. He's born again, I'm not. I wish I were." And then he'd sit down. We'd get on the airplane and I'd tell him about Jesus. We'd get off at the next stop, he'd repeat it, we'd do the same thing again, and I'd talk to him about Jesus. When we left I gave him some of R. C. Sproul's books and I gave him C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, which had such an impact on me. I sent him my books. About a year went by and I kept pestering Jack Eckerd. And eventually one day he read some things including the story of Watergate and the Resurrection out of my book, Loving God, and decided that Jesus was, in fact, resurrected from the dead. He called me up to cell me he believed that, and I asked him some other things. When he got through telling me what he believed I said, "You're born again!" He said, "No, I'm not, I haven't felt anything." I said, "Yes, you are! Pray with me right now." After we prayed he said, "I am?

Marvelous!" The first thing he did was to walk into one of his drugstores and walked down through the book shelves and he saw Playboy and Penthouse. And he'd seen it there many times before, but it never bothered him before. Now he saw them with new eyes. He'd become a Christian.

He went back to his office. He called in his president. He said, "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores." The president said, "You can't mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books." He said, "Take 'em out of my stores." And in 1,700 stores across America, by one man's decision, those magazines and smut were removed from the shelves because a man had given his life to Christ. I called Jack Eckerd up. I said, "I want to use that story. Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" He said, "Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn't let me off the hook."

Isn't that marvelous? God wouldn’t let me off the hook. I don't know any theologian who's better defined the Lordship of Christ than that. And what happened after that is a wonderful sequel and a wonderful demonstration of what happens in our culture today.

We are caught up with this idea that we've got to have big political institutions and big structures and big movements and big organizations in order to change things in our society. And that's an illusion and a fraud. Jack Eckerd wrote a letter to all the other drugstore operators, all the other chains, and he said, "I've taken it out of my store. Why don't you take it out of yours?" Not a one answered him. Of course not—he'd put them under conviction. So he wrote them some more letters. But then Eckerd's drugs began to get floods of people coming in to buy things at Eckerd's because they'd taken Playboy and Penthouse out. And so People's removed the magazines from their shelves and then Dart Drug removed them from their shelves and then Revco removed them from their shelves. In a period of twelve months, 11,000 retail outlets in America removed Playboy and Penthouse, not because somebody passed a law, but because God wouldn't let one of his men off the hook. That's what brings change.

When I was a very young minister and had not yet myself been initiated into the fraternity of grief, I remember being called once to minister to an old farm widow. Her husband had just died, and I went with all my earnest intent to be as much comfort as I could to her, but I had never lost a significant person in my life. Most of my knowledge of grief was abstract and academic, and so I went and said the best words I knew to say. I tried to convey my care, but while I was doing that, there came into the room where we were another older woman about this widow's age. She walked across and without hardly a word, she embraced the grieving person and all she said was, "I understand, my dear. I understand."

Someone told me later that this second person had just lost her husband six months before and, therefore, she came out of a shared understanding of what my friend was experiencing. And I could almost see the bridges of understanding coming to exist between them. That woman who had shared the same experience as my grieving friend had a way of connecting, had a way of making clear that she understood, that I was not able to because I had not walked in her shoes.

Let me suggest that if God, in fact, has come to this earth to live as we have to live, if God has experienced life the way we have to experience it, then it means that we can believe that God understands, that none of our experiences are strange to the Holy One, because God has chosen to share the human condition with us. There is no longer a remote sense that God is above and outside us, but there is this incredible sense that God understands from within what it's like to be a human being, to struggle as we have to struggle and, therefore, can give us grace to help in our times of trouble.

I don't know if you realize it or not, but lately there's a great preoccupation with Jesus' relationship with women. The Da Vinci Code has sold 80 million copies. It's a fast paced thriller that claims Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and the church knew about this, the novel claims, but suppressed it. And let me ask you, as an aside, whenever you hear the name “Mary Magdalene," what comes to your mind? The woman accused of adultery? The woman history says was a prostitute? If it does, then you've been taken in.

In the year 591, in a sermon, Pope Gregory the Great, identified Mary Magdalene with the adulteress woman. And in 1969, the Vatican said he was wrong. The Vatican moves slowly. 1,378 years is a long time. There's no relationship in the New Testament between the woman taken in adultery and Mary Magdalene. Mel Gibson erroneously identifies her with the adulterous woman in his famous film, The Passion. It's clear that Jesus had a fondness for women. Luke, far more than any of the other gospel writers, points that out. Women were the first evangelizers, the first to tell the good news of Jesus' resurrection to his disciples. Martha and Mary, Lazarus' sisters were always considered to be his confidants. Their home was a place he could go for refreshment and peace. And it is this "Samaritan" woman who is a bit troubled but nevertheless brings many people, a whole village, to believe in Jesus.

A friend began his ministry at little First Presbyterian Church in Aberdeen, Mississippi.   His first year as pastor he was visited by three men inquiring about one of his members, a widow who lived by herself. Was she getting out? Were her friends in Aberdeen keeping in touch? Was there anything they needed to know? The three men explained the situation, gave him their cards—one lived in New Jersey, another in Oklahoma, the other in California—and he was told to call them if there was anything they could humanly do to make her life happier or easier.

These three men arrived each year bearing presents their wives had picked out in the shops of San Francisco and New York. The men had hired a family who mowed the woman's yard, trimmed the bushes, and checked on tree branches and gutters. One of the men prepared the woman's tax returns each year, another contracted repairs on her house or made them himself. Sometimes they helped her shop for a new car. They were meticulous in wanting to check on everything and anticipate every difficulty the woman might face.

Each year they visited the President of the Bank of Mississippi in Aberdeen—there was a regular turnover in young bank executives—passed out their cards, explained that he was to notify them of any worldly need this woman might have, and they explained to the Bank President the situation.

So, what's the back story here: Sixty years ago the three men had been three soldiers standing on the ground floor of a house in Normandy just a few days after D-Day when a German potato masher grenade came bouncing down the stairs. A fourth soldier, the woman's husband, threw himself on the grenade, absorbing most of its impact. The three men lived because of his death.

After the war was over in 1945 the three men began making their way to Aberdeen, Mississippi on a regular basis to make sure that this man's widow would lack for nothing they had within their power to provide for her. They had been doing that for more than twenty-five years when my friend was pastor of First Presbyterian Church.

Isn't that a remarkable story? I'll tell you another remarkable thing: there were eighteen soldiers on the first floor of that house in Normandy. All eighteen of them were spared by the action of that one soldier's leaping on a grenade, and after the war was over three of them made their regular pilgrimages to Aberdeen, Mississippi.

Three out of eighteen: that's 16 2/3%. What would 100% gratitude look like? It would change the world.

On Friday, a teacher told his class that he was going to give a surprise quiz the following week. One clever student—we'll call him Jamie—went home and thought about this pop quiz. He didn't know the subject very well, and was upset that he was going to miss his whole weekend to study. Jamie tried to figure out what day the quiz might be. First, he noticed that it couldn't be Friday, because if they got to Thursday and hadn't had the quiz yet, then everyone would know it was on Friday, and the teacher had said it would be a surprise. Friday is out. Well, now the text couldn't be on Thursday, because if they got to Wednesday with no quiz then everyone would know the quiz was on Thursday, because Friday was already ruled out. Thursday is out too. By the same logic, the test couldn't be on Wednesday or Tuesday. That left Monday as the only possible day, so a test given that day wouldn't be a surprise. Jamie figured out there was no way for the teacher to give a surprise pop quiz, so he spent his weekend playing with his friends, going to church and youth, and watching Monty Python movies. Anyone want to guess what happened? The teacher gave the quiz on Wednesday morning, Jamie was surprised, and he failed.

Did I tell this story just to embarrass Jamie? Certainly not. We read Jesus' prophecy about his second coming, especially the part about the present generation not passing away before all these things come to be, and we reason that since, as far as we understand, part of the prophecy was not true, we should just read this all as a nice set of symbols. That part about expecting the master to come home and keeping awake—we don't really need to do that, because he hasn't come back in the past two thousand years. The odds are pretty good he won't come back this year either. Well, the odds were pretty good Jamie wouldn't fail the pop quiz.

In a large attractive office in a major city, a man worked for several months next to a small attractive woman. He had been there only a few days when he thought he'd ask her to lunch, which he did. The following day he asked her for dinner and they began a long dating relationship. They went to craft fairs together, since he liked to do that. They went to the ocean, which he also liked to do. They used to take long walks along the river.

He liked this relationship. He had lived for many years with his mother. In fact, it was only a few months after she died that he began dating his co-worker. Little by little, however, she began to dislike both the relationship and this man. She felt like she really wasn't herself when she was with him. She couldn't speak what she really felt. She rarely asserted where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do. She later said, "I just wasn't Sandra with him."

So she terminated her social, dating relationship with this man. Once she did, she began to feel like herself again. Her friends told her, "You're more like the old Sandra now."

Across the same town, in another office, a young man sat at his desk for eight years, struggling to manage his office work force. Outside he was a friendly, generous person. In the office he was the same way and his workers flattened him out, like steamrollers over an asphalt road. He worked long, long hours; he holed himself up behind his desk to keep all the records accurate; he just about wore himself out. Finally his friends told him, "Steve, you'd better get out of that job. You're not yourself anymore. Those people are eating you alive and you're not getting anywhere."

He protested, "But it's a good job. I make good money. And besides, it is what I do best. How can I even look for anything else?"

Then the company was sold. New management came in. All the supervisors were replaced and Steve found himself on the street. He was terrified. "To dig I am unable, to beg I am ashamed," he said. "What can I do?"

His friends told him they were glad he was fired. "At least you are your old self," they said. "And you'll find something. Just go for it." He did, and now he's doing better than he ever could have in the position he once felt he could never leave.

The steward in today's gospel lesson is like both Sandra and Steve. Sandra was not herself in that relationship. Steve was not himself in that job. Both were wasting away, losing that which was most precious to them both: their proper identities. Both felt they could not survive if they gave up something so close and precious as a relationship or a job.

In today's gospel lesson the steward's master calls him on the carpet. In Luke's mind, this Lord and Master is God. God always calls his stewards into question when they are wasteful of who and what they are. This steward is not just wasting his master's goods. The steward is wasting himself. Nothing is more precious in God's household than his steward's proper identity. This is God's gift to this steward, and he is wasting it. No wonder God calls him to account.

God does this to us all the time. He checks our relationships and he checks our jobs -- to help us make sure we are not wasting our identities where we are. This steward was. So God dismissed him. He had to get a new job and a new relationship. God does not tolerate our wasting who we are.

This dismissal turned the light on for the steward. "What shall I do? To dig I am unable, to beg I am ashamed." Finally he came to an assessment of who he was and what he could do. He came to value his own identity, one of his master's most precious goods.

He called in his master's creditors. "How much do you owe? One hundred barrels of oil? Take your bill and write 50." Did he cheat his master? Not at all. The commercial documents from that time indicate that 50 percent was the normal commission. He renounced what he thought he had to have to live on -- and he won friends for himself in so doing.

"How much do you owe? One hundred bushels of wheat? Take your bill and write 80." He did not cheat his master. He simply renounced his own commission. He gave up what he thought he needed to survive, and he survived much better without it. He zeroed in on his own identity, rather than on the commission he thought he had to have to survive.

Bruno Bettelheim, who has studied the survivors of the concentration camps in World War II, writes that those who survived were able to give up everything they thought they needed and, in so giving, they survived. Those who thought they would die if they had no clothing, no jewelry, no regular food, no books -- they did not make it.

Sometimes God will do to us what he did to this steward. He will strip us down to the very core of our existence to make us discover who we really are. He will bring us to a crossroad in life where we will be forced to say, "To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed." There God will reveal to us who we are. As we reach to him for help we will find ourselves renouncing our commissions -- whatever we think we need to survive but we really don't. God knows that.

Luther found himself in this position many times in his life. Once, as he began his study of law, he was struck down in a thunderstorm. Terrified, he cried out, "Dear Saint Ann, help me. I will become a monk." He quit his study of law and became a theologian instead -- the identity God wanted for him in the first place. He was wasting himself in law.

Later on, as a monk, he studied Paul's Epistle to the Romans. At that time in his life he felt he could not be Martin Luther unless he ended each day with a tray full of good works to present to God. In praying over Paul, he learned the difference between works righteousness and faith. He learned he was wasting God's gift of Martin Luther's identity in that daily tray full of good works.

He wrote: "Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just shall live by faith. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through mercy and sheer grace God justified us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise." Martin Luther the Do-Gooder was reborn Martin Luther the Believer.

Today's gospel lesson introduces that curious term, "mammon," an Aramaic word which means: "that in which I put my trust." We are like Sandra, Steve, and this steward. How easy to put all our trust in relationships or commissions or a job. God will not let us do that forever. He will force us to give up those people and those things we feel are absolutely critical. In God's eyes they are roadblocks to the truth. He will take them away. Then we will discover our real identities as God's stewards, and him alone shall we serve. "

The young man enters the traffic court. In minutes he takes his turn before the judge. "Says here you were doing forty-five-miles-an-hour in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone. Guilty or not guilty? How do you plead?"

"Guilty, your Honor," comes the reply.

"Not guilty," bellows the judge. "Next case."

Such an exchange seems highly unlikely in most courts of law. Most judges would simply slap a fine on you.

Yet there is a system of justice which delivers "Not guilty" verdicts on people who do wrong. This system began when a cry broke the silence of a Bethlehem night. A child was born, and God became a man. Jesus became God’s answer to people who need help.

God had a plan. Jesus was to live the perfect life. He did. When he got older, he began to speak out against sin, and before long he was in trouble. At age thirty-three his enemies brought a case against him, and they crucified him on a trumped-up charge. Three days later, several women visited his grave only to discover it vacated. He had returned to life! God’s power overcame death’s power, and Jesus lived again.

Jesus’ resurrection gave birth to a new judicial system. Now those who believe in Christ can offer their faith in him as payment for their mistakes. And when they do, God declares them, "Not guilty."

Jesus will come again to earth. At that time we will stand before him to receive justice. As those who believe approach the bench, he will look into their hearts and find himself. "Not guilty" will be his response as he turns and says, "Next."

Persistent prayer is very important, even when such prayers are not answered in the ways we think best. It is important to be unrelenting in our prayers...not only because of the changes our prayers may elicit in God's mind, but for the changes such prayers can work in our own hearts and minds. As Frederick Buechner said years ago, persistence is a key, "not because you have to beat a path to God's door before [God will] open it, but because until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to your door."

Buechner's comment got me thinking that maybe there's more to this parable than we have sometimes seen. What if Jesus offered this parable not only as a call to prayerful persistence but also as a reminder to the church of the importance of securing justice for the poor and the oppressed in their midst? Alan Culpepper says, "To those who have it in their power to relieve the distress of the widow, the orphan and the stranger but do not [do so], the call to pray day and night is a command to let the priorities of God's compassion reorder the priorities of their lives."

A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death.

"But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy."

"But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied.

"Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for."

"Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son.

It seems that even monkeys, if they could read, would get indignant about this parable. In the Australian newspaper "The Melbourne Age," there was an intriguing report from the University of Atlanta called: "Monkeys want to see justice done."

At the University of Atlanta, researchers have been testing capuchin monkeys. They gave them the task of picking up a small granite stone and bringing it to the researcher within one minute. If they were successful, they were rewarded with the wage of a slice of cucumber. The scheme worked well. It was happy lab situation as long as each monkey received the same wage. This turned sour when the researchers varied the pattern. They tried giving one monkey a grape for its reward the others continued to receive the slice of cucumber. Indignation broke out. First the others withheld their labor, and later they even took to throwing away the cucumber and the granite stone.

It had offended their sense of justice. That's almost human isn't it? We are happy with our lot until we see someone in a similar situation who is better off. Then we cry foul! We want to go on strike and demand an end to such monkey business.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, funny-photo-man-falling-rain why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?  A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.

Dr. F.W. Boreham tells about his stay in a quaint old cottage in England occupied by a minister's widow. She had given him her bedroom and in the morning when he pulled up the blind, he saw that into the glass of the windowpane had been cut the words: "This is the day."

He asked the elderly lady about it at breakfast. She explained that she had had a lot of trouble in her time and was always afraid of what was going to happen tomorrow. One day she read the words of the above text. It occurred to her that it meant any day, this day. "Why should I be afraid of the days if He makes them?"

So the widow scratched the words as well as she could in the windowpane, so that every time she drew her blind in the morning she was reminded that "This is the day." Realizing the Lord made it, she was no longer afraid.

To be servants requires courage, sacrifice and lots of love. Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen tell the story of Betty Tisdale. (Chicken Soup for the Soul) She was the wife of a Naval Doctor in Vietnam. She had compassion on the hundreds of orphans in Saigon. She made 14 trips to Saigon by using her life savings. With great determination she managed to airlift orphans from Vietnam during the time it was falling into the hands of the North Vietnamese. It was not a simple task. First, she needed birth certificates. She went to the hospital and created them herself. She managed to make 219 eligible certificates that satisfied the government. Next she had to find a place for the children to stay when they arrived at Ft. Benning, Georgia here in the states. Again she met resistance and the Secretary of the Army wouldn't answer her calls. Determined to carry out her mission, Betty called his mother and pleaded her case. Virtually overnight, her son, the Secretary of the Army, responded.

Now she was challenged as to how to get the children safely out of Vietnam. She was unable to charter a plane. She went to Ambassador Graham Martin and pleaded for some form of transportation. He agreed to help as long as the Vietnamese government cleared their release. Two Air Force transport planes flew the children to the Philippines. Because her husband was dedicated to helping his wife he used $21,000 of his own money to charter a United Airlines plane to take the children to the states. Within a month all 219 children were adopted and placed in homes in the US.

When Jesus advocates a life of self denial, he is not talking about being a martyr, nor is he wanting us all to be Mother Teresa or a Betty Tisdale. He is talking about denying ourselves the demand for power, honor and status and being servants.

Faith is a paradox. Life in the kingdom is not acquired with honors, prizes, achievements, awards and success. It is realized with sacrificial love, unwavering faith and belief that God has a seat reserved just for us. It's better than the 50 yard line. It is not just good for a single game or a single season. It is good for eternity.

In the early '60s, at the height of the civil rights movement, a group of white ministers issued a public statement urging Dr. Martin Luther King, in the name of the Christian faith, to be more patient in his quest for justice and to relax the relentless struggle for civil rights. King's response came in the form of the famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In the letter, King indicated that he had received similar requests for delay, indeed, that he had just gotten a letter from a "white brother in Texas" who wrote, "... It is possible you are in too great a religious hurry ... The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Dr. King replied that such an attitude stemmed from a sad misunderstanding of time, the notion that time itself cures all ills. Time, King argued, could be used for good or for evil. Human progress, he said, is not inevitable, but rather ...

“... it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

King knew that complete justice must await the coming of God.

A story related to this text has a group of the very pious waiting in heaven for the judgment. As they are waiting and complaining about the wait, they begin to see some of the "sinners" they knew on earth coming into the waiting room: a corrupt politician, an itinerant woman who had been convicted of shoplifting numerous times, a prostitute, a drug addict, a man who spent most of his life in prison, etc.

With each of these arrivals, the feeling of hostility increased in the first group. They glare at the others. They talk among themselves. Within a short time, words were spoken to those others, "What makes you think you're going to get in with that evil, sinful life you lived on earth?"

"We're relying on the mercy and grace of God. What makes you so sure you're going to get in?"

"Our good lives, of course." They turned their backs to the others.

Time began to drag on for the first group. They began to complain to one another. "If those other people get in, there's no justice. After all the sacrifices we've made. It's not fair."

The Lord arrived. He turned towards the first group, "I understand you've been wondering why there has been no judgment."

"Yes!" they cried out. "We want a judgment. We want justice."

"The judgment has already taken place. You've judged yourselves. By judging these, the least of my brothers and sisters, you have judged yourselves. In rejecting them you have rejected me. You have shown yourselves unworthy of the kingdom of God."

Hare says something similar in his conclusion to this section: "We are defiled, Jesus tells us, by the unloving words that spring so readily from our mouths."

There is a legend told of a mother who sought from Napoleon the pardon of her son. The emperor said it was the man’s second offense, and justice demanded his death. “I don’t ask for justice,” said the mother. “I plead for mercy.”

“But,” said the emperor, “he does not deserve mercy.”

“Sir,” cried the mother, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask.”

“Well, then,” said the emperor, “I will show mercy.” And her son was saved.

While serving as Presbyterian missionaries in Lebanon Ben and Carol Weir learned a great deal about prayer when Ben was suddenly kidnapped by Shiite Muslim extremists in 1984. He was held in solitary confinement, in cramped quarters for sixteen months. Carol wondered whether she would ever see him again. Carol wrote of her ordeal:

The months dragged on. There had been so many meetings, so much discussion without any change. I became more aware of what seemed to me to be the silence of God. What was happening to Ben during these long months? When would this nightmare end?

We ourselves had tried to stir the Reagan Administration to take new initiatives. We had made many private and personal appeals. I remembered the story in scripture of the widow who had knocked and knocked on the door of the unjust judge, the judge who cared nothing for God or man. Finally, because of her persistence, the judge responded. I felt like that widow, whose story had been told over and over for two thousand years. I was knocking on many doors in Washington. Would one door finally open for Ben's release?

Later I was to learn from Ben that he, too, had read that same Bible story during his captivity. He had interpreted it to mean that God does not object to our repeated petitions.

Perhaps God does not speak, but remains silent to listen for something in us. Perhaps God listens for openness and receptivity on our part to the creation of a new, fresh spirit.

Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray once informed a man who had appeared before him in a lower court and had escaped conviction on a technicality, "I know that you are guilty and you know it, and I wish you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser Judge, and that there you will be dealt with according to justice and not according to law."

Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, the thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city prison.

In a certain community in England, someone had been stealing sheep. The forces of the law were unable to apprehend the thief. A certain farmer was brought before the judge and accused of being the thief, but he established his innocence of any connection with the offense, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Thereupon the judge said, “You are an innocent man, but someone has been stealing sheep. I must show to this community what the law would do to a sheep thief.” Then the judge committed the innocent man to a period of incarceration, “to uphold public justice.” But what justice!

A Time magazine article from 1984, looked well into the future. It featured a cover story on fatherhood. In that story it documented the changing shape of what we call family life. It reported that fathers used to occupy a greater place in the home and that well into the 18th century, childrearing manuals in America were generally addressed to fathers, not mothers.

But as the industrialization began to separate home and work, fathers could not be in both places at once.

Family life in the 19th century was defined by what historians call the feminization of the domestic sphere and the marginalization of the father as a parent."

The article makes some other sobering points. "Rising divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births mean that more than 40% of all children born between 1970 and 1984 are likely to spend much of their childhood living in single parent homes."

And the impact of these fatherless homes on the children is significant, if not devastating. Time goes on to say, "Studies of young criminals have found that more than 70% of all juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes. Children from broken families are nearly twice as likely as those in two-parent families to drop out of high school."

The decades old article was right. 

You never know where the invitation will come. Abraham was sitting at home. Moses was out in the wilderness. Isaiah was in a worship service.  Matthew was at work. The woman caught in adultery was, well, caught in adultery and about to be stoned. I would call that a crisis, wouldn't you?  But it doesn't matter where you are or in what situation; God will find you. As the psalmist suggests:

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If Itake the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

In the 1500s, there lived a "prophet" named Nostradamus who upheld the Copernican theory that the world is round and circles the sun more than one hundred years before Galileo was prosecuted for the same belief. He was also widely known as a healer, a dabbler in the occult, and predictor of events far into the future. A present day book, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, purports to show that he predicted such specific events as the assassination of John F. Kennnedy, Hitler’s rise to power, the Blockade of Britain, the Common Market, and other far sweeping events. The writings of Nostradamus are, however, exceedingly ambiguous, requiring a great deal of imagination on the part of the reader to even remotely apply them to events claimed as "fulfillments." I personally place no stock in this ancient mystic’s poetic "prophecies." But there is no ambiguity in the prophecies of Isaiah: (1) "Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations" (42:1). Let us now turn to Matthew 3:16: "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my son whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ "

The servant described in Isaiah 53 was to be (2) a suffering servant; "Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed" (vv. 4, 5). The entire New Testament is testimony to the "Song of the Servant," and in the remarkable economy of God, the wounds and bruises resulted in inclusive wholeness and healing. Unfortunately, there are those who have not embraced the vicarious suffering Christ as relevant for their own cases. Even on Christmas day, combat raged in eastern El Salvador between government troops and leftist rebels. A Roman Catholic priest claims that nearly 7,000 persons died in "blind violence" in the country during the past year. We will not dwell upon world violence and political unrest here, except to say that there are those who remain outside of the peace made possible by the redemptive work of Christ. But for those who have experienced the power of Christ in their lives personally, they have found it to be a strong potion, even in difficult times.

Slightly more than one hundred years ago, an especially gifted young man enrolled in Glasgow University. Anxious to begin academic studies and anticipating his forthcoming marriage, his spirits soared. But how rapidly the wheels of fortune turn. He was suddenly stricken by blindness, and his fiance, not wanting to be married to an invalid, rejected him. The tide had turned against him in a manner which would have devastated a lesser person. However, despite his adversities, he graduated from the university and went on to become one of the greatest preachers in the Church of Scotland. Not out of his despair, but out of his personal relationship with Christ, he wrote a hymn which we lift in praise until this day: "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go ..." Consequently, not only the New Testament, but individuals like George Matheson the hymnwriter and scores of others who have named the name of Christ, affirm that Isaiah’s prophecy has indeed come to pass.

There is more. The vicarious suffering of Christ was (3) once done, for all, and for all time. Such a sacrifice need never be repeated. I have read where each year, beginning on Ash Wednesday, thousands of Filipino Christians begin Lenten observances by flagellating themselves with whips and heavy branches. The whips have sharp stones and broken pieces of glass affixed to leathered ends. Certain others submit themselves to be actually crucified. Their devotion is admirable, but the gestures in which they engage are both barbaric and unnecessary. We continue to sin, yes, but the redemptive work of Christ at Calvary endures, once done for all time.

In a book entitled Plain Talk about Churches and Money, one of the authors states: "Clergy often come to their calling with a distinct aversion to conflict and to having to deal with money issues. Our culture seems to reinforce them in that behavior. So long as clergy are cowed and anxious in the face of money and wealth, they will remain silent about the spiritual issue that touches our culture more deeply than any other. The more I steeped myself in this book and looked at churches around me, the more I became convinced this behavior is the way a culture controls a challenge to itself. A money-driven culture seems to want clergy who are ‘safe' and "tame" when dealing with the spiritual dimension of money."

The possibilities go in two directions: one, Jesus is overwhelmed, startled and delighted at this woman's faith, she has done more than all those who are supposedly leaders of the church. She gives sacrificially. They give a token. He wants them all to see real faith at work.

At the same time, she is giving with purpose and meaning, she understands what she has done. Like the woman in the poem, "When I am Old I Am Going to Wear Purple", she gives with freedom, abandon, boldly, bravely, with the sure knowledge that she will not eat, but not caring. She is in control, and has decided to pick her destiny.

The other possibility, and it is a dark one, is that Jesus walks out of the Temple, condemning it to destruction, because he has seen with his own eyes the final straw: the devouring of a widow by the very Temple itself. In allowing the widow to give everything away without any thought to care, the leaders of the Temple beg for their own destruction. From those who have been given much, much is expected.

Early in his ministry, when he was pastor of the Congregational Church at Rugeley, Campbell Morgan studied hard and preached often. He was discovering and developing the gift of Bible exposition that later made him the prince of expositors. His preaching made him popular. One evening, as he sat in his study, he felt God saying to him, "What are you going to be, a preacher or My messenger?" As Morgan pondered the question, he realized that his desire to become a "great preacher" was hindering his work. For several hours Morgan sat there struggling with God's call and human ambition.

Finally he said, "Thy messenger, my Master Thine!" He took the precious outlines of his sermons, messages that he was proud of, and laid them in the fireplace where they burned to ashes. That was when the victory was won. As the outlines were burning, Morgan prayed: "If Thou wilt give me Thy words to speak, I will utter them from this day forward, adding nothing to them, taking naught away. Thine whole counsel I will declare, so help me God!"

The climax of the parable occurs in verse 15: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" The vineyard owner claims the right to pay his workers not on the basis of their merits but on the basis of his own compassion. Why should such generosity be condemned as injustice? Underlying the parable is the Old Testament conception of God as the creator who is GOOD, that is, generous to all (see, e.g., Ps.145:9). Jesus reveled in the incredible magnanimity of God (see 5:45). Of course Jesus believed in the God of justice, but in his vision of God the divine compassion greatly outshone the divine justice. Those who worship such a God must imitate his generosity, not begrudge it.

Movie producer William Castle was known in the 1950s for his low-quality horror films. In 1961, Castle did something totally unique in movie history: he let the audience choose the ending to his movie. Castle's movie, Mr. Sardonicus, was about a crazed, reclusive killer. Near the end of the film, ushers stopped the film and allowed audiences to vote on whether the killer should live or die. Then, the ushers ran the ending that the audience chose. The audience always chose death for the bad guy. It's a good thing human nature is so predictable. William Castle was counting on it. You see, he only filmed one ending to his movie, not two. He was so sure that the audience would vote to kill the bad guy that he only filmed that ending to save money. This quirky little story provides us a window into human nature: We have a yearning for justice.

Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed this universal desire of human beings to see justice accomplished pointed the way to God. He called it "a universal sense of oughtness." The Hero's Adventure is what it is sometimes called in storytelling. It is the classic formula of popular fiction. A virtuous person is called on to face overwhelming odds. He or she nearly loses possibly at the risk of his or her own life. Eventually, however, our hero is victorious. And vicariously we celebrate alongside the hero. We share in the pain of his challenge and near defeat, and we feel a sense of elation when our hero finally triumphs. It is rare, however, that an audience will celebrate an unhappy ending. It's such a downer. And rarely will an audience celebrate victory by a villain. Why, then, did Jesus allow a dirty, rotten scoundrel to triumph in one of his stories? You know which story I'm talking about. Jesus told his disciples a story about a rich man whose manager was wasting his possessions. So the rich man called his manager in and asked him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer."

In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on biblical principles) in the public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government run program were in the orphanage. They related the following story in their own words:

It was nearing the holiday season and it was time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. (No colored paper was available in the city.)

Following instructions, the children tore the paper and carefully laid strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel, cut from an old nightgown, were used for the baby's blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt. The orphans were busy assembling their manger as I walked among them to see if they needed any help.

All went well until I got to one table where little Misha sat he looked to be about 6 years old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy's manger, I was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger. Quickly, I called for the translator to ask the lad why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at this completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously.

For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately, until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said, "And when Maria laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift. So I asked Jesus, "If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?" And Jesus told me, "If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me." So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him - for always."

As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed full of tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed. The little orphan had found someone who would never abandon nor abuse him, someone who would stay with him FOR ALWAYS.

C. H. Spurgeon preached once a each year for his orphans. At that great meeting many would come to hear the famous preacher, and an offering would be received for the orphanage. After one of these meetings he was leaving the sanctuary when one of those "super spiritual," narrow-minded, nitpicking individuals accosted him with the charge, "Why, Mr. Spurgeon, I thought you preached for souls and not for money!"

Spurgeon gravely replied, "Why, Mr. So-and-So. Normally I do preach for souls and not for money. But my orphans can't eat souls and if they did, my brother, it would take at least four the size of yours to give one of them a square meal!"