In the first parish I served there lived an elderly widow. She lived alone, except for about a hundred parakeets. She supplemented her meager income from her late husband’s Social Security by raising and selling those popular birds. Her health was none too good, and during the cold winter months she was rarely able to make it out to church on Sunday mornings, so I tried to visit her as often as possible. I recall making one visit on a cold wintry day. We talked about many things, read the Bible together, and had a moment of prayer. As I was about to leave, she stopped me. “Pastor,” she said, “I haven’t been able to get to church much lately. This has been a hard winter for me. But I have kept up my offering envelopes, and I wonder if you would be so kind to take them back to the church and place them in the offering plate this coming Sunday for me? My husband and I always tithed during his lifetime, and I have tried to keep up the practice since he has been gone.” I confess I was a bit embarrassed. This woman’s income could not have been more than a few dollars a week...and her offering could not have been more than a few cents. I was tempted to tell her, “You keep the money. You need it more than the church does.” But then I decided that that would be cruel. Why should I deprive this poor woman of one of the few joys left in her life - giving to the cause of Christ? Sure, the church was not in desperate need of her gift; but she was desperately in need of giving. There was not much else she could do for the church, but she could do this. And her love for God was so great that she felt she had to do something.
And then I remembered that our Lord never turned away any gift because it was small, or because the giver could ill afford to give it. That scene in Mark’s Gospel came to my mind. Almost two thousand years ago Jesus sat opposite the treasury, watching people making their offerings in the Temple. Wealthy people cast in great amounts-as they should! And Jesus did not knock that at all. But then a poor widow cast in two small coins. A very small amount, and yet, proportionately, a very large amount...all she had. And Jesus said nothing about giving it back to her or that she should have been more prudent. Rather, he commended her most highly: “This poor widow has put in more than all the rest!” He said. (Mark 12:43)
I. JESUS SAT, WATCHING, “OPPOSITE THE TREASURY” Mark tells us. And He didn’t seem to be the least embarrassed, did He? I think that I might have been. All through my ministry I have resisted knowing what any individual church member contributes. I guess I have been afraid that I might be disappointed or shocked.
A few weeks ago, when we had six clergy sitting up here, I had the experience of sitting and facing the congregation during the Offertory. It was a distinctly different experience. I felt much like a shy minister I once heard about who was at the beach and wanted to help a certain lady who had lost her swim suit, but he didn’t know where to look! I didn’t know where to look...at the offering plates, the ceiling fans, my fingernails, or what. I did get the distinct impression that during the Offertory a good many folk would like to sing the last verse of “Blest be the tie that binds” while they place their money in the offering plate. It goes: “When we asunder part, it gives us inward pain....”
Last fall, when Bishop Craig was with us I told her that I have never during my ministry looked to see what any individual member of the congregation contributed. She told me, in effect, that I was “chicken,” and that ought I ought not to spare myself that agony. I began to think about her comments...and, as a result, this year we are handling our “Covenant” program slightly differently. We ministers will “Count the Covenants” and then let the Finance Committee know what we can count on for the year ahead. I am not too comfortable with this yet, but we need to know this information.
AFTER ALL, JESUS LOOKED, DIDN’T HE?? That is what our Scripture lesson is all about. It is a curious scene. Let me try to picture it for you. Climbing the stairs to the Temple in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, you would find yourself in the “Court of the Gentiles.” Then you would come upon what was called the “Women’s Court.” In the Court of the Women there were thirteen collection boxes called “Trumpets,” because they were trumpet-shaped. Each of them was for a special purpose, for instance to buy corn or wine or oil for the sacrifices and expenses of running the Temple. (Wm. Barclay, Mark, Phila.: Westminster Press, 1956, p. 316) Mark says that many people threw in large contributions...and Jesus didn’t say they shouldn’t. The money was needed. But then there came a widow. She flung in two coins...called the widow’s “mites.” The coin was a “lepton,” which was the smallest of all coins and was worth about a 16th of a penny. And Jesus said that her tiny contribution was greater than all the rest. (How He turns everything upside down!)
This is really a very strange scene. We have heard about it so many times we fail to note several significant things about it. For instance: it was not a Sabbath day. It was not a service of worship. Plates or baskets were not being passed. And Jesus had no word of criticism for the process. We find it strange that Jesus did not object to this. He didn’t jump up and stand in their way....tell them to take their money back home and come again when the worship service was on. But He didn’t. A lot of people I know would. A lot of folks I know would be very critical of what they were doing that day. It was not an act of worship. It was not part of a religious service. There was no procedure for passing the plate. There was no priest standing by to offer a prayer of dedication. They just came and dumped it in. It seems to us to be a rather cold and calculating affair, what we might think was a rather crass, commercial way of giving.
A few years back some church leaders suggested that, in keeping with our trend toward the new “cashless” society, we should discover new methods of financing the Lord’s work. They actually suggested an “Automatic Commitment Transfer”...similar to that which many of us use to pay insurance premiums, etc. Under this plan, we make our pledge to the church, inform the bank, and through electronic transfer of funds, each week or month, the proper amount is deducted from our bank accounts. Well, you should hear the people holler! People objected, saying that such a thing was not spiritual enough. It was too worldly, too secular, too calculated and crass. I suspect that if the truth were known, the problem was not that it was too “secular” but that it was too certain. If you promised, you had to fulfill that promise. It was too DEFINITE. Some folks would rather wait and see what they have left over after all the more important things are cared for.
II. JESUS SAT “OPPOSITE THE TREASURY.” And He seems to have been very interested in the proceedings. May I suggest that Christ is always interested in seeing what men and women do with their money? He watches OUR conduct while the offering is being taken. He studies our expressions as we are confronted with the offering plate. He is here...watching us during the Offertory.
Some folks say, “I wish my minister would preach the Gospel and stop talking about money.” But, my friends, it is virtually impossible to preach the Gospel and not talk about money. When the late Southern Methodist preacher Dr. Clovis Chappell was appointed to a new church down south, he said that one member of the parish said to him, “Our former pastor was so deeply spiritual that he never mentioned money in the pulpit.” To which Dr. Chappell replied, “Then he must have been very spiritual, indeed, because he ran way past Jesus... Jesus often mentioned money.”
He did! And not only did Jesus mention money, but he had more to say about the subject than any other subject on which He spoke! He had more to say about money than He had to say about Baptism, the “New Birth,” the so-called “Second Coming,” the Church, or Heaven, or Hell. In the first three Gospels, one verse in six mentions money. Of the 38 parables recorded in the Gospels, 16 deal with the subject of money. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to deal with the Gospel and not mention money. Jesus Christ is profoundly interested in the subject.
WHY WAS JESUS SO INTERESTED IN MONEY? Because He was a realist. He knew that where people put their money is a pretty good indication of their true priorities. Some years back Presbyterian preacher Robert K. Hudnut said: “It is presumptuous, to say the least, for affluent American church members to pontificate about world poverty when they are not giving away at least 10 per cent of their incomes to creative Christian ways of overcoming it. And it is naive, to say the least, for affluent church members to decry the spread of Communism around the world when they are so entranced by its greatest competitor, Christianity, that they give to Christianity’s foreign missions the grand average of five cents a week!” (THE SLEEPING GIANT, N. Y.: Harper & Row, 1971, p. 93) Jesus knew that money is power. That great Methodist preacher of Great Britain, Leslie Weatherhead, once told of visiting in a London slum and seeing a young girl desperately ill with tuberculosis. But she had no money to pay for treatment. Somehow, Weatherhead managed to get the money and the girl got the help. Weatherhead, reflecting on the experience said: “Right then I came to know what money is, what money can be: the power to demand a service and, in this kind of world, to make sure that you get it!” Money is power. You know what they say: “Money talks.” (I don’t know what it says to you. But all that it says to me is “Good-bye.”) What is meant when people say “money talks” is that in this kind of world money is the power to demand a human service, and make sure that you get it! Money is power - condensed into nickles, dimes, and dollars. It can be used for good or evil, for the making of a person’s character, or the breaking of it. Jesus is interested in money because what we do with it is a good index to our characters. There was a historian who said that he could never get a clue to the character of the Duke of Wellington until he saw the man’s checkbook stubs. They told the story of his life. And they tell our story as well. Long ago I came to realize that people’s giving is not commensurate with their income: it is commensurate with their commitment. Which for most of us is pretty poor. It has been calculated that if the average church member were on welfare and tithed, churches the size of ours would have an income exceeding a million dollars a year! We are too much like the famous nobleman of the 16th century in Europe who donated a piece of land to the Virgin Mary, with one stipulation: all income from that land would forever come to himself and his heirs! Such a gift cost him nothing-and most of our gifts cost us nothing, or very little. The late Peter Marshall, chaplain of the Senate and Presbyterian pastor in Washington, had a prayer which ought to give us pause. He prayed: “Lord, help me to regulate my giving according to my income, Lest thou shouldst regulate my income according to my giving!”
III. JESUS WAS THE PERFECT PERSON TO COMMENT ON THE WIDOW’S GIFT, WASN’T HE? He Himself was the greatest Giver of them all! The event which Mark describes in such graphic detail is one of the last in Jesus’ public ministry; only the Temple discourse in Chapter 13 and the passion narrative in Chapters 14-15 remain. What difference does that make? It means that Jesus’ words on this occasion were uttered in the shadow of the cross. They are actually an overture to His passion and death. The woman’s action is praiseworthy because out of her poverty and without reservation she gave her whole living to God. Her gift foreshadows the one Jesus is about to make: His very life. In Mark this poor widow becomes a type of Him who, “though he was rich, yet for (our) sake became poor, so that by his poverty (we) might become rich.” (II Cor. 8:9) (See Lamar Williamson, MARK, “INTERPRETATION” Atlanta:John Knox Press, 1983, p. 234)
Some years ago I heard a story which made a profound impression upon me, and I think this is the proper time to share it with you. Perhaps you have already heard it. Nevertheless, it fits. It seems that one church’s Finance Committee was sitting up late at night at an overly-long meeting. They were facing the usual problem: too many things to be done and not enough money to do them with. (Our Finance Committee and Administrative Board members can relate to that—that’s just what happened to them during our church’s serious financial crunch last Spring.) But this particular church’s Finance Committee had exhausted just about every idea that they could come up with. Finally, toward midnight...one member came up with a bright idea. He said, “Maybe somebody will die and leave us a gift!” Slowly, the wise pastor rose to his feet. He said: “That’s just the problem. Somebody HAS died and left us a gift: Jesus Christ. He died to leave us the greatest gift we can possibly imagine: salvation and eternal life. The problem is: what are we doing with our lives in response to that gift?” That was the question he left with them, and I leave with you this morning. What are we doing in response to God’s greatest gift of Himself in Jesus Christ, our Lord? I conclude with a prayer which was published originally by Michael Patison in LUTHERAN STANDARD magazine. In it the writer prays: “Lord, we are a strange people. We bellow aloud the latest pop songs, but we don’t open our mouths to sing hymns of praise. We eagerly sign a note for thirty-six big car payments, but we fail to commit ourselves to a pledge to the church. We become ecstatic about the Dallas Cowboys (or the Detroit Tigers or the Michigan Wolverines), but we muster scant enthusiasm for the work of Christ. We shed tears over the make-believe plight of soap opera characters, but we are untouched by the anguish of real people. Quick to condemn and slow to commend, strong in willfulness and weak in Thy will, and generous with ourselves and stingy with You, we are a strange people. We are not who we ought to be. We are not who we want to be. Help us, O God, to be changed today, through the power of Christ.” (From PULPIT DIGEST, Sept/Oct 1981, p.50/554)