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| INTRODUCTION: A Servant of the Word | xi | ||||
| PART ONE: SERMONS ON THE THEMES OF DAILY LIFE | |||||
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3 | (10) | |||
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| PART TWO: SERMONS FOR THE LITURGICAL SEASONS | |||||
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My text is the fourth verse of the twenty-first chapter of the gospel according to St. Luke, where our Lord makes a comparative statement and an absolute judgment.
Those of you who were here last Sunday know that I spoke of that nameless, infamous woman in the gospel who anointed Jesus' feet and washed them with her tears, and if you wanted to, you could say that that sermon was about sex. Next Sunday, on All Saints' and All Souls' day, wewill speak of the faithful departed, and you might think that that sermon will be about death. Today, in the account of the widow's mite from which our text is taken, it is obvious that we are speaking about money, or so itwould seem. If we had Madison Avenue values here, or even the sensibilities of talk radio, we could advertise this as a series entitled "All You Need to Know About Sex, Money, and Death"; but then, there is more to each of these sermons than any of those.
We have heard many times this story of our Lord in the Gospel of Luke:
He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and hesaw a poor widow put in two copper coins, and he said, "Truly I tell you,this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living thatshe had." (Luke 21:1–4)
Or, as the King James version puts it:
And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And hesaid, "Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in morethan they all: for all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offeringsof God; but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had."(Luke 21:1–4)
Most of us have grown up with the story of the widow's mite, and weknow that it means a small denomination of ancient money, but as childrenwe hear before we read or spell, and so as a child I thought that the storywas about the widow's might -- a modest but useful preaching point. OurLord said, "This poor widow has put in more than all of them; for they allcontributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in allthe living that she had." Now, the context for this, in the preceding chapterof Luke, is Jesus' criticism of the rich and visible believers, the Pharisees -- the rich, the powerful, who liked to wear long robes and stand in publicplaces, and made much of their piety and of their philanthropy and goodworks. In one sense this is just more of the same: criticizing the establishment -- those people for whom doing good works and giving good giftsdoesn't cut anywhere into the substance of their being. People give whocan afford to give. Here, the story contrasts them with one who in Jesus'eyes cannot afford to give, and therefore gives everything that she has.
There are times, I think, and this may be one of them, when we wishthat the text were less clear and more ambiguous. It would be helpful inthis text, for example, to discover that there are several nuanced hidden levelsof meaning whereby it does not say what we think it says. It was MarkTwain, more cynical than devout, who said, "It is not what I don't understandin the Bible that troubles me, it is what I do understand."This is oneof those texts: we get it. We can and we do understand the text about thewidow's mite, and that is the trouble. It troubles us, I suggest, on twocounts, with the first in the context of a much larger anxiety that weChristians have, which is that we are troubled when we talk about money.
There! I caught you. I can see you already frowning and freezing up,already grabbing for that part of you that is most important to you, holdingon, thinking, "Here we go again. "We don't like to discuss money in relationshipto our church or to our faith or to our religion, although we willtalk about it as far as the national debt is concerned, we will talk about it asfar as taxes are concerned, we will talk about it as far public expenditure isconcerned. We don't want to talk about it in terms of our religion or ourchurch or our faith, however, because somehow, somewhere, somebody hastold us one of the few religious principles that we remember, which is thatreligion is "spiritual" and money is "material," and that never the twainshould meet -- especially in church. Hence ministers, particularly those ofthe more respectable "mainline" churches, those churches from whommost of you have fled for the time being in order to come here on Sundaymorning, are usually embarrassed to speak of money; and at best devote afew minutes on one Sunday a year, supported by a phalanx of sympatheticlaypeople, to little homilies on "stewardship." Very subtle, artfully producedletters and cards are given that, if you are lucky, will not mention money orneed or giving at all, and most congregations are equally embarrassed andannoyed by even these little subtleties ...
Strength for the Journey
Excerpted from Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living by Peter J. Gomes
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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