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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anytime any politician talks seriously about simplifying the U.S. income tax filing process, there is a joke that goes around about a two-line form: the first line asks you how much you made last year, and the second line tells you to send it all in. It is no joke that some have mischaracterized Pilgrim’s appeals for better stewardship as our asking people to give beyond their means, when, to my knowledge, no one has asked that. Yet, faced with a deficit that is a sizable portion of a bare-bones budget, appeals continue to be made for all to increase their giving, as they are able. And, today’s Gospel Reading certainly can be taken in support of judging offerings not by their dollar amount but by their percentage of what the giver has available, if the Gospel Reading cannot also be taken as Jesus’s actually telling us to give all that we have to live on. This morning we consider the Gospel Reading, and we do so under the theme “Contributing out of poverty”.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus first taught His followers to beware of the Jewish scribes, who, among other things, Jesus said, devour widow’s houses. Then, Jesus watched a widow, perhaps one of those widows soimpoverished by the scribes, put into the offering box barely a penny, and, contrary to what people might otherwise have thought, Jesus said that she contributed more than all those who were contributing to the offering box, for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she contributed out of her poverty.
To be sure, each of us has our own unique situation of household income and expenses. Some households have one income; other households have two incomes or more. Some households have no dependents; others have a number of dependents, adults and children. We cannot all, as might be thought after last week’s Voters’ Meeting, just increase our individual weekly giving by the same amount: the deficit divided by 52 weeks and divided again by the number of giving households. Some of us have more of an abundance, and others of us are closer to poverty. Yet, regardless, today’s Gospel Reading prompts the question: are we giving out of our abundance or are we giving out of our poverty? In other words, what percentage are we giving? Is our giving sacrificial, which is said to be the same as asking, what has our giving cost us, or what have we given up? Expensive trips or fancy clothes? Spacious homes or gourmet food and drink? New cars, SUVs, or trucks? Cable or satellite TV, internet access, or the latest smart phones?
Jesus not only watched the people putting money into the offering box in the Gospel Reading, but Jesus also watches us put money into the offering plate today. We do not know one another’s unique situations of household income and expenses, and we do not know one another’s giving to the Lord, but we should be able to assess whether we ourselves are giving out of our abundance or poverty, and God knows all of that best of all. God knows whether neglect of His Kingdom is on our long list of sins that we commit against Him, and He calls us to repent of neglecting of His Kingdom, as He calls us to repent of all of our sin. As we heard in the Epistle Reading (Hebrews 9:24-28), it is appointed for each person to die once, and after that comes judgment. For any one sin we deserve to be judged and sentenced to be outside of His Kingdom for all eternity, but, in His love, mercy, and grace, God offers to forgive our sin and to welcome us into His Kingdom. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep sinning, then God forgives our sin, our neglect of His Kingdom and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
The poor widow who contributed out of her poverty put in everything she had, all that she had to live on. We could say that she pointed forward to what Jesus Himself at that time was just days away from doing, that is, giving His life as a ransom for all (Mark 10:45). That is the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: though He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor (2 Corinthians 8:9). The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8). He did not have to offer Himself repeatedly, as we heard in the Epistle Reading, but He offered Himself once for all, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Now, admittedly, St. Mark does not say whether any of those putting money into the offering box, including the poor widow, knew Who Jesus was, what He was about to do, and how He would give them the benefits of what He was about to do. But, we might conclude that at least the poor widow had not only trust in God’s provision but also saving faith in Him. To be sure, another time that there was a distinction between offerings—between Cain’s offering of fruit of the ground and Abel’s offering of the firstborn of his flock (Genesis 4:3-4)—what made Abel’s offering more acceptable to God than Cain’s offering, the Divinelyinspired author of Hebrews says, was faith (Hebrews 11:4). And, faith in Jesus’s Christ’s sacrifice for us is how we are first saved, and then also how we are moved to make our own sacrificial offerings.
The poor widow in today’s Gospel Reading may well have known about the widow of Zarephath in today’s Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 17:8-16). That widow of Zarephath had faith in the Lord our God, and she and her household and Elijah experienced the Lord’s miraculous feeding in keeping with Elijah’s word. Here, at this Altar and its Rail, those made part of God’s household by Holy Baptism and returned to that baptismal grace by individual Holy Absolution also experience the Lord’s miraculous feeding in keeping with His Word: in the Sacrament of the Altar they receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for them and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for them, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The smallest amount gives it all, and the supply is never exhausted.
The poor widow in the Gospel Reading contributed out of her poverty by putting in everything that she had, all that she had to live on. As mentioned, she apparently trusted in God’s provision, though we do not know how He provided, since there certainly was no Social Security as we know of it, and perhaps no family support for her, either, and maybe only support out of the very offerings to which she contributed. Yet, as much as Jesus praised her sacrificial offering, neither St. Mark, whose account we heard, nor St. Luke in his parallel account (Luke 20:4521:4), report Jesus’s commanding His disciples then or us today to go and do likewise (compare Luke 10:37). Rather, forgiven by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we are moved by the Holy Spirit, on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:2), to contribute sacrificially even out of our poverty, not according to what we do not have but according to what we do have (2 Corinthians 8:12), all of which we have received from God (1 Corinthians 4:7). God is not dependent on us, but He chooses to work in this way! And, we are blessed to so be a part of the work of His Kingdom!
Surely that we are not forced to pay income taxes according to the federal government’s need and deficit is a good thing, or else we might literally have to send in all that we made the previous year, and while that might be enough to cover the federal budget with its deficit, it would not be enough to cover the national debt. Our congregation’s need and its deficit certainly can challenge us to consider whether our giving could be more sacrificial, but we give best when we give not to a need but simply out of thanks and praise for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. He contributed out of His poverty for us, and we respond by contributing out of our poverty, and we pray that God would grant that be more than sufficient for the work of His Kingdom in this and in every place.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +