November 9, 2003
By Jack Price

            There have been many theological influences on my life.  One of the greatest has been Charles Schultz and his cartoon community Peanuts.  One day Linus, that great philosophy and carrier of a well-known security blanket, stands in an empty sanctuary and cries out, "Where are the hypocrites?  Church is supposed to be full of hypocrites.  Where are they?"  Today's story from the Gospel of Mark does raise a version of that  same question -- "Who are the hypocrites?"

            The Gospel of Mark was likely the first of the biblical gospels written - just before or right around 70CE.  The reasons for its writing may well have included its being a worship and teaching text for young Christian church.  In the synoptic Gospels, the passion narrative is the centerpiece.  For Jewish Christian, it had a strong connection to Passover.  Just prior to the passion narratives came an apocalyptic emphasis dealing with "end of history" themes.  Then, prior to that came a catechism section.  Through the latter part of Jesus' Galilean ministry, on the road to Jerusalem, and in his disputes with religious leaders in the Temple, Mark uses this material to advance his community's understanding of who Jesus was and what his life meant.  Mark was not writing to us today, but there is a Word for us to hear.

            The story we commonly call "The Widow's Mite" is a small little story about an obscure and nameless widow.  Mark uses this story as the culmination of his catechism.  Today's Gospel lesson is a story in two parts.  Jesus continues his condemnation of the scribes from our previous discussion.  The scribes liked their status and wealth, though it seems their good fortune was often acquired at the expense of the least.  People such as they, in positions of trust, took advantage for their own gain.  They were the quintessential example of hypocrisy:  combining unethical behavior and pious praying.  Their long prayers represent burdensome religious practice without internal substance and their combination of piety and fraud really galls Mark's Jesus. 

Previously, Jesus responded to a scribe's query as to the greatest commandment with a now familiar answer:  "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself."  Now Jesus words give a new urgency to another commandment - "taking the Lord's name in vain."  He is in effect saying, "When you identify yourself as 'one of God's,' you cannot live and act as though that title were 'in vain.'"  An illustration by contrast is that of the rich men and poor widow bringing money to the Temple treasury.  The scene shifts as Jesus begins what appears to be an acted-out parable.  He assumes "judging position" - seated looking at the treasury as people come by "paying" their Temple obligation.  This is not exactly a "free will" offering.

The background, referred to in previous discussions with and about the religious leadership, concerns the hypocritical pious insistence of the scribes on empty religious practices at great expense that cause inconvenience to the rich and life-threatening sacrifice to the widow.  The focus of this story in Mark is not on rich men or the poor widow.  It is on how the policies of the Temple and its "officers" place oppressive financial and social burdens on the poor.  These are greatly out of proportion to the burden they place on the wealthy.  The rich give out of abundance of wealth and the public recognition they get in many ways pays them back.  The widow gives her life, what she needs to live, and gets no recognition because amount is so small.

            There are two words that reflect the deep meaning of this story - abundance and poverty.  Money represents abundance and it is a great image.  Jesus and the gospel writers use it a lot, almost more than any other image.  This is not because how we spent our money determines whether or how much God loves us.  It is because money and what it represents is so important.  Obviously money was very important to people in Jesus' day.  They equated its possession with self-worth and with God's blessing.       Money is just as important to people today.  To almost any question, it seems the answer is "money."  There is an old joke about children's sermons is, that no matter what the question the answer has to be "Jesus."  Unfortunately, the answer for our culture today to almost any question is really "Money."  Money is one of the most powerful images for us as we try to be open to the Gospel message in this day and age.  It is the god, the idol, the competitor for our commitment, energy, and faith.  Actually, there is really not much competition.  Money wins hands down.  The power of money to represent and challenge our values remains as vital today as it was 2,000 or 3,000 years ago.

The story of the "widow's mite" was a challenging one for Jesus' disciples as it was for Mark's community.  It remains a challenging one for us.  In sorting out this issue of abundance for ourselves, attitude is key.  There is a simple "rule of thumb" --  "Yes" in terms of spiritual gifts and calling, "No" in terms of hedging out bets with God.  Poverty includes financial, social, emotional  aspects.  Poverty is not an ideal, but it holds an opportunity for truth. 

What does it mean to "give out of your abundance"?  The rich men gave money to the Temple out of the abundance of the "money" they had.  It was a lot of money, but they "purchased" prestige and influence from the religious leaders.  They probably purchased a sense of God's approval as well.  Their payments were "charitable gifts" - very helpful, but just a few among many for these tycoons.

The widow gave "all she had." This theme of total commitment recurs often in Mark.  Her contribution left her with nothing else to give.  In terms of the cost, the percentage, and likely the integrity and authenticity of her gift, she gave much more than they.

What does it mean to "give out of your poverty"?  The widow was poor.  Her coins were the smallest currency going - just one penny, or possibly the two coins together equaled one penny.  This was clearly all she had to live on.  It was not much.  And she was really poor! 

Another way of looking at this is that the widow had a poverty of borrowed self --money, status, etc.  She was poor when it came to those things that humans often use to represent self-worth.  According to the story, however, she had an abundance of faith, commitment and, likely, authentic self.  The rich men were rich.  Their payments were large and the public setting in the Temple gave them opportunity to demonstrate their largeness.  Another way of looking at it is that these men had an abundance of ego and reputation and, likely, a self-image that was based on their wealth - a "pseudo" self.  They were rich in the admiration and envy of others - rich in borrowed self.  One wonders if they could have stood giving anonymously and privately.  Jesus said - "When you practice your piety before people, you already have your reward."  Would they have given without this reward or was theirs a poverty of faith and integrity?  Within the context of Mark's gospel, one is justified in speculating that the rich men had a need to rely on the self they continually "borrowed" from the very religious system that gave their lifestyle meaning.  They had an abundance of borrowed self and a poverty of quiet inner faith and of authentic self.

            The questions turn to us:  "Where does our abundance lie?  Does it lie in possessions, reputation, and status; in relationships, family, and our ability to give to others; in our handicaps, experiences of hardship, and our failures in life?  What does it mean for you to "give" out of your abundance?  Is this an abundance of pseudo self, a giving in search of identity?  Is it an abundance of authentic self, giving from a reservoir of spiritual gifts, passion, and calling?  Are you enriched through your giving?" 

"Where does our poverty lie?  Does it lie in possessions, reputation, and status; in relationships, family, and our ability to give to others; in our handicaps, experiences of hardship, and our failures in life?"  What does it mean for you to "give" out of your poverty?  Is poverty for you a lack of "stuff and status" or of an "easy path."  That can make it easier to be genuine just because there is not as much standing between our borrowed selves and our authentic self. 

What is given out of such poverty is genuine gift - enriching gift and giver.  It is the widow's poverty.  Financial and other aspects of poverty are not tickets to authenticity in themselves.  Systemic and intergenerational poverty has led our society to great confusion and polarization.  There are no simple answers, but societal answers must begin with personal commitments - to let go of the hold our possessions have on us, to recognize the "self" we borrow from wealth, from job and other status, from religious faith, from family, from gender or nationality. 

There is both illustration and invitation to find yourself, your many selves, in the following story (from the internet source Mikey's funnies)

"I'll never forget that Easter of 1946," [wrote the young girl Eddie Ogan.  We] knew what it was to do without many things.  My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with kids to raise and no money.

.A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family.  He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. 

When we got home, we talked about what we could do.  We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on that for a month."  That saved $20 in grocery expenses.  There were other savings and extra work done cleaning houses and yards and selling homemade potholders.  "That month was the best of our lives. 

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved.  At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them.  The day before Easter, I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.  We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep.  We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter.  We had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We sat in church proudly.  I heard some teenagers talking about how we were wearing our old dresses.  I looked at them in their new clothes and I felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front.  Mom put in the $10 bill and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way.  At lunch Mom had a surprise for us.  She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our friend potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car.  Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, then came back with an envelope in her hand.  We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word.  She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money.  There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope.  We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor.  We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.  I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were.   The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.  We sat in silence for a long time.  Then it got dark and we went to bed.  All that week, we girls went to school and came home and no one talked much. 

Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money.  What did poor people do with money?  We didn't know. 

We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. 

At church, we had a missionary speaker.  He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs.  He said $100 would put a roof on a church.  The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?"

We look at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.\

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope and . put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100.  The missionary was excited.  He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church.  He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us!  We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church"!  Hadn't the missionary said so?  From that day on I've never been poor again.

The rich family at church -- we can be rich like Eddie Ogan and her family.   Their wealth lay in knowing who they were, in seeing themselves as valuable, and in investing that value in their faith in God.  You and I can afford to give all we have, just like the widow.  Treasures cannot buy us meaning or faith, no matter how much we have or how much we give away.  Your greatest treasure is the "self" God created in you and such authentic self is given away already -- given to God, the source of all authenticity.  Since treasures follow commitment, however large or small, they become a fortune.

Today's gospel story suggests that abundance can be poverty and poverty abundance.  The choice is ours.  In the power of God's Holy Spirit, let us choose wisely.