November 12, 2006 Des Moines
TEXT:  Mark 12:38-44

The Pledge Card, Revisited

A few weeks ago, we stared into a pledge card almost impossible to sign. Perhaps you remember the story of Jesus’ conversation with a wealthy man who wanted to get into heaven. After learning that the man already felt like he successfully observed the commandments, Jesus told him to sell all that he had, give to the poor, and become a disciple. As we noted at the time, it is the only reported incident in which Jesus extends a call that is refused.

Fast forward, then, to today, and the story of a woman who couldn’t sell what she had, because she had nothing, and yet who gave away the tiny coinage she possessed as an offering to God. The story might remind us of the folk tale from Elijah’s time in which a poor widow uses her last bit of grain and oil to prepare bread for the prophet, only then to discover her pantry miraculously replenished. Despite what the televangelists want us to believe, this isn’t a folk tale. The woman’s purse is not miraculously replenished. Incredibly – and utterly unlike the wealthy questioner in the previous story – she does, in fact, give away everything she has.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me assert that the timing of this sermon has nothing to do with the fact that the Budget Task Force met this week to begin work on a 2007 budget that is currently $24,000 out of balance on the short end. The Revised Common Lectionary is an ecumenical schedule of readings for each Sunday in a three-year cycle. This just happens to be the Sunday on which this Bible story is scheduled. Ah! Providence!

That said, one could speculate that it couldn’t come at a better time – when many churches are busy trying to shotgun anticipated expenses and income into some kind of a legitimate marriage. There is a kind of grand nobility in the poor widow whose sense of faithfulness and responsibility are so centering and commanding that she gives beyond her means. In truth, every organization, every community, thrives because of the minority of people who generously extend themselves beyond the average, beyond the expectation – the dedicated hands that leaders know they can count on to go an extra mile, contribute an extra dollar, give up one more free evening to meet the church’s need. If the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord, the load-bearing walls of the church are people like these who graciously do more than their share without desire for recognition or commendation; who lean into the ministry at hand because they can’t imagine doing otherwise.

But the more I have lived with the story, the less sure I am that it tells us what we want to hear. Notice again that the passage contains two parts: first, a teaching, and second, an observation. The teaching section consists primarily of a condemnatory, even derogatory word about the Jewish officials. According to Mark they like to preen and peacock around in long, ceremonial robes – probably purple – and expect people to make room for them at the head of the check-out line at Dahl’s. At the synagogue they have reserved seats, and at meals they are always seated at the head table. According to Mark, they are greedy, indolent, supercilious snobs who voted to do away with retiree’s pensions, raise taxes, criminalize consumption of cherry pie, outlaw baseball, allow early releases to murderers and rapists, and repeal of the 1^st Amendment.

Well, not really, but you get the idea. Still trying to recover from a toxic electoral season, and scrubbing to clean off all the mud that has been thrown, we can recognize a negative attack ad when we see one. And Mark, here, has gone negative. Don’t take at face value his description of the scribes. That’s not to say that there weren’t any who fit this description, but let’s recognize it to be the exaggerated caricature that it is. While often at odds with Jesus’ new way of looking at faithfulness, they were, for the most part, people who were earnestly trying to honor their sense of obedience and high calling.

At the center of the criticism, however, is the well-being of widows – that they are essentially taxed into homelessness; that the religious officials twisted them into tithes so high and stringent that the choice became the Temple’s well-being or their own. And in the case of the widow in the story that follows, the Temple trumped.

“Noble,” we can say; “devoted and breath-takingly faithful,” we could add. But is this an exemplary story of the way that God wants it to be, or a cautionary tale about how things can get out of hand? We don’t know the age of this woman who drops her copper coins into the offering plate, but suppose her husband died prematurely – in a military conflict, perhaps, or a deadly disease. Perhaps she has young children at home she has to feed and clothe. Do we commend her for giving away her last means of providing their care, or do we encourage her to reevaluate her priorities? Or perhaps she is old. Are we finally any happier with the choice she makes to charitably give her way into bankruptcy because the religious establishment has convinced her that it’s her obligation?

When we have read this story in the past, have we focused too narrowly on the widow’s obvious faith-nobility while ignoring the bigger picture of an institutional system gone tragically, destructively off-course? In short, I’m not sure this is a pledge card Jesus wants anyone to sign!

But Jesus is emphasizing something radical. The notion of tithing – of making offerings from our resources as gifts of honor and thanks to God – has always had at its core the idea of substance, not surplus. Jesus didn’t invent the idea that our financial relationship with God ought to be central. If the practice of it had grown murky and sometimes self-destructive through the generations, the principle of it, nevertheless, was constant. We don’t get up from the holy table and leave God a tip. We approach the altar with the substance of our lives, acknowledging our faithful conviction that all we have is by God’s own grace.

But how do we define “substance”? When my kids were younger they would occasionally complain about their financial constraints. In a word, they were broke. In truth, I don’t think they were so much “complaining” as fishing for extra allowance, but I could be all wrong about that. Instead, I would usually offer to help them work on their budget. And they would willingly spell it all out – gas for the car, eating out, social life, cell phone, new clothes, etc. – you know, the bare essentials. I suppose we never did come to a common definition of “core essentials.”

But I have to admit that as adults we aren’t much different. If some objective analyst reviewed our household budgets, I’m not sure our list “basics” after which we will tithe would look any more defensible. The widow in the story didn’t give out of whatever was left over after the cell phone, internet, satellite radio, club dues and car payments were paid, but out of the core of who she was and what she had.

So how would the story lead us? As scripture so reliably does, I think it leads us into the tension between two extremes; between institutional motivations that can spin mindlessly and greedily out of control to the detriment of those it is called upon to protect, and the casual nonchalance of financial convenience that throws the dog a bone every now and then after we have largely picked it clean.

How, then, shall we give? I’ve heard it said that we should give until it hurts. I would rather encourage us to give until it helps – both the giver and receiver. Give until it means something in the way we organize our lives and orient our minds. Give, not so much that it destroys your life, but enough that it gives your life new meaning. And give, not because the institution demands it, but because your relationship with your savior inspires and compels it, knowing that in the company of disciples similarly inspired and likewise compelled, your offerings support God’s ultimate capital campaign for the building of the Kingdom of God.