Informed Sacrifice
Mark 12:38-44
As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’
Now this would make a good stewardship sermon—at least that’s what I thought initially after reading through this passage for the first time. After briefly being annoyed that this one came along two weeks after Stewardship Sunday, I quickly changed my mind. I’m actually deeply grateful this didn’t fall on Stewardship Sunday. I think it’s easy to read this passage on a very surface level and assume that it’s saying, everyone, the rich and the poor included, should give everything they can to the church. If we so choose, we can read this as Jesus saying that the “poor widow put in more than all those contributing to the treasury” as Jesus commending her for her sacrificial faithfulness. Sure, it’d be easy to do that—and while it’s not stewardship Sunday, it’s still stewardship season, so I could use this sermon to implore you to be like the poor widow and give all you can to the church.
But I can’t in good faith do that. First of all, this church should not be compared to the temple that the poor widow gives her life to. And second of all, I don’t know that Jesus is really commending this woman. He’s certainly not chastising her, or making any kind of mean example out of her, but my in reading of this passage, she’s more of a tragic figure than anything else.
But I skipped ahead a little—let’s start back at the beginning, with Jesus telling us to “beware of the scribes.” I’ll preface this section with assuming that the interaction I preached about last week, in which Jesus has a lovely and positive conversation with a thoughtful and decent scribe was genuine—and that in this moment, Jesus is preaching specifically about scribes who abuse their power—scribes who care more about material things, their fancy garments, their standing in the public square, in the marketplace, rather than in the temple, poring over the sacred texts they’re supposed to be interpreting for the good of everyone, all God’s people. Not just to benefit themselves. So, #notallscribes.
Now it’s no accident, and it’s not random that Jesus is focusing on the religious authorities taking advantage of widows here—this is a recurring theme throughout the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 10:1-2: “Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, / who write oppressive statutes, / to turn aside the needy from justice / and to rob the poor of my people of their right, / that widows may be your spoil, /and that you may make the orphans your prey!” Zechariah 7:10: “…do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” Malachi 3:5 “I will be swift to bear witness…against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow, and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien…says the Lord of hosts.” And this is just a few of many, many examples. The reason I’m bringing up all these other references, and the reason Jesus focuses so much on the widows is because this proves Jesus’ point; it proves how hypocritical the scribes truly were. Because of all people, the scribes are the ones who should know these verses by heart. The scribes are the people whose job it is to read these texts in order to hold people accountable to be true to these decrees and commands. Therefore, they are the absolute last people who should be taking advantage of the poor, of the orphan, of the widow. And yet.
So I actually think it’s kind of a big and disingenuous jump to go from Jesus saying, “look how corrupt the religious authorities are, along with this temple that they control” to “look at this widow giving her whole life to this corrupt system, we should all be like her.” It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I can’t help but think of today’s political landscape when reading this passage. It seems that people everywhere, no matter where they are on the spectrum, are disillusioned and frustrated. It can feel like we’re giving what little energy or money we have to nothing; for no reason. Every day we see some bill being blocked some bill being struck down by a select few in power—and then it comes out that those select few are getting huge donations from corporations whose interests and profits might be hurt by said bill. Like the scribes who were scholars of the law and of the religion in order that God’s will be done to benefit all people, our elected officials are, in theory, supposed to govern according to the best interests of their constituents—of the people. But time and again, it seems that those the people elect care much more about their place among donors, among corporations. Time and again, like the scribes, they seem to only care about their own well-being, what’s best for them, and where they stand in the free market—or the marketplace.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I always vote, I will continue to vote, but I’m getting to the point where I get it when people don’t feel like their vote, their voice makes a difference. I get it. I often feel like this poor widow, going to the ballot box, with the penny’s worth of energy I can muster during an ongoing pandemic, under the perpetual specter of climate change, what am I doing this for? What difference will it make? Now granted, voting might not be the best analogy here—after all, it’s not that much of a sacrifice, (or last it shouldn’t be as long as voting rights remain intact), but I couldn’t get the comparison out of my head after seeing the constant deadlock coming out of Washington while people around the country continue to struggle.
But this idea of sacrifice came to mind quite a bit when I was thinking about this passage. As I said, Jesus doesn’t seem to be saying that this widow should actually be sacrificing her whole life to this corrupt institution. This whole scenario seems, to me, to be an example of how the scribes take advantage of those just like this poor woman—so obsessed with money and material things, that they encourage anyone and everyone to give all that they have so they continue to gain more wealth and power, and the expense of those they are supposed to be serving. In encouraging this kind of sacrifice, and only this kind of sacrifice, the authorities are directly contributing to the further oppression of the disenfranchised.
But there are so many more ways to sacrifice, Church! I mentioned this in my note to the church about Stewardship season a couple weeks back. If we only encourage monetary giving, we’re missing out on so much, and alienating less well-to-do folks in the process. Now of course folks who have the money to give, should indeed spread their wealth—Jesus implies this when he says, “…this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty…”. Now, a perfect example of this is—and I’m sorry to Mr. Bezos, I’m going to pick on him once again—the fact that Jeff Bezos proudly announced a couple years back that he was pledging $2 billion to charity. Sure, this is a pretty unbelievable amount for most of us to even imagine—but that $2 billion was 0.12% of his net worth.[i] A drop in the bucket. He’s not the only culprit here, the people who round out the top 20 billionaires collectively gave a total of 0.3% of their wealth to charities.[ii]
But what this poor widow gives here is, for the time, equivilent to about 1/64th of a laborer’s day wages—and it was her whole life. Jesus says very clearly, that what she gives here is worth so much more than what others give out of their abundance. But again, he never says this is a good thing. He doesn’t follow this fact with “now, you all go out and do the same!” It’s simply an example of how out of whack things are, how the priorities and edicts of those in power do nothing but lift themselves up and bring the already struggling down.
And speaking of the already struggling, we’ve talked about the affordable housing and homelessness crisis that’s right in our own backyards before. But now the subject is both thankfully and sadly taking center stage again. The deadline for Vermont’s emergency housing for the homeless is coming up—December 31st. What happens in the dead of winter in the new year to those folks who are holed up in motels right now? Thankfully, many UCC clergy in Vermont are working hard to put pressure on the governor and others in power to have an actual plan in place for when this time comes—to actually find a way to humanely house these people who have been unhoused during this traumatic nearly two-year pandemic. Our denomination may not have the money to exert certain types of influence or to become affordable housing real estate developers, but at least many are sacrificing their precious time and making their voices heard by working to get an audience with those who are in real power to do something about this disgraceful problem.
I just found out the amazing news that the church I went to in Philadelphia officially got funding for their affordable housing project, and to do this, they’re sacrificing much of the land and space they occupy for the betterment of the city and to help those most in need—the chronically unhoused.
These is all sacrifice. But it’s not just blind sacrifice. It’s not just monetary sacrifice. It’s informed sacrifice of time and land; it’s risk and it’s making us vulnerable—vulnerable to push-back, vulnerable to a big, risky plan not working, vulnerable to being scoffed at, to hatred even. And it’s sacrifice that will hopefully directly lead to a new lease on life, a whole new life even for the chronically homeless, that will directly lead to better lives of those who really need the help, instead of those who already have so much power.
While there’s some ambiguity in Jesus’ words, especially in the second part of this passage, I think it can be safely said that Jesus certainly approves of sacrifice. He knows that the poor widow’s heart is good, that she’s coming from a place of faith and love. But he also knows she is misguided, and has been shamefully taken advantage of, because of how corrupted her beloved institution has become. And you know, that’s what is truly so amazing about giving to an institution like ours—we’re transparent about where our money goes—anyone can go onto our website and see exactly who gets paid what, exactly what organizations we’re giving to—in fact, the Mission and Outreach committee met for the first time in a long time the other week, and soon anyone enough will be able to see that we’re supporting Musa, the Afghan refugee settling in the area; we’re supporting the Hartford Restorative Justice Center; we’re continuing to support COVER home repair, among several other vital and beloved local institutions. So when we sacrifice our time and money, we can know exactly where it’s okay, and whose lives we are helping to improve.
Outside this church, it can feel like our precious time and money are spent supporting those who only want to support themselves. It can feel like our actions aren’t worth even this poor widow’s two coins. But Church, we can see clearly that our actions can make a difference. Sure, when it comes to civic engagement, just checking a box and voting can be sort of discouraging sometimes, when all we hear about is infighting and gridlock in Washington. But we can use our faith in what Jesus calls to—we can do more than just these quick and simple actions—we can use our faith to be informed and intentional about what we give and what we sacrifice; to pay attention to the real motives of those in power, and to use our voices to speak to what’s right; and then to sacrifice whatever we are able to sacrifice—whether that be money, time, maybe even some comfort here and there by speaking some truth to power, for the betterment of all humankind.
Let’s make sure our hearts are like the poor widow’s, ready to give what we can; but we also must heed Jesus’ warnings and Jesus’ calls to action and continue to fight and sacrifice for the widow, not for those in power who would use our limited resources only to further benefit themselves. Together, let’s continue to sacrifice for those who need us most—to quote Malachi again: the oppressed hired worker struggling for fair wages, the widow, the orphan, the alien. You don’t have to be scribe, a Biblical scholar to understand who God, who Jesus wants us to sacrifice for and to lift up. Amen.
[i] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6168515/Jeff-Bezos-2B-gift-charity-equivalent-average-household-giving-just-1-170.html
[ii] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/25/20981946/charity-billionaire-jeff-bezos-bill-gates-wealth-tax
