Give Yourself Away

“Give Yourself Away”

Isaiah 55:1-6, Mark 12:38-44

Nov 15, 2009 (Ord 33B?)

I. Intro

  I wonder how many sermons you’ve heard on this particular story.  Perhaps, every three years or so, as it rolls around on the lectionary, during what is traditionally “stewardship season”.  Perhaps, it’s about as predictable as having turkey on Thanksgiving.  And I’d almost be willing to bet that every preacher has hailed this poor woman up as a model for giving, because she gave all that she had.  Perhaps, they’ve told you how you need to be more like her, and really dig deep in your pockets, trusting that God will provide. Or perhaps they told you to quit giving God the leftovers, and give as Abel did, from the best of what he had.  And while the finance committee pats your preacher on the back, because they just know that pledges will go up, you go home with a heavy heart, because it’s just not possible for you to give everything you have.  

Yeah, I’ve heard that one too.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s on the checklist of what every “good” preacher should do.

And as the session is getting ready to sit down with the budget in the next couple of weeks, some part of me is going to wish I could preach that sermon.  As we look at the ways our budget has been or has not been met, perhaps I’m going to wish that I had said something brilliant to make our contributions go up. 

I was pretty excited upon finding this text in my group of lectionary choices for the week, because I had planned to do some sort of stewardship thing in November.   It looks like it ought to be every preacher’s gift.  It looks like there ought to be a neatly packaged sermon in there somewhere that both challenges its hearers and uplifts them for the things they are already doing.

But the problem arises in really digging deep in both the text and commentaries around it.  

1. The Context

It’s definitely an interesting pairing that Jesus talks about the priests in their long flowing robes in just the couple of verses before he praises the woman that nobody would otherwise notice.  He’s condemning their hypocrisy for saying one thing, and really thinking other things.  They’re all about looking like they care about doing God’s work, but what they’re really interested in is padding their own pockets.

I wonder if it’s possible that instead of just holding the woman up as a role model, that he is also using her to point a finger at an institution that is ok with a widow giving all she has so that same institution can keep worrying about itself.  

As far as I can tell, Jesus isn’t worried about the amounts people are giving.  I don’t think he’s even worried about how much people are giving in proportion to what they have.  I think he’s drawing a sharp contrast between the hearts of the givers.  The ones that give are worried about who is watching them give.  They’re worried about what giving gets them.  And not only that, but these folks are giving out of their excess-- they probably don’t even notice as the money leaves their wallets and their lives.  No, with them, it’s not about the giving at all.

III.  The one to Watch

But for the woman, these coins are all she has.  Because she is a widow, she is a nobody.  She has no power, no status, and certainly no money she can call her own.   We commend her for giving all she has, but it’s also worth noting that these two coins wouldn’t have changed her life.Any tremendously poor person would tell you that that having a buck or two in their pocket won’t get them off of welfare or change their world. 

Both Mark and the early readers would have known that.  Yet Mark, the man of few words, chose to bring this detail out.  Maybe what we were supposed to take from it is she gave up anything that even resembled independence, willingly making herself fully dependent on God, and others around her. 

I’ve thought about this a bit, and I’ve realized that this woman is our direct opposite, just not in the way we’re taught we are.  The problem is not that she gives out of her need and we give out of our excess.  What’s different is that as she gives, she gives away her claim.  

I think, the more we give, the greater our claim becomes.  It’s almost like we’re buying a piece of the church as if it were a company on the stock exchange.  The more we give, the greater the piece of it we own.  I’m not even really talking about this church in particular-- I am, however, quite aware of just how much consumerism affects not only our lives, but that even permeates our churches.  We’re taught that you “get what you pay for”, and of course, since that works everywhere else, it must work in the church too.  As far as we’re concerned, putting our offering in the plate means we get to put our proverbial “two cents” in, because by golly, we’ve bought the rights to do at least that.

And here is this woman who probably literally has nothing freely giving what little she has away.  In some ways she reminds me of the people I met in Africa.  While I was there, I was, comparatively, quite wealthy.  Yet, these folks wanted so badly to be hospitable, that they tried to give me anything they had.  If they had a mango, then they wanted to take the whole thing, and felt offended if I tried to say no.  It was their great joy to give it away. 

I’m not sure I would have connected this had I not just been working on it, but last Tuesday our Celebration of Discipline Study discussed the Spiritual Discipline of Simplicity.   The author of the book contends that to live a life of simplicity is to live a life that is much more free from anxiety than most of us know. He says that simplicity is gained when we do three things.

1. Believe that all we have is a gift from God.
2. Believe that God, not us, is responsible for caring for those gifts.
3. Make all that we have available to others.

We live in a culture that does not value simplicity.  In fact, if we’re not buying into “new and improved”, and “bigger is better” then something must be wrong with us.  I guess that’s why these three things would be so hard for us to do.  First of all, we see little, besides maybe our health and our family, as a gift.  Everything thing else, we more or less reason we’ve earned.  And because we’ve earned it, it’s our job to take care of it.  We could simply reason God out of that picture, saying “God, you watch out for our hearts, and we’ll take care of the STUFF”.  And then, because we’ve earned what we have, and because we feel obligated to care for it, we are unable to make it available to others.   We sound like the little birds on the Pixar short who all want a piece of the wire to sit on, going “Mine! Mine, mine! Mine”.

But today, we bump into a woman who is an absolute radical.  She’s not radical because she gives so much when she has nothing to give.  She’s not radical because she can mark 100% in the tithing column on her checklist of what a good Christian should do.  No, those things make her different.  She’s radical and subversive because she is not bound by the things that bind us.  It doesn’t matter who is watching her, because her two coins would, if anything, underwhelm them instead of overwhelming them.  Perhaps, if she were being watched, she’d even be the object of scorn because she couldn’t give more.  She’s radical because she is so free to “Seek first the Kingdom of God”, and trust that everything will fall in place afterward.

In some ways, I envy this woman.   I know that doesn’t sound very intelligent.  After all, who of us with many material blessings would willingly change places with someone who has nothing?  But to live a life without the anxiety that comes from needing to hang on and protect what’s mine-- wow, that’d be great.  She’s not worried about what people will think of her.  She’s not anxious that she’s giving in her last two coins.  She’s not worried that her next meal is questionable. In this act of worship, we see a woman putting in all her chips.  She could be the posterchild for faithful giving.  But she could also be the posterchild for practicing the discipline of Simplicity.   What a freeing thing that must be!

1. Do it anyway

But what surprises me is that she’s not giving to a worthy cause. Before you sit there fuming in the seats saying, “But she was giving to the church!” I know that.  But the church she was giving to hasn’t exactly been hailed as a model.  In fact, Jesus calls it a den of robbers!  I think this woman must’ve known.  I don’t see her as some teary-eyed sentimental who could say nothing bad about the church.  She knew that it was corrupt.  She knew that if it was really seeking first the kingdom of God that it wouldn’t expect her to give out of her poverty to pad the priest’s pockets.  Yet she gave anyway.  And not just that, but she gave all she had...to an institution that was thoroughly corrupt. 

How different is that attitude of giving from what we do!  Our first instinct, when we see something we don’t like in the church is to cut our pursestrings.  We say to ourselves, “That’s not MY church.  When it straightens itself out, then I’ll put more in.  When it is worthy.” 

But we don’t just do it with money. We even do it with our participation.  We say “When they stop this or that, I’ll go back.  When such and such a person leaves, then I’ll resume my participation.”  Not just in this church, but in all churches.  It’s a widespread thing!

I couldn’t swear to it, but maybe those attitudes are because we feel like we own the church.  One of the things of which I was reminded as I was preparing for last week’s study on Simplicity is that “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”   The church, the coins in our pocket-- they’re neither mine nor yours.  They’re the Lord’s. 

I wonder what Christ would say to us if we were seen holding ourselves back, because the church isn’t worthy?  I think he might hang his head, and say, simply, “Do it Anyway.”

Probably most of you have heard the country song, “Do it anyway.” Martina McBride talks about praying and believing and loving when it doesn’t make sense.  It’s a great song, but I think she might have based it on a poem that was found written on Mother Theresa’s home for Children.  Hear these words: 

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.  What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.  Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.  In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Theresa, it seems to me, is telling us to give ourselves away, even if we don’t think the recipient is worthy.  That’s a tough thing to do, until we start to realize that nothing we have is ours alone.  Not ourselves, not our money, not our love.  All is a gift, and all will be cared for by God. 

The woman who literally puts her two cents in is quite a role model. Not because she gives 100%, but because she literally gives herself away, without worrying about the consequences.  Can you imagine the freedom that must bring?

What if the church did that? Gosh, what if we loved recklessly, without regard for the consequences? What if we didn’t worry about what was in the bank, what if we didn’t worry about what people might think of us, what if we didn’t worry about our property and how it might be misused? That’d be downright dangerous!  Here more words of calling: 

The Church is called to be Christ’s faithful evangelist 

(1) going into the world, making disciples of all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son 

and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all he has 

commanded; 

(2) demonstrating by the love of its members for one 

another and by the quality of its common life the new 

reality in Christ; sharing in worship, fellowship, and 

nurture, practicing a deepened life of prayer and service 

under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; 

(3) participating in God’s activity in the world through its 

life for others by 

(a) healing and reconciling and binding up wounds, 

(b) ministering to the needs of the poor, the sick, the 

lonely, and the powerless, 

(c) engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, 

fear, oppression, hunger, and injustice, 

(d) giving itself and its substance to the service of 

those who suffer, 

(e) sharing with Christ in the establishing of his just, 

peaceable, and loving rule in the world. 

The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk 

of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of 

life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that 

point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ. 

The church is called to do these things, even at the risk of losing it’s life.  Just as we’re called, like the woman, to put in all our chips because we’ve been freed to do that. 

My apologies to the finance committee who thought I’d preach a sermon to raise the pledges.  Tithe more, give as much as you’re able.  That’s fine and good.  But I’m asking you to pledge to give yourself away, even at the risk of losing those things that are most comfortable for you. Give it away, give it all away-- because the Earth is the Lord’s and ALL that is in it.  Our only task is to be faithful stewards of what we’ve been given, and we do that best, by letting it go. 

Amen.