If you were to take everything in your bank account right now and give it to God, how would you survive the rest of the day, let alone the rest of the week?  Over these past several weeks, we’ve been sitting with sacrifice.  How do people make sacrifices?  Why do they?  I’m not talking about the sheep or the calves, the grain or the oil of the old Temple, the old altar, but our lives.  Some people make great sacrifices, cheerfully; probably more often, people sacrifice with some reluctance, yet either way, finally, willingly.  Is it a sacrifice if it isn’t given willingly?  Our community and our church have been blessed, richly blessed, by benefactors, patrons, people who have been very generous with the bounty with which God has blessed their labors.  Such generosity is blessing indeed and reflects the generosity of our Father in heaven.  It’s not that the rich lack faith.  They do not give to be seen by others, though that could be the case for some.  The devotion of these benefactors is real, beautiful, and blessed, and it never has occurred to them to give everything.  That would be foolish, wouldn’t it, to give all?

Graham Scroggie, reflecting back upon Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man, observed that “This man wanted something better than he had, but he was not prepared to make any sacrifice to get it.”[1] It’s not that it’s wrong that the rich people gave generously there at the Temple.  Let’s even say that a few did it to be seen, to be praised: some seem desperately to crave the recognition and praise of others!  More, most perhaps, made no display of their giving.  They would have been mortified if anyone had called attention to their generosity.  Maybe that throwing in, quick, was to keep the giving from becoming a show.  Generous giving is no sin!  Being wealthy is not a sin, though it can be a gateway to many temptations—wealth makes many things easier, but it doesn’t make it easier to enter the kingdom!  Money means ability, for good and for ill.  Where there is plenty, let there be generosity.  Where there is little, let there be generosity.

Poverty itself is not a curse, especially when it is chosen: but who chooses poverty?  We can come to care greatly about our money.  That rich young man certainly did.  God provides the wealth, beloved.  We give Thee but Thine own.  He provides it for His reasons.  Maybe one reason is to bless you, but how are we most truly blessed?  Jesus reminds us as often as he needs to that we are most truly blessed as we bless: bless others and bless God.  To bless is to participate in the nature of God; to know the nature of God is to be rich, indeed.

Jesus wants to see what’s going to happen at the treasury.  It’s been a rough day.  Bible student Henry Halley reminds us that this is Jesus’ “last act in the Temple,” and it comes “after a day of bitter controversy.”[2]  Bitter controversy in the Temple, as though not even in the sanctuary was there to be found haven or harbor away from the conflicts and wrangling of men.  Disagreement, strife, anger, rejection, tension, frustration, dejection—what’s needed is something clear, something simple, healing and hopeful, something potent.  Jesus makes a point of going to the Temple treasury, sitting, and watching.  It’s not because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.  He wants his disciples to watch and notice with him, and hear him.  Something important is about to happen.

It would be wonderful to be able to throw large amounts into the money box!  In some churches, this is stewardship season, when the pledges come in.  How those churches hope for big pledges, or at least enough!  When you create a budget, do you begin with income or expenses?  We don’t do pledges here, though I will just say in passing that it would be wonderful to have large amounts thrown into the treasury!  Not many have that ability.  Only let us remember that measurement in this matter is not according to human standards but to the measure of the Spirit.  The only measure that matters, ultimately, is God’s measure.  We must not conflate our measure with His.

By definition if not design, that poor widow lacked the ability to give a great sum.  Now, we could develop quite a back-story about this widow.  We could condemn a society that caused her to be and to remain poor, victim of systemic this and institutionalized that, scraping by one day to the next, but I’m afraid we’d be missing the point.  When we become focused upon creating heaven on earth, we risk losing sight of God’s gift.

What impresses Jesus, what he wants his disciples to see, is that the poor widow gave.  See her poverty, and her generosity.  The poor woman—and was she poor!—gave.  She didn’t have to: all the giving is voluntary.  No one is dragging people to the Temple treasury by the heels for a shakedown, ordering them to pay up.  No one’s wages are being garnished.  What’s voluntary comes from the will, and what comes from the will comes from the heart, the disposition, foundation, focus, and faith of the heart.  Those with ample means gave, amply.  I don’t doubt that most gave from a willing heart, gladly, thankfully; they gave to glorify God.  This was a way of blessing God.

The poor widow did, too.  Jesus tells us she gave more, all she had, “all she had to live on” (12:43).  She left the Temple that day without a penny to her name.  Does that mean she went home to a dirty, dark hole, with no food, no water, not even a blanket, not even a bed?  Not even a pot to—well, you get it.  You can feel it that way, certainly.  You can be angry about that widow, indignant or sad because of how sad it all is, how sad her situation is and how sad so many things are in this sad, anger-inducing, unjust, unfair, unkind world.  All those fat cats guffawing at the misery of the poor, lighting their fat cigars with $100 bills, if that makes you feel better, makes you feel good about yourself in your wealth, makes you feel like a righteous person.  How wealthy you and I are, even the poorest among us, compared with millions all over this world: Nepal, Afghanistan, Somalia, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Haiti.

Maybe we aren’t meant to feel badly for her, outraged, so much as learn from her.  Would you learn from the poorest?  Rather than merely pity her—another object of our magnanimous, benign pity—we might just discover she has something to teach us.  We’re told nothing of her emotional state, and Jesus says nothing about it.  She gave willingly.  If she gave willingly, my sense is that she gave gladly.  But how could she gladly give all she had to live on?  Could you really clean out your bank account today and distribute all that money (or those few dollars) and do it with gladness and peace in your heart?  I couldn’t!  Devon wouldn’t let me, for starters.  Or, since that widow had barely anything, was it so much easier for her than it would be for you or for me?

She gave more.  Do you begin to sense it?  She gave more.  Those with much wealth gave much, but if Jesus had asked any of them to go and give all they had—give it to the poor, give it to God, give it all—would they have done so?  If, for the sake of argument, one or two had, would they have done it freely, gladly, with fulness of peace in their heart?

All she had to live on?  She knew the all was not all.  She knew from whom she received.  She knew her all, her everything.  She knew He knew her, saw her, wouldn’t forget about her.  She knew she was loved.  It’s faith, sisters and brothers!  She may have been poor, and that may be a pity, but it is no pity that she was also poor in spirit.  The wealth of her humility was her gift to God, and how she blessed God, by it!  People who know love, who know they are loved, give.  Loving is giving.  All giving worthy the name is from love.  All love worthy the name gives.  That widow knew she would receive more.  She knew.  It wasn’t just a feeling, there some days, seemingly nowhere other days.  Her joy wasn’t established on a feeling; her joy was not a feeling but a certainty, born of conviction, born of faith.  She knew.  The what was not important to her—what she had or what she would get, or how much, as though below a certain threshold it just wasn’t good enough.  Ugh!—God, is that the best you can do?  The what was not the center of her life, the aim of her existence.  The what was not her highest aspiration or her joy.  Who.  The one who gave, the one who gives, the one who will give.  We fret, yet God has given.  We worry, yet God gives.  We feel weak, faint at heart; God shall provide.

Consider all He has given you.  Consider all He promises to give—hallelujah!  Beloved, consider what—who—He gives here, today, from this table, for you, because He loves you and wants you to know His love, to ground your very life in His love, to build your life upon His love, to find your life in His love.  Just like that poor widow.  Poor yet rich.  Not like that rich young man, who walked away feeling his poverty and grieving in his heart.  No one can be counted poor who receives this bread and this juice, this body and this blood, with thanks, reverence, and love.  Here is what is needed: something clear, something simple, healing and hopeful, something potent.  How potent, the love of God in Christ Jesus!  Grace, for you.

Now, to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

               [1] W. Graham Scroggie.  Gospel of Mark.  Study Hour.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1976.  180.

               [2] Henry H. Halley.  Bible Handbook: An Abbreviated Bible Commentary.  (1924.)  Chicago, 1955.  425.