1 Kings 17:8-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44
This is the last of 8 sermons on a series Entitled “God Solves our Problems”.
We’ve heard how the promise of eternal life changes our perspective on problems, allowing us to see problems with an eternal, godly perspective instead of an urgent, human perspective. And we saw how, with our permission, God puts us into a training program to help us learn to live godly, holy lives. Then we saw how God’s model of the servant leader drives us to help other people rather than look upon others as our servants. We saw how understanding our relationship to God keeps us from becoming arrogant, and how prayer keeps us humble. We talked about how God requires and helps us keep our integrity, and we found out that following Jesus is far more important than following rules. We saw how asking to see Jesus and approaching Him heals us. Last week, we talked about how putting God first means that we will also pay special attention to all those images of God – the people around us.
And today, we will talk about the rest of our problems.
Today, I want to talk about a great woman of faith from ancient times, perhaps the greatest woman of faith mentioned in ancient literature. Many of the details of her life are missing – and so I hope you’ll bear with me as I use my imagination and knowledge of the time to fill in some of the blanks.
She grew up in the hill country of Israel. Daughter of a poor farmer, she began working with her mother when she was four-years-old. In a time before washers and dryers and before automatic ovens and dishwashers, in a time before ice boxes, let alone freezers and refrigerators, preparing food and keeping a home and bodies clean enough for survival was a full time job. Especially since there was no birth control except abstinence. Women married by age 15 and began having children every two or three years – as soon as they weaned one child, they quickly became pregnant again.
The work was hard. There were no grocery stories – and even if there was, there was no money to buy with. If you wanted to eat, you grew it or raised it. Your farm was your world, a time when the only vacations were the great festivals where everyone was commanded to go to Jerusalem – Passover, the Festival of First Fruits, the Festival of Booths and the Day of Atonement, and the new Festival of Hannakah. Four times a year, for a week or so, the family left the farm, took food for the journey, and livestock or grain for sacrifices, and walked the 50 miles to Jerusalem, where they spent the night in a tent outside of town. And while she was there, she would see the wonderful Temple where the God of the Universe was worshipped.
The little girl was carried by her father for several years, but by the time she was seven or eight years old she walked like the rest of the older children. And she carried her little brother with her when she was eleven.
One day, when she was fourteen, she noticed an older boy staring at her along the road home. The next day, her mother and father told her that she had been promised to Itzack, the boy, to be his wife. They were married a year later.
She began having children, but they were all girls. Itzack had a small farm, and they worked hard, and saved up to buy a cow. Unfortunately, when our heroine was 28, Itzack was kicked in the head by the cow and never woke again. She was alone on the farm, with four girls, the oldest of which was now 12 years old. She was a widow. The tremendous burden of being responsible for her family weighed heavily on her every day and she, who had always stood so tall, began to bend over with the responsibility.
The girls and she struggled on the farm for another two years, and then she married off her oldest daughter. The son of one of the leading scribes in the town – a great man, a religious man whom everyone respected because he copied the sacred scrolls for a living and thus was very wealthy – his son married her daughter. It was such a joy, the scribe was known for his fabulous public prayers, his ability to pray on for twenty minutes on any subject. He sat in the front row of the synagogue and always had wonderful robes, perfectly made just as scripture said. This was her daughter's new father-in-law.
But the choice she had to make was that she had to give the scribe the house and half the land as a dowry. She felt that the man had devoured her farm, but that was the price to be paid to ensure that her daughter would have a decent life.
She and her other daughters continued to work the half-size farm, living in the barn with the animals. The hard work destroyed her back, the lack of food weakened the family, and the two youngest daughters died of sickness, probably because they never had enough food to eat. It was just her and her remaining daughter left, and it was time for the Passover. At age 31, she looked like she was 80.
This year, leaving behind her daughter to handle the animals, she walked to Jerusalem alone with a single lamb and some grain. She knew she had to make a sacrifice because surely she had sinned, and that was why her life was so terrible. And so she walked in worn-out sandals, fighting the lamb all the way to Jerusalem, 50 miles over rough roads which went up and down and up and down over the hills and the mountains as she approached Jerusalem.
There was a crowd that day – there was always a crowd in Jerusalem when the Passover festival was going on. But she had very little money, so she went directly to the Temple, and asked for her lamb to be inspected for sacrifice. There was a dark spot on the tip of his tail, and so the Temple priest would not pass the lamb, and pointed her to his cousin who had “blemish-free” lambs for sale a block away.
When she found his cousin, the man offered her a deal. He would take her lamb in trade for a blemish-free lamb plus two silver denarius coins - each worth an entire day's pay - and most of her stash of grain. She made the deal, even though it left her with only two lepta, thin copper coins that totaled enough money to buy about a quarter of a loaf of bread.
She went back to the Temple, had the lamb pass inspection, and then proceeded to the line for sacrifice. While she waited for a quarter of the day in line, she slowly ate the remaining dried wheat she had with her – about a half cup. After a couple of hours, she noticed a man well-behind her in line with her lamb - apparently a different priest had passed her lamb after he was sold to another man.
Finally, her sacrifice was accepted and made. But something nagged at her as she walked away from the sacrifice and passed two Roman soldiers. She felt that she was withholding from God something. She felt that she still had to give something back to God, for God had kept her alive, God had given her the two silver denarius coins, God had given her grain to eat, God had given her a daughter at home. This was important – and she wanted God’s presence to remain in her land, not wanting her land to be overwhelmed by the pagan Romans, but she wanted the God of the Temple to remain here in great glory.
And so she walked up to the Temple Treasury box past a group of Galileans who were sitting on the steps watching people. Ahead of her, a well-dressed man had two servants pour a hundred pounds of gold and silver coins into the treasury box. Another man put a beautiful golden filigree necklace in the box, it had a wonderful design of pomegranates and doves, she had never seen something so beautiful. And then it was her turn.
She took out her two lepta, worth together enough to buy a quarter of a loaf of bread. It was all she had. Should she give them? Perhaps she could give just one. Then, closing her eyes and praying for God to take care of her on the way home, she dropped them both into the box and ran down the steps toward the street, the city gate, and the 50 mile walk home to her daughter and the farm that barely kept them alive. But she felt tremendous joy because she no longer was responsible for her survival – God was now responsible.
As she ran by, the leader of the Galileans smiled to her and said to them, “I assure you: This poor widow has put in more than all those giving to the temple treasury. For they all gave out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she possessed—all she had to live on.”
…
As we look back through time at the poor widow, there are certain lessons we should learn. First of all, the plain meaning of Jesus’ words is that rich, so-called important people who are known for their obvious devotion to God are not that important to Jesus. We’ve all heard the stories of the benefactor of a church who doesn’t give to the church because of their love of God or even their love of the church, but because of their love of attention. And I’ve seen churches that were terribly crippled because they had one very wealthy person who provided all the funds for the church – and thus the rest of the church never saw the need and thus never had the desire – nor the faith - to give to the church.
When we give to the church, we show faith. When we give to the church, we show that we have a firm belief that there is something important happening here, that there is something greater than ourselves and our personal agenda at work. But we need to remember that there are several reasons for giving, reasons that may change as a person’s commitment to Christ and the church deepens. Just about everyone goes through each of these reasons as they grow more mature in their walk with Christ.
There are those who give because they feel that it is a just and proper payment for services received. To these people, the church is a business similar to a movie theatre or a restaurant, and thus people give in relation to the value they receive. And so we have many people who put money in the plate when they are here, and if they miss a Sunday, the church never sees those funds, for these people did not hear the sermon, did not listen the music, and did not hear the Word of God, and so they did not contribute. These people can truly be said to attend church.
There are other people who understand that giving is a duty of the people of God. They often look back at the Old Testament law and give a tenth of their income to the church, for they were taught and they feel that this is their duty. And so this is a regular budgeted item, and when they miss a Sunday, we see twice the donation the next Sunday as they “catch up” for what they missed giving. We count on their checks every week or every month. These people can be said to be members of the church, paying dues and belonging to an organization that is composed of people who support the church, who care about each other, and who work together.
And then there are those people who recognize that there is something about the church that is deeply transforming the world around us, that there is indeed an important mission that needs money to be accomplished, and they look at their ability to earn money as their ability to earn money for God’s mission. These rare people often look at how they are living and they truly have decided that God’s Great Commission is something they want to support or even that it is what their lives are about, and one of the ways they have decided to handle the Great Commission is through the gifts of money. And so they look at their budgets and they look at how they can cut back on their personal expenses and then they give those saved funds to God so that God’s purposes might be fulfilled.
These are the people who care that over a third of Americans no longer are certain that God exists. These are the people who are concerned that over a quarter of our country no longer even claims to be Christian. These are the people who know that God’s love is critical for the salvation of the world – and their children, grandchildren, and neighbor’s children. And so they give in every way they can – through money, through service, through prayers, through the use of their special talents, and through their witness to others. And they give quietly, not bragging, not grabbing attention, but they do what they can and they fall asleep many nights exhausted from their service and their giving, but they have confidence in what God can do. These are the people who are the church.
Consider how you give and what your giving pattern is. Do you budget your giving, or do you give what is left over, giving as the wealthy men did at the Temple, only from your surplus? I have to admit that this is one of my weaknesses, giving from surplus instead of from faith. When I am at my best, I give from faith – When I am weak – I worry. And so the question becomes: Do you trust in the God you serve to take care of you?
(Some people give even after they go to be with the Lord. If you want to give to the church through your estate or life insurance, please talk with your pastor first, because these sorts of gifts need to be constructed carefully or they may not accomplish the purposes you desire.)
Consider what you can give for the next year. If you’ve given $5 a week, perhaps you can now give $10. If you’ve given $50 a week, perhaps you can now give $60. If you’ve given nothing, perhaps you can now give something. But, as I’ve said before, only you know your financial situation. It does no one any good for your donations to the church to drive you into debt, and we’d rather have you sitting on these pews for a year without giving than leave because you can’t give.
Remember – it isn’t how much you give. It is the fact that you trust God and God’s representatives to use what you give back to God to accomplish great and important things – such as baptizing people who would have died in their sin if it wasn’t for the generosity of you and the people sitting around you. Your donations to the Food Pantry and 30-Hour Famine have meant literally thousands of meals provided for people, some of whom were desperate and some of whom were just having a bad month…or two…or three.
And there is something else.
John Wesley had several friends who were also involved as much as he was in the great revival of the church that happened in the mid-1700’s in both England and America. Some of these men were Methodists, and some were what we would today call Baptists. Both groups of preachers went out to the people, preaching in fields and towns outside of the churches. And both groups of preachers saw tremendous numbers of people come to the saving love of Christ. But there was a significant difference between how Wesley’s Methodists saw the revival and how the Baptists saw the revival.
Most of the Baptists saw salvation as a once-in-a-lifetime event. You were saved, and then perhaps you helped save others.
But Wesley and the Methodists saw that there is more to the Christian life than this. Not only must you connect again with God, learn about Christ, and eventually teach others about Christ, there is a path of holiness we must learn to follow. Our acceptance of Christ as our lord saves us from God’s wrath, but we still must be saved from the natural consequences of our own actions.
And so each Christian must learn to imitate Christ more and more fully, by practice, by learning to listen closer and closer to the Holy Spirit, and by leaning more and more upon God to provide our needs, and conforming our wants and desires more and more to the desires of God. Our salvation from ourselves is a slow progress upon a path where we hopefully are being more and more saved daily.
In short, we need to learn to rely more upon God and upon Christ’s teachings, and less upon ourselves and the teachings of the world if we truly want to become holy – set apart with Christ. We are to be married to the Holy Trinity - God and Christ and Holy Spirit - the same way that a wonderfully married couple grows to become more and more alike in attitude and opinion as they grow older, less and less influenced by what others think of them and more and more concerned with what their spouse thinks of them. This is how our relationship with God is supposed to become.
And this applies to the giving of time, of talents, of witness, and yes, of treasure. Giving, you see, means we take time and treasure away from earning a living and saving money. And so do you depend upon the world – or do you depend upon God? You see, we must decide whether or not we depend upon our jobs and our savings for our security – or upon God. Shall we work? Of course. But consider Who provides for us. Is it our employer or is it God? The day we learn to truly trust God for everything – our love, our hope, our security, our day-to-day living - is the day of our final victory over the world.
...
The widow’s walk home from Jerusalem was dreadful, as you might expect, but the kind smile of that Galilean and the kind words he had said kept her going. She stopped briefly at the well beside an inn in Bethany, filled her waterskin, talked a bit to the sisters that ran the inn, and then she walked fifty miles over the next three days with nothing to eat, and finally collapsed when she got home late that night. Her daughter found her the next morning, almost dead.
She fed her some boiled wheat with a little bit of lamb. A fever racked her body, and she could not get out of bed for two weeks. But her daughter took care of her, and always, the wonderful smile of that Galilean kept coming back to her.
And then there was a knock at the door. It was a servant from her elder daughter’s house. He insisted that she come along with him, and since she could not walk, he put her on his donkey and took her the two miles to her daughter’s home.
When she got there, her daughter met her at the door. She had been crying. “Mother, Itzack’s father, the scribe, has died.”
“How did he die?” she asked, too stunned to console her daughter.
“He was sitting on the back of his donkey, where he had been praying in front of a crowd for 45 minutes, going on and on about what a humble and poor man he was when the donkey began to walk, got its leg caught in his long robe – the one with the gold and silver thread, and it jerked him off the donkey. Then, the donkey fell on top of him, and he died of suffocation, they said.”
“Suffocation? The donkey must have been heavy.”
“No mother, when he fell, the saddle bag fell on top of him, a bunch of coins fell onto his face, and he died with three gold coins stuck in his throat.” Mother and daughter looked at each other for a minute – and then they began to giggle.
“Itzack and I wanted to tell you – we’ve decided to have you and my sister move in with us. You’ll never have to work again – unless you want to.”
And the kind smile of the Galilean came back to the woman again.
“I assure you: This poor widow has put in more than all those giving to the temple treasury. 44 For they all gave out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she possessed—all she had to live on.”
With those two copper coins she had put her entire faith in God into the Treasury box – and once again, God had come through for her. Will you put your entire faith in God?
No comments:
Post a Comment