Feeding the Hand That Bites Her

Mark 12:38-44

November 11, 2012

Today is pledge Sunday.  And, of course, the gospel lesson is a great one for pledge Sunday, right?  The widow’s mite…the gold standard of stewardship.

I can certainly tell you there is no shortage of sermons that have been preached throughout the years about the widow’s incredible generosity – and they end with an urgent call to all of us to be more like her…especially when it comes to giving to the church. 

One sermon – of many I found in a 4 minute search on the internet – put it this way:

 “Could there be a picture of someone more selfless than her? She doesn’t give out of her abundance, what’s left over, she gives from the very depths of her being.

Her giving is sacrificial.  We are to be the widow. Loving, living, and giving sacrificially.”

And the sermons often have a story of a modern day widow to emphasize the point…like this one: 

“A year ago, when her husband died, I found a widow living in a house without hot water – the heater had died four years before, and there wasn’t any money to buy a new one, so they’d been  heating water on the stove.  And all the while they gave a bit of money each week to the church, fulfilling and renewing their annual pledge.”

It almost feels manipulative to have this passage this week.  We come to offer our pledges and have to compare ourselves to the widow with her mite, or the incredibly faithful widow of today who shivers all Saturday night and brings her pledge card Sunday morning.  But, in my defense, the coincidence of these two things – pledge Sunday and the gospel text this morning – is just that: a complete coincidence.  Session decided when we would dedicate our pledges based on our budgeting process.  None of us, I suspect, had any idea that this was the text for this Sunday.  I certainly didn’t.

But here we are.  They do fall on the same day.  Given that happy little coincidence, the sermon should just write itself, right? 

Well, I’m not sure the coincidence is as happy as all that.  In fact, when I realized what the gospel passage was this morning, I almost didn’t use it.  I was worried you might go away comparing your life to that of the widow’s…wondering how you can be more like her.  It’s so ingrained in us to hear the story that way.  And who knows – maybe we should think that.  I know a lot of good has come from people trying to be more like this widow.  But when I read this story and think about each of you, all that goes through my mind is, I hope you are NEVER like the widow.  I hope no one  ever has to be like the widow.

I believe we should be generous for sure – and there are many biblical passages that speak of generosity: Paul’s exhortation to give cheerfully comes to mind.  But is this a passage about generosity with the widow as the ultimate model?  I’m not so sure.

In fact when I read this passage, pledging doesn’t make it on my radar.  Instead I find I can’t help thinking about Stockholm syndrome.  This syndrome was given its name in 1973 after hostages in Stockholm, Sweden were held for days by bank robbers.  During their time as hostages, the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, refusing help from government officials and defending the captors when it was over. 

Since then, Stockholm syndrome has been used to describe any situation in which someone, because of psychological dynamics built in to human nature, because an unwitting participant in their own captivity or abuse by becoming loyal to the abuser. 

This widow was a good Jewish woman.  But to say, as the sermon online did, that she gives from the depths of her being makes some assumptions. Don’t forget this was a required giving – it was a temple tax.  She had been taught her whole life that to stay right with God, the temple authorities required her to pay the temple tax, and make sacrifices, among other things.  And so she did. 

But, as Jesus explains right before the woman puts in her mite, the religious leaders – the ones who will collect her mite – are abusing the widow.  They “devour the widows’ houses,” he says.  Devour – in other words, forcibly appropriate the property and livelihood of women after their husbands die.

At the heart of the Jewish law – the covenant the Israelites made with God and with each other – is the promise to care for the vulnerable.  And the widow in Jesus’ day was one of the most vulnerable people there was.  A woman without a husband was not able to provide for herself, or any children she might have.  So the community – the church community – was to take care of her.  Instead, the temple authorities, in cahoots with the Roman Empire, through unjust taxes and land confiscation laws, were exploiting these vulnerable people as a matter of policy.  The widow, in the midst of that, walks up to the treasury and puts in, as Jesus says, everything she had to live on; money that undoubtedly came from begging in the streets – which she would do again when she left the temple that day. 

This widow is feeding the hand that bites her. 

When Jesus compares the widow with those who “give out of their abundance,” I don’t think it’s clear that the comparison is between those who are stingy and those who give generously and sacrificially.  Maybe.  But maybe the comparison is the one Jesus has been making all along: a comparison between what is – the current system: the kingdom of Rome, including the temple’s participation in that kingdom – and what should be – the kingdom of God.  In this scene Jesus shows the disciples a living, breathing picture of hell.  Those who are being devoured are giving money – essentially by force – to those devouring them.  This is not the world God intends.

If this is the comparison, between what is and what should be, then maybe our primary response should not be to praise the woman, praiseworthy though she may be: maybe our response should be to recoil from the scene in disgust.  I think that is what Jesus is doing in this passage:  he is recoiling…and he’s opening the eyes of the disciples so they will recoil as well. 

Remember where Jesus was when he sat with the disciples and watched this.  “He sat down opposite the treasury,” the author of Mark writes.  But the Greek word for “opposite” here is maybe better translated, “over and against.”  This word is stronger than just a word to place him geographically relative to the temple.   There’s another word for that kind of opposite.  This is adversarial.   

Which fits with the larger story in which this passage sits.  It is a part of a long commentary on Jesus’ attitudes regarding the temple.  Throughout Mark, Jesus is over and against what is going on in the government and the temple – which at that time were one and the same thing.  The first time Jesus steps into the temple, according to the gospel of Mark, he overturns the tables of the money changers in a dramatic protest of the corruption of the temple.  Then, he comes back the next day and confronts the religious elites with story after story and teaching after teaching about how they are violating every commandment of God, ending his day in the temple here:  sitting with his disciples “over and against” the treasury. 

The next thing he does, we read in the very next verse, is leave the temple, never to return again, and go with his disciples to the Mount of Olives to sit, the author of Mark tells us, “over and against the temple.”  While sitting there – over and against the temple – he predicts its complete destruction.  This passage, really the whole gospel of Mark, asks the disciples “Are you going to be a part of a system or a world that blatantly violates the commandments of God, or are you going to be a part of the kingdom of God – a world that stands over and against the kingdom of Caesar, no matter what that costs?”

And the same question comes to us…to the church today.

The church – our church – should stand as a witness against any system or organization that preys on the vulnerable to increase its wealth or power.  I don’t think it’s enough to just not be the ones who exploit.  We are asked to stand “over and against;” to be visibly different; to be a living, breathing example of the kingdom of God.

Remember the sweet story of the modern day widow: the one with no hot water…for four years.  The church in that story wasn’t like the temple.  They weren’t responsible for her poverty.  But they still failed – they glorified something that should be condemned, and fixed.  I get that we should remember that even those who have almost nothing to give often give more generously then those who have much, and that does make them heroic.  But if this story came to our church’s attention, I doubt we would stop at marveling at her generosity when she brought her pledge.  I’m pretty sure, if we knew what was going on, we would feel the injustice of the situation.  I’m pretty sure, I hope, we would try to get her hot water and a heater. 

The problem with those sweet stories about widows told at this time of year, during stewardship, is that they end with us romanticizing the widow.  The story needs to continue – she may be heroic, but the church should never let her continue to give to the community without supporting her when she is in need.  The story shouldn’t end where it does.  If it does, then the church is violating God’s commandments to care for the poor and vulnerable as much as the temple was – and doing so while filling its coffers. 

In the same way, we are fooled when the biblical story ends where it does this morning.  We are left with the heroic widow who outshines everyone by bringing her last mite.  But, the story goes on, and we see that not only is this not acceptable to Jesus, but the whole thing is abhorrant enough that the system that has been at the heart of the religion of his people for thousands of years needs to be destroyed.  It’s not a happy ending.

So, do we at 1^st Pres stand over and against the kingdoms that destroy?  I suspect, like any human institution, we’re mixed.  We could do better.  But, what I know from my experience here and with you is that we try pretty darn hard to both respect and celebrate people – ALL PEOPLE – who give what they can; no matter how much or hot little.  And, we work hard to care for the vulnerable both in our church and in the larger world.

In fact, I’m going to let David Cranston finish the sermon this morning by talking about what we do with part of the money we receive in this church.  You see, this is a good passage for this morning after all – because it’s a chance to reflect not so much on if we are like the widow as we turn in our pledges – God willing we are NOT – but on how, with our giving, we stand as a witness to what God is up to in the world.