Mark 12:38-44 (NRSV)

As [Jesus] taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor 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."

Partners in Mission here at Cross of Grace have recently received packets of information and a pledge card regarding our upcoming Commitment Sunday for the Building Fund. You might imagine we scheduled the Commitment Sunday to conveniently coincide with today’s gospel reading. After all, this story is often understood as scripture’s exemplary story of generous giving. The story of the “widow’s mite” as it is often referred, lends itself nicely to the message that the church needs your money and you would be blessed to give it away. However…

…we didn’t pick the Commitment Sunday to coincide with this text. Truth be told, the gospel texts for this Sunday and next are perhaps the worse we could have picked to coincide with a building fund campaign. The gospel lesson next week is about Jesus’ promise that the temple (aka, the church building) would come crashing down…and why that’s a good and holy thing. That story is directly related to today’s gospel and its real, though often obscured, message of how the temple system of Jesus’ day and age was set up to exploit the vulnerable.

Here’s some context about today’s gospel story that could completely change what you thought you knew about the story of the widow’s offering. This section of Mark’s gospel is an explicit warning against the scribes – the powerful religious figures who controlled every aspect of Hebrew life through the Temple system. You can see that in the first verses, “Beware of the scribes…”

In verse 40 Jesus illustrates scribes as people who “devour widows’ houses” – a reference to the practice of scribes automatically taking over as trustees of widows’ estates following the death of their husbands. The scribes were seen as the people most suited for this responsibility because they were pious and trustworthy, as evidenced by the fact that they wore long robes said long prayers (wink wink). “As compensation [the scribes] would usually get a percentage of the assets; the practice was notorious for embezzlement and abuse” (Myers, Binding the Strong Man, 320).

Knowing full well the depths of injustice at the hands of the scribes, Jesus watches the events at the treasury. The treasury was a public space where people could either make a show of how much they were worth and how generous they were; or a place where people had to confess just how little they had.

At the treasury, there are many there who are extremely wealthy and they give abundantly, both because they can and because it serves their own interests. Their giving supports the very religious, political, and cultural structure that enabled them to get and stay wealthy. It’s a self-perpetuating system that ensures the wealth stays distributed only among the upper class.

Then there’s the widow. The widow gives two coins, which the gospel writer points out were practically worthless. Jesus understands this woman, out of a sense of obligation and powerlessness just gave away all she had to live on. Like others before her, this widow has been taken advantage of by an institution that claimed it would take care of her. Her estate has been stolen from under her in her grief; and still she has to obey the oppressive religious obligation to give. It’s not admirable, it’s deplorable.

This isn’t a story to inspire generous giving. Instead, it is a story that condemns a religiously-supported system that props up the wealthy on the broken backs of the poor who have been abused, neglected, and stolen from. And as you’ll see next week, Jesus tells his disciples that when they confront this system, they will suffer the consequences.

This might seem like a downer of a gospel text, but there is good news. The good news is that Jesus recognizes oppressive systems in our world and does not approve. God the Father, who is very Christ-like, also does not approve. Systems of oppression that keep people impoverished while the rich feast, are neither divinely inspired nor divinely maintained. They are not products of the Kingdom of Heaven, and therefore they will not ultimately endure.

God’s favor does not rest on those people who keep their boot heel pushed on the neck of the poor. That is the good news.

The good news is that we still have time to choose a better way: the way that will endure, the way that is part of the Kingdom of Heaven, the way of God, the way that recognizes how one’s actions ripple down the river and affect the poor, vulnerable, outcast, and afraid.

It’s your responsibility to allow this scriptural truth to work in your own life, raise your awareness, and let it lead to you repentance – a change your actions.

As for me, as a pastor, as part of a religious institution that makes financial demands on its practitioners, here is the message I have to proclaim today: If you find Cross of Grace to be an oppressive and unjust system that props up select few at the expense of the most vulnerable, then you have two options: 1) find somewhere else to be spiritually nourished, or 2) stand and fight. Point out the ways that we fail to live in the light of the good news as announced by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Point out the error of our ways before it’s too late and our church crumbles just like the Temple two thousand years ago.

But, if you find that Cross of Grace is a place that proclaims the good news in word and deed, regardless of what it might cost us in the eyes of others in this community; if you sense that Cross of Grace stands for something good and beautiful in this world as it does the work of liberating the oppressed and advocating for the outcasts of society, then join us. Reaffirm your commitment to the unique mission and ministry God has gifted this congregation. Yes, that means giving abundantly if you have financial means. But it also means following Jesus beyond these walls. It means experiencing a daily dying to yourself and daily allowing God to change your mind so that you can follow Christ instead of your own fears, instincts, or desires.

 Amen.

Mark 10:17-31

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

I hope you’ll bear with me today, because this might be a stretch and a little bit strange and it’s something I’m still making sense of myself, but this week I feel like I learned a new thing - or noticed a new thing - and I want to share it with you. I found myself drawing connections between this morning’s gospel story in Mark and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, as most people know it, in Luke’s Gospel.

I think most of us know enough about this one without having, even, to break out our Gospels of Luke – the only place in Scripture where Jesus tells that particular parable. There are a million details that matter in this oldy but goody, but the short of the long is this: there’s a father who has two sons, the younger of which comes to his dad and asks for his inheritance, even before his father has kicked the bucket. And the generous, loving father gives the young son half of what he might inherit when the time comes – presumably no small amount of money, stuff and valuable things – and the kid hits the road, spends, uses, and wastes it all on “dissolute living,” as the story goes. (In other words, ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ kind of living.)

And when he can no longer take care of himself – when he’s out of money, things and stuff – when he’s as broke as can be – when he finds himself slopping it up with the pigs – the young son comes back to daddy, broken… ashamed… empty in every way – and asks to be let back in to the family’s good graces. Which happens, because remember the young man’s dad – who plays the part of God in that parable – is a generous and loving Father. It’s a beautiful story about the nature of God’s abundant grace and mercy, love and forgiveness. It points to a vision of what life in God’s kingdom is like, or can be for us.

And, if Jesus is anything like the rest of us, he knows a good story – a good sermon – a good lesson – when he hears one. So I have to think, even though we only hear him tell this parable one time, in Luke’s Gospel, that Jesus probably told that story and taught that lesson more often. And even if he didn’t, Jesus had it in his back pocket and he knew the power and impact of the lesson it held.

All of that to say, I couldn’t help but imagine that this oldy-but-goody is swimming around in the head and heart of Jesus when this strange, rich man interrupts him as Jesus is apparently packing for his next road trip. “Good teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “How do I get my cosmic inheritance.” “What do I need to do – what’s the silver bullet – what’s the magic pill – is there a BuzzFeed list of 12 things that can tell me the way to eternal life?”

Of course, there is no list. Even the 10 Commandments wouldn’t cut it, according to Jesus. The man implies that he’s kept all of those his whole life long and Jesus says, “You still lack one thing. Sell what you own, give the money to the poor, and you will find treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.”

Do you see the connection to that other story?

Something about an inheritance, and then “take what’s been given to you. Unload it. Be rid of it. Empty your coffers until there’s nothing left. And you will find treasure in heaven. THEN come back and follow me.”

The solution is the same for both the Rich Man this morning and for the Younger Son in the parable: we will find out what really matters when we stop pretending that what really matters is money, wealth, things and stuff. We will find our way to the Kingdom – we will inherit eternal life, in this world and for the next – when we stop valuing the things of this world, when we lose our attachment to them, when we remove their power over us, and when we, instead, leave ourselves no other option but to follow and rely on and trust in the ways of Jesus.

(And it’s important to notice that it doesn’t matter one bit that the Prodigal Son lost his wealth to dissolute living and that the Rich Man was commanded to give his wealth to the poor. The common ground for them was not in their righteousness, in their good works, or lack thereof. It wasn’t about whether they did the right or wrong thing with their money. Their common ground – their way to the Kingdom – as Jesus sees it, is found in their poverty, plain and simple, however they accomplished it. Their way to the Kingdom would come through their loss of what they valued most; through their giving up of what they thought would save them.)

See, the power and challenge for me, then, in recognizing that both of these stories come from the lips of Jesus lies in the hard truth that, the more money and things and stuff I have – and whatever safety and security and status they afford me … along with the striving I do to get and hold onto them – all of that actually keeps me from the Kingdom; it removes me from the fullness of joy God intends for me; it limits my access to eternal, abundant life as God hopes I’ll experience it on this side of the grave – not just the next – which is the other reality check for me this morning.

Because, I wonder, when you think of eternal life, what comes to mind? When you consider the Kingdom of God, what do you imagine? When we hear the rich man in this morning’s Gospel ask about how he can inherit eternal life, what do we presume he is asking?

(My hunch is that most of us – like the guy who asks about it this morning – think about eternal life as something we’ll experience or be assured of after we’re dead and gone. My hunch is that most of us think about the Kingdom of God as having an address somewhere up there and out there and on the other side of our tombstone.)

But, we’re meant to believe, with the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that God has already broken ground on the establishment of heaven’s kingdom, right here on earth as we know it. And if that’s the case, we don’t have to wait to experience the joys of that kingdom, until after we’re dead. And we don’t have to wait to start sharing the joys of that kingdom with the world around us until this life, as we know it, is over, either.

So all of this is about getting rid of our money and being generous. It’s not about works righteousness or buying God’s love or earning our way into heaven. This is about going without, doing without, becoming less and relying more on God’s provision than on our own. This is an invitation, if not a command and a double-dog-dare from Jesus, to experience the joys of selflessness and generosity – to practice poverty, if you will – in order to trust in God’s abundance and to experience the very Kingdom of God in our midst – on earth as it is in heaven, you might say.

I think one of the reasons our work in Haiti is so compelling for me – and to anyone who’s been there – is because we get a glimpse of the Kingdom in Fondwa, where possessions are hard to come by; where wealth and riches aren’t even a possibility; and where we are reminded about what we can live with and what we really can and should live without more often than we do.

I think the Kingdom comes to earth for those who participate in our Agape Ministry, too, because when our people serve and sit with the prostitutes on the city’s east side, what we think matters so much about our identity on this side of the tracks – what we do for a living or where we live or what kind of car we drive – couldn’t mean much less on that side of the tracks.

And I think the Kingdom is alive and well in the midst of our SonRise Bibe Study ministry, too, because none of the measuring sticks that matter to the rest of the world mean a lick to those adults with physical and intellectual differences and disabilities, who share in and celebrate the grace of God, just as fully, if not moreso, than you and I are able to a lot of the time.

Jesus dares us to rid ourselves of whatever the world tells us is valuable – our money, our things, our stuff, and our status – and to rest in and rely on what God can accomplish through all that we give up, give away and do without. Jesus invites us to follow him toward this kind of selfless generosity. And Jesus promises us that when we do, we will experience the Kingdom of God, here and now, where less is more; where the last are first and the first are last; where death becomes life, even, in this world and for the next, thanks be to God.

Amen

The Poor Widow and the Immoral Church

The Rich Man and The Prodigal Son