The Church’s Angel

Revelation 1:1-6; Mark 12:38-45

I really don’t like the way widows are portrayed in the bible. More accurately, I don’t like what Sunday School curricula and preachers have done to them – diminished their existence by treating them as pitiful, shadowy creatures. Cheapened their stories in order to make sentimental and irrelevant points about the nature of faith. Totally neglected their humanity including their resourcefulness, resilience, and humor.  Incredible women, worthy of both admiration and study. Naomi, Ruth, and for that matter, Abigail and Bathsheba – both of whom went on to become wives of King David.  

I didn’t arrive at the conclusion that the image and the reality of widows were at odds with each other through extensive study or profound insight but simply by coming face to face with the countless widowed women who have challenged and inspired me throughout my ministry.  Helen, who survived the death of her husband and suicide of her son, and in her mid-eighties, undertook the raising of her great grandchildren with great enthusiasm and energy. Whose house was full of plants and backyard was full of turtles.  Or Lee, who, at ninety, wielded a chain saw as big as she was, trimming all of her own bushes among other things.  Or Ruth, who never had children of her own, but loved the neighborhood children – and they loved her right back. She told mesmerizing stories about days gone by – like surviving the flu epidemic of 1918 and celebrating the end of World War I when she and her junior high friends drove – in what was surely a Model T Ford -- from one tiny West Texas town to the next, spreading the news.    

I see the widow in Mark’s story as a Helen, or a Lee, or a Ruth.  Competent.  Strong.  Resourceful.  Possibly a little eccentric as well – which is a prerogative of survival.    

And maybe that’s why Jesus was so fascinated by her. Not because she provides him with a good example for the point that he’s trying to prove but because he knows the story behind it all.  Both hers and the respectable religious professionals who surround him in the Temple.

The truth of the matter is, the scribes are scoundrels. They’ve figured out how to look religious without really trying – or even being -- religious.  The know how to make an omelet without breaking any eggs.  How to give generously without opening their wallets.   

Bottom line, these guys are predators of the pay day loan variety.  Their racket is based on taking advantage of the widows whose estates have been left in their care.  In those days, women weren’t thought capable of property management which left the door open for their estate managers (i.e. the scribes) to pay themselves handsomely for the inconvenience of handling all of that money.  Not surprisingly, their own pay tended to exceed the allowances that they gave to the widows.   

Which means that the ostentatious tithes and offerings that the scribes are making in front of their peers aren’t coming from their own pockets but straight from the widow’s trust funds. Sheer genius in its own way.  Look religious, give a lot of money, but without the inconvenience of genuine sacrifice.  Instead, take credit for someone else’s involuntary one.   

Jesus knows all of this when he denounces the scribes and praises the widow.  It’s not hypocrisy that he’s accusing them of so much as it is theft. When he says, “Her giving is greater than theirs.” he’s not speaking metaphorically but simply stating a fact.  She’s giving her money, and they’re giving her (stolen) money as well!

What’s amazing to me, and the tip off that there’s much more to this widow than meets the eye, is that she continues to give, even when she’s down to her last dime.  It’s simply who she is.  No bunch of weasely men is going to keep her from living out her commitments.   

It’s hard not to feel inadequate in one’s own giving patterns after encountering someone like this widow.  It leaves me with the uncomfortable sense anyway, that, short of giving away everything I own, I’ll never be able to measure up to her level of sacrifice.    

But that would be the wrong lesson to take from this.  Because it’s not the widow’s condition of poverty that Jesus is praising, or even the drastic nature of her giving  – it’s the quality of her faithfulness.  She refuses to let her victimization by religious professionals drive her own response.  She could have easily said, life’s been unfair. What my husband worked so hard to build up has been devoured by vultures.  What little I have left, I need for survival.

No one in the world would have condemned her if she had.  But she chose to act on her conviction that God’s goodness is more powerful and more significant than human treachery. She chose to let go of what little she still controlled rather than be controlled by fear of want.

By contrast, the scribes neither fear nor love God enough to make even a symbolic donation from their own possessions.  They give away someone else’s livelihood for show instead.  Because that’s all it’s about for them – impressing other people, not the One they claim to serve.

Rather than inducing guilt, this story should dispel once and for all, the idea that stewardship or tithing is only about dollars and dollar amounts. If that were the case, the scribes would be the champs.  But obviously it isn’t and they weren’t. Once again,  it’s the widow who is held up for praise, not because of the amount of the gift, but the quality of her giving.  What I call her attitude of gratitude.  Her conscious sacrifice. She is well aware of what she will have to forgo in order to make her contribution and proceeds accordingly.   

As we look forward to Stewardship Celebration Sunday next week, I’d invite all to us to pay close attention to our own decision-making process.  Is it accompanied by a weary sense of obligation and perhaps a touch of resentment? Or by the desire to make a consciously sacrificial commitment that underscores our desire to grow spiritually and participate in the common life of this church.    

What does that mean and how do we start?  Certainly not by committing to amounts that would keep us from meeting our legitimate obligations, nor by arriving at a figure that doesn’t entail any challenge.  Also known as “left behind” giving.  Whatever’s left, I’ll throw in the plate.  Rather, by giving mindfully. By thinking about what we are willing to give up in order to make the gift that we do. 

For example, someone might decide that instead of going out to dinner four or five times a month, they will cut it back to three times, dedicating the expense of that fourth and perhaps fifth meal as a sacrifice to God.  Instead of buying a particular item, someone else may choose a less expensive one and dedicate the difference as their sacrificial gift.  Drive that clunky but paid for car one more year, and dedicate the difference as a sacrificial gift.

Because sacrificial giving isn’t about giving beyond one’s means, but redirecting resources from ourselves to the service of the One we claim to follow.  It’s about a willingness to live into God’s value system rather than buy into the world’s value system of excess for the few at the price of scarcity for the many.    

Although you’d never know it from a lot of the press it gets, that is precisely what the book of Revelation is about as well – how to live into God’s invisible value system rather than the world’s where, “the wrong oft seems so strong,” as the old hymn says.  John of Patmos is sending words of comfort and challenge to seven churches scattered throughout the Roman empire, admonishing them to stay strong in some cases, and to get strong in others. 

He does this by addressing what he calls “the angel” of each of these churches.  By which he means its corporate identity or spirit.  Each church’s angel is unique to the congregation it represents.  Ephesus is enduringly patient, bearing up for the sake of Jesus’ name, and not giving in to weariness ; Laodocia seems to be the weakest –opting out of any controversy so as not to offend – giving rise to that great phrase: you are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm, so I will spit you out of my mouth.

        Like the Bible’s many widows, we have not really given the angels addressed by John their due.  He isn’t doing this as a literary device but in recognition that gatherings of people – be it the Roman empire as a whole, Bank of America, or University Presbyterian Church –  somehow generate an internal spirit that is every bit as real as its external façade. 

It makes sense when you think about it.  At least to me.  Have you ever walked into a church only to nearly be knocked over by an overwhelming sense of warmth and inclusion – or driven away by a coldness and alienation that the friendliest greeting from the usher in attendance was not able to overcome?  Well that impression you got of warmth or chill wasn’t about the furnace or air conditioner but the angel that lived there, itself shaped by the congregation whose faith journeys were lived out there.   

        It’s no different for us.  University Presbyterian Church has an angel – generated by the lives, activities, and experiences of this faith community from its first day of existence – even before it was called University Presbyterian Church.  It is, angel and church both, a mysterious combination of personality and action, faith and yearning, weakness and redemption, comprised of the souls drawn together for reasons as unique as our individual personalities.  

I’m not sure we’re all that well acquainted with it. But that’s OK.  Discerning the identity of this UPC angel – discovering its strengths, its weaknesses, God’s vision for its future – is what this interim time is all about.  In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll be looking at this more.  In the meantime, this season of stewardship offers us a great opportunity to assess the health of the angel that resides here.  Not in terms of dollar amounts committed – after all, some of the sickest angels live in the wealthiest churches – can you imagine the condition of the angel at the temple of the scribes?  Probably tied up and thrown into a dusty broom closet! – but in terms of thoughtfulness and gratitude and a desire to live with an increasing awareness that every moment of our lives is lived in God’s presence.

It’s the place where the widow was already living when she made her offering.  It’s the place where we want to go.  Amen.