News for YOU:...Pledge letters for 2019 have been mailed out. If you have already responded--THANK YOU. Please turn in your pledge for 2019 in time for Thanksgiving Sunday service, Nov 18th. If you did not receive a pledge letter and wish to, please contact Mrs. Brenda Funderburg at bfun@me.com...The Rev. Canon Gregg Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist Sunday at 10am November 18th for our Thanksgiving Service. Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer Sunday, November 25th. ...The Tensas Community Thanksgiving Service will be November 18th at First United Methodist at 5:30pm. Please bring non-perishable items for The Shepherd Center to the Community Thanksgiving service. Items and monetary donations may also be made directly to The Shepherd Center. Each Christmas The Shepherd Center feeds approximately 350 families. Please join us for this service and invite others....Saint Joseph Orchestra Chamber Christmas Concert will be in our church Sunday, December 16th at 3pm. Please invite others to join us.
25 PENTECOST, PROPER XXVII -
B - 18 MARK 12. 38-44
In Mark’s gospel, we have
seen more than one occasion when Jesus warns against riches because of the hold
they can have on an individual, which dethrones God.
You may recall not too many
weeks ago the story of the rich young ruler who came up to Jesus and asked what
he had to do to inherit the kingdom. Jesus told him to go and sell all that he
had and give it to the poor and then come and follow him. But alas, he could
not bring himself to do that and turned away from following Christ.
Jesus used the encounter with
the rich young man to illustrate to his disciples how difficult it was for a
rich man who was intent on holding tightly to his possessions to enter the
kingdom. It was like a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle.
Today’s passage begins with a
condemnation of the scribes. The scribes were men with religious authority who
represented a particular profession among the religious leaders of the day.
They liked attention; at their worse, they made material profit out of
spiritual influence.
They relished salutations,
chief seats, chief places, that is to say, signs of public deference. Jesus
mentions widows especially because they were often the most vulnerable. Many of
them would have been poor, some would be wealthy. The converse of Jesus’ teachings
against riches is illustrated in the giving of the Widow’s mite.
The mite was the smallest
coin in use. Two of them equaled a penny. Money is so useful to religious and
charitable purposes that there is always the temptation to think of the larger
offerings of the rich than the smaller offerings, which may yet represent a
much greater effort and more real self-denial.
Jesus sat opposite the
treasury St. Mark tells us, and watched as the people made their offerings.
This seemed to be a common practice among the Jews. The treasury was a series
of 13 trumpet shaped boxes arranged against the wall of the court of women in
the Herodian Temple. Since no Gentile would penetrate there, the offerings were
from Jews only. Only copper coins could be used in the Temple, thus large
contributions were quite noisy.
One tradition has it that
when large sums were offered a trumpet would blow drawing attention to the
giver. The widow was not ashamed of her small gift, for she made no effort to
conceal it. Jesus, looking on, saw into the hearts of the various givers, and
he was not deceived by the difference of values.
Jesus said the widow gave all
she had to live on for that day - 100%. Jesus then puts the widow’s gift in
perspective, along with the gifts of the rich. The value of the gift cannot be
set by the inherit cash value, he teaches us, but by what it represents for the
giver.
Like the widow of Zarephath
whose hospitality towards God’s prophet included her last drop of oil, the
Jerusalem widow’s offering to God was likewise a sacrificial one. She gave her
all and her offering, according to Jesus, was more than all the rest he
observed that day.
November is traditionally
Stewardship month throughout the church. It is not that November is the only
time to be thinking about our giving back to God but as we approach
Thanksgiving Day, it is an opportune time to ask ourselves “why we give?”
The Jews of Jesus’ day gave a
half-shekel to support the Temple each year. In addition, there were other kinds
of offerings. There was the tithe that farmers made from their produce, and a
second tithe that was given to the poor. There were thank-offerings, and the
gifts of first fruits.
The Jews of Jesus’ day took
great pride in the fact that God’s people voluntarily supported the Temple,
giving their offerings without duress despite the heavy additional burden of
Roman taxation. Their motivation was for the most part out of obligation, which
is not say that some, did not give from the heart.
How do we learn to give back
to God? What is our motivation? The church teaches that we should give. The
tithe is the Biblical standard dating back to the Old Testament. I, for one,
was raised in the Baptist Church by a mother who believed that my brother and I
should be in church every Sunday morning and evening and again on Wednesday
night whether we thought we needed it or not. Church was not an option when I
was growing up.
I learned to tithe in Sunday
school. If I was given one dollar for allowance, I gave a dime to Sunday
school. When I got my first job, cutting grass and trimming hedges, I was
expected to give 10 percent to the church. My giving up and into my adult years
was one of obligation. I gave because I was supposed to.
I am not certain when I began
to see my giving to the church as a response to God’s blessings in my life. It
could have been after I returned safely from a war zone, or it might have been
after the birth of our first child. Either way, my attitude towards giving back
to God a portion of what He had given me changed from an obligation to one of a
thankful response to His love.
I tell my story not to draw
attention to myself but in answer to my earlier question “why do we give?” We
don’t know why the widow gave all she had in the Temple that day. Jesus tells
us that she did. I suspect it was not out of obligation. Her two copper coins
did not make much noise but they did not go unnoticed by God and neither do our
gifts whether large or small.
Jesus told his disciples that
those larger gifts were given out of the abundance of the giver. The cost of
the widow’s gift was however, greater than theirs. Stewardship rightly
understood, is our giving back to God a portion of what is already His. “All
things come of Thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee.” (I Chron.
Xxix. 14)
This too was a turning point
for me. When I finally understood that what I was giving back to the church
wasn’t really mine in the first place. Rather it had been given to me by God to
use for the work of the church and the benefit of others, especially those in
need.
With that revelation, I
realized that the portion I kept for my own benefit was a most generous gift
from God. That’s when my giving became a Thank-offering, a response to God’s
Love.
As we approach our National
day of Thanksgiving, I commend to you a prayerful consideration of your gift to
the work of the church by asking yourself “why you give?” Is it out of your
abundance or your poverty? Out of a sense of obligation or Thanksgiving?
Remembering the words of the
author of Hebrews, “To do good, and to distribute, forget not; for with such
sacrifices God is well pleased.” (Heb. XXiii.16)
