Trusting God - The Faith of the Widow

Title: Trusting God – The Faith of the Widow Sermon by Pastor Lohn Johnson
Text:  Mark 12: 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.  44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."   INTRODUCTION:  My dear friends in Christ, In this passage, Jesus and his disciples were in the temple courts. And the place where Jesus was teaching was near the Temple treasury. Scholars tells us that the Temple complex was made up of various courtyards which became increasingly exclusive the closer one came to the religious heart of the Temple the Holy of Holies: the place where God dwelt. This particular story is set in the Court of the Women one of the outer, less holy areas. In this area stood 13 trumpet-shaped, brass receptacles. There were little signs on each of these receptacles denoting how the money thrown into that particular receptacle was to be used. One said, for example, “Building Maintenance”; another said “Rabbis’ Salary”; another said “Widows and Orphans Fund”, etc. The room would have been absolutely jammed with people who had come to offer sacrifices during the feast of Passover.  The scene was a noisy, busy area.
I.  But from their vantage point, Jesus and his disciples could see what people were putting into these receptacles.
	A. There was a long line of rich people. They loved making a show of their giving. And some of them did, indeed, throw in large amounts of money.
			1. The religious leaders garments were ornate. They expected formal public greetings. They always looked for VIP seating.  They prayed publicly with eloquence. In short, they were consumed with abundance. They wanted prominence. They liked their high standing in society. 2.  They gave a lot but their giving was motivated by pride.  And because of their pride there was little room for God in their hearts.
		B. Then a widow came and put two copper coins into the offering.  And Jesus’ attention was drawn to a poor widow. What she gave was worth only a few cents, but Jesus recognized that her offering was far more valuable than the sum total of all the other coins offered up that day.
			1.  And JESUS WAS THE PERFECT PERSON TO COMMENT ON THE WIDOW'S GIFT, WASN'T HE?
					b. Here was a man who was to give “his all.” He was poorer than that widow. In fact, He gave up everything to become destitute for us. Like the poor widow, he had no financial wealth to contribute to the temple. Instead, He sacrificed himself for us. He gave his all, everything for us.   c. Somebody HAS died and left us a gift: Jesus. He died to leave us the greatest gift we can possibly imagine: salvation and eternal life. He Himself was the greatest Giver of them all!
			2.  The widow is noticed not only because out of her poverty and without reservation, but also because Her gift foreshadows the one Jesus is about to make. In Mark this poor widow becomes a “type” of Him who, "though he was rich, yet for (our) sake became poor, so that by his poverty (we) might become rich." (II Cor. 8:9)
II.  The text forces us to ask: What would cause a person to voluntarily give away her last two pennies, especially to a system that left her destitute?
	A. The widow was saying, simply “I TRUST GOD.”
				1. You see there was no Social Security, no pension, no monthly check she would be receiving now that her husband was gone. Widows were quite vulnerable. Unless her husband was a wealthy man or unless she had children to support her or perhaps other family members that would take her in, she was at the mercy of society.
					a. The widow's humility and Generosity grew out of her knowing God’s love for her. In his first letter, John says, "We love because God first loved us."   b. She isn’t just dabbling in spare change. She is, to borrow a poker term, “all in” with God, unlike the scribes and others.  She evidently didn’t worry about tomorrow. She knew that God held the future and she trusted God to take care of her in the future.
				2. Here's the final thing her offering said that day. SHE BELIEVED IN THE WORK OF GOD.
					a. The work of the temple was important to her and she wanted to support it. Doubtless, it was with pleasure that she dropped in her coins for she knew she was part of something bigger than herself.   b. She still believed that regardless of all that had happened to her, everything she was and everything she had still belonged to God. Despite the corruption and exploitation going on in God’s name there in the temple, somehow God was still going to set things right.
		B. Today and every Sunday we celebrate the giving nature of our loving God, much like that widow. God gives us love, life, hope, forgiveness and the promise of eternal life. God gives us His only Son as our Savior.
				1. We are brought to know that all we have and all we are is the result of God's gracious Generosity.
					a. God created us and God provides for all of our needs. Not our wants and desires, but our daily needs.   b. The talents we have are given to us by God. We use and build upon those God given talents and abilities in order to earn a living for our families. We may buy stuff with the money we earn but even those things can be attributed to God because we used our God given talents to earn the money to buy the things. There is nothing which we have which does not come from God.  God knows our needs just like parents know their children's needs.   c. Remembering this helps us focus our thoughts and our lives upon God. A life focused upon God is exactly what God most desires for each of us, because a life focused on God gives life joy, meaning, purpose and quality.
				2. And God calls us to be givers like Him out of response to the unconditional love we've experienced.
					a. You see, it's not what we have done but what has been done for us through Christ. It's not our love for God that makes us Generous, it's knowing that God loves us in spite of all the horrible things we've done.    b. And God calls us to believe in His work too.  We are part of something bigger than ourselves – a church which proclaims the love of God shown in Jesus – a church which proclaims the presence of God in Word and sacrament.—a church which gives the Giver to a world which so desperately needs Him.
		C. But so often we are not as generous as we ought to be.
				1. One reason some people are not generous in their giving is that they are “afraid.”
					a. They're afraid that the stock market will fail and they will not have enough to pay their bills. Some are afraid that what they have will be taken away.   b. And there are others who simply are uncertain that this Christianity business is real after all. And because of our fear and uncertainty there is little room for God in our hearts.
				2. Maybe it would help to look at it like this: Pennies From Heaven is a 1936 film starring Bing Crosby (not to be confused with the 1981 Steve Martin film, that shares only the title). The film's story -- of flawed but well-meaning people trying to do the right thing and stick together amid adversity -- has been largely forgotten, but the title song, emblematic of the Depression Era, has endured. The song's lyrics reflect on how the pre-Depression world had forgotten how "the best things in life were absolutely free." Because no one appreciated marvels like the blue sky and the new moon, "it was planned" (presumably by God) "that they would vanish now and then."  But even when marvels are hard to see there are "Pennies from heaven" That's what storms were made for, And you shouldn't be afraid for every time it rains, it rains, Pennies from heaven. Don't you know each cloud contains Pennies from heaven? You'll find your fortune's falling all over town. Be sure that your umbrella is upside down.
					a. Sure, the song's message sounds Polyanna-ish, but in the darkest days of the Depression, it was comforting to think that God still sends the many pennies our way -- many small, but tangible blessings, symbolic of the much more significant blessings He gives in Word and Sacrament.   b. In each situation we face, the problem is fear and uncertainty crowding out faith. Then we don’t see the pennies from heaven He sends.  And then we don’t respond.  But When in faith we see his pennies from heaven our faith is boosted and we respond.
				2. We need to be reminded of the many pennies we receive from heaven.  We need to be reminded to see that the faith we are given is from God.  Then we see the pennies flooding down to us.  We need to be reminded again and again that God loves and cares for His children.
CONCLUSION:     There's a Dennis the Menace cartoon, which shows Dennis and Joey leaving the Wilson's front porch, each with a handful of cookies. Joey has this surprised look on his face and Dennis says, "Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we're nice, but because she's nice."   Dennis is right on target. It's not what we do but what God does for us. We love God because God loves us. Our generosity is motivated by God’s love for us. That's what motivated the widow. And Jesus noticed.   That’s what can and will motivate us and Jesus notices.  Amen.