Sacrifice (Mark 12:38-44)

I feel bad for this widow.  Don’t we all feel bad for her?  She gave everything she had.  The two measly, almost worthless coins she put into the offering were, according to the scripture, all she had to live on.  More literally translated, they were “her whole life.” 

What compelled her to place her whole life into the treasury box?  What would she live off of now?

There was no social security.  No welfare.  No retirement benefits.  And apparently, no children or other relatives caring for her.  There was nothing.  Those two coins were her whole life.

She wasn’t just a widow.  She was a “poor widow.”  And in the first century, that’s saying something, since all  widows, lacking social safety nets, had it tough.  But she had it even tougher.  She was destitute.  She had to beg just to make ends meet.

So, why did she do it?  Why did she put her whole life into the treasury box?

Well, the law of the temple did require everyone to contribute to the temple treasury.  It was almost more of a tax than an offering.  It was a requirement.  After all, the temple needed money to operate, and to pay for the fine, long robes of the scribes and other temple officials, and the nice furniture that they liked to sit on, and the fancy food that they liked to eat, and the gifts they liked to give to one another and to other religious and government leaders so that they could be greeted with respect in the marketplace. 

And so, by demanding an offering even of poor widows in order to support their lifestyle, they were literally devouring widows’ houses.

You know, in this story, Jesus isn’t so much praising the poor widow as he is condemning those who would demand this payment from her.  It is injustice of the worst kind, extracting the last penny from the poorest, most vulnerable of society in order to provide for the wealthy and the elite.

Another question:  What choice did the poor widow have in all of this?  Could she, if she had wanted to, refuse to pay?  What would have been the consequences?

I don’t really know the answer to that.  Many sermons have been preached on this passage that suggest that her contribution was indeed an offering, given voluntarily (at least to some degree), and she has been praised throughout the centuries as a model of giving and stewardship.

I’m not sure that this is entirely accurate.  At the very least, there would have been an additional social stigma attached to her.  She would have been labeled as one who did not support the temple treasury, and that would have been a bad label to have. 

Still, I suppose she could have refused to pay.  It could have been a matter of civil disobedience.  Even today, there is a small minority that refuses to pay taxes as a matter of conscience.  There are consequences, of course.  And if this poor widow had refused to pay her offering as a matter of principle, as an act of disobedience in protest of an unjust system, I think she still might have received an affirming word from Jesus.

But she did pay.  She gave her whole life.  Everything she had.

I think maybe she needed to give.  I think she was compelled to give, and not just by the pressure and possible consequences that might be inflicted upon her by the ruling elite.  I don’t know for sure, but I think the need to give came as much from within her as it came from without.

Why do I think this?  Because I’ve experienced that same need myself.

At the Regional Assembly last month in Bakersfield, an offering was taken up during worship to support Disciples Mission Fund and regional camp scholarships.  And I’ll be honest, my first thought was, “Why should I contribute to the offering here?  I can support those same ministries through the offering we collect back home at Bixby Knolls Christian Church… and as far as the Disciples Mission Fund and camp scholarships are concerned, it doesn’t matter when or how the money is received…”

But then I felt a need to give.  I felt a need to give in that moment.  In that worship service, we were given the opportunity to offer an expression of gratitude.  In that moment, I felt a need to express my gratitude, and to do it in solidarity with those with whom I was gathered in worship.  This expression of gratitude was something bigger than just me, and I wanted to be part of it.

I mean, how often do we get the opportunity to be part of something bigger than ourselves?  How often do we have the opportunity to find meaning and purpose in life by expressing gratitude in real, tangible ways?

I look around, and I see teenagers with their eyes glued to their computer games.  I see adults stuck in 9-to-5 routines, seeking wealth that serves no greater purpose.  I see empty nesters and retired folks who have not found some new place to invest their energy now that their child-rearing and working days are behind them.  Everywhere, I see people living lives with little meaning or purpose, people longing to be a part of something bigger, something greater than themselves, and to find greater purpose and meaning for their lives.  I see people who need to find something worth living for. 

In the Harry Potter books and movies, this is, in fact, the one thing that enables Harry Potter to prevail over the evil Lord Voldemort.  Voldemort is certainly more powerful than Harry.  But Harry has something Voldemort does not:  something worth living for.  Something bigger than himself.

So even though Disciples Mission Fund and regional camp scholarships didn’t need me to give in that moment, I myself needed to give in that moment.  The need to give came from within me more than it came from without.  I needed to make that moment meaningful and full of purpose.  I needed to be part of something greater than myself.

So I think it was important to the widow to give.  I think she felt the need to give, to be a part of the temple experience, to share in a moment of gratitude to God, and that this was in addition to the requirement placed upon her to give.

I just wish she didn’t have to give everything she had to live off of; her whole life.  The fact that she did, and was left with nothing, makes this a hard story to understand fully.

I’m reminded of another difficult-to-make-sense-of story, about a man who also felt compelled to give everything he had. 

The man’s name was Abraham.  For years, he had been promised by God that he would have a child who would give him many descendants.  It was a hard-to-believe promise, since Abraham and his wife Sarah were already very, very old.  But one day they did indeed become parents to a son whom they named Isaac.

But then…

But then God told Abraham to take his son Isaac, his only son whom he loved more than life itself, and offer him up as a sacrifice. 

 Anne Lamott mentions this story in her book Traveling Mercies.  Here’s what she says:

 “Now, this was exactly the sort of Old Testament behavior I had trouble with.  It made me think that this God was about as kind and stable as Judge Julius Hoffman of Chicago Seven fame… It made no sense that God would ask his beloved Abraham to sacrifice the child he loved more than life itself.  It made no sense that Abraham could head for the mountain in Moriah still believing in God’s goodness.  It made no sense that even as he walked his son to the sacrificial altar, he still believed God’s promise that Isaac would give him many descendants.  It made no sense that he was willing to do the one thing in the world he could not do, just because God told him to.”

“But the way Kierkegaard [explains] it, Abraham understood that all he really had in life was God’s unimaginable goodness and love, God’s promise of protection, God’s paradoxical promise that Isaac would provide him with many descendants.  He understood that without God’s love and company, this life would be so empty and barbaric that it almost wouldn’t matter whether his son was alive or not” [Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies].

It’s still a theologically problematic story.  And I think that, like much of scripture, it is properly read as parable or allegory.  But it does provide another example of a person who believed that, without God, there is no meaning or purpose in life, and that it’s important to give of oneself to God, to something greater than oneself, in order to find that meaning and purpose.

Because without meaning and purpose, without finding something greater than yourself to live for, life just isn’t worth living.

The wealthy elite that Jesus saw placing money in the treasury box didn’t give in order to find meaning and purpose.  They didn’t do it to be part of something bigger than themselves.  They did it so that they themselves could be looked upon as something bigger.  And they were willing to rob and extort and oppress the poor – even poor widows – in order to carry out their wishes.

But the widow gives, and joins her life to something greater than herself, and in doing so finds meaning and purpose.  And it is that meaning and purpose that keeps her alive, even more than the precious pennies that could buy her a loaf of bread.

People who give in this way find meaning and purpose; and in finding meaning and purpose, they find happiness.  In fact, they find themselves.  Gandhi said that the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.  It’s also been said that the best way to bring a smile to your face is to bring a smile to someone else’s. 

If someone comes to me and says they’re feeling sad, feeling down, feeling depressed, feeling like they want or need someone to do something for them to cheer them up, the first question I tend to ask is, “What have you done lately for someone else?”  Because there’s some kind of renewing of the spirit that takes place within a person when he or she is giving his or her life to someone else, giving his or her life to God through service to others.  There’s a joy that comes from doing something that has meaning, a joy you just can’t get any other way.

We live in a world where people try to get more for themselves, a world where it’s cool to put others down, make fun of others, to insult and call names.  People who try to get more for themselves, lift themselves up and put others down think they are doing it for their own benefit, but rarely do they ever feel better because of what they’ve done.

But people who give of their lives for others, who live for others, who seek to put a smile on others’ faces, end up feeling better about themselves and the lives they live.

I hope you’re listening, because this is probably about as close as I’ll ever come to preaching a “self-help” sermon:  the more you give, the more you live for others, the more you live for God, the better you’ll feel and the happier you’ll be.

Again, it’s about finding meaning and purpose in life, and living for something that’s greater than you.

On this day in particular, we are reminded of those who made the decision to live for others and live for a greater cause by joining the armed forces.  Now, I know that every Christian is caught in a difficult place: We’re followers of Jesus, who taught and practiced nonviolence exclusively, yet we live in a world that invests incredible amounts of time and energy into preparing for war.  Making sense of this is problematic in the same way that the story of Abraham is problematic; the same way that the story of a widow who gives everything she had, every last penny, is problematic.

However, it is very easy for me to see and understand the need to live for something greater than oneself, to be willing to sacrifice everything, even one’s life, possibly, for that greater cause.  A decision like that is noble.  Heroic.  Worthy of honor.

And for many of the men and women who serve or served in the armed forces, their commitment has given their lives meaning and purpose. 

A part of the reason some of those who served and experienced combat have such a hard time adjusting back to civilian life is that it’s hard to feel that same sense of meaning and purpose they once had.  Some would do anything to bring back that sense of meaning and purpose to their lives.

It’s the same need to experience meaning and purpose that the widow had.  Without it, life is not worth living.  Having so little, she probably felt bad that she couldn’t do more.  So she gave all she had.  She gave her whole life.

And even though the scripture doesn’t say it here, I think the gospel makes it clear that it is she who, in giving her whole life, finds new life in the kingdom of God.  And I don’t mean in some future, distant existence, but new life here and now, because it is she who has found meaning and purpose.  It is she who has found something worth living for.