"Give, Give!" (yes, it's sarcastic)

Brad Sullivan

Proper 27, Year B

November 8, 2015

Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Mark 12:38-44

“Give, give!  Give, give!  Give, give!  Give, give, give, give!”  That was a song that a comedy group in Houston called “Radio Music Theater” used to sing.  They were a group of three comedians who wrote and starred in plays in which they all played multiple characters, and the “give give song” was from a collection of their shows in which three of the characters were Televangelist Jiffy Dillard and his faithful cohort of heartstring pulling, Bible thumping profiteers. 

They didn’t talk much about the grace of Jesus, mostly just about “wicked, wicked sin,” and the need of people to give so that with the power of Jesus, Jiffy Dillard could fight the wicked, wicked sin. 

Give.  Give till it hurts.  Give ‘cause God needs your money.  Give because you’ve got the wicked, wicked sin, and if you give, then we can minister, and God will love you more…he’ll dislike you less.  We’ve heard it all before, haven’t we?  Truth be told, Jewish folks living a couple of millennia before us had heard it all before too.

“The widow’s mite”, or “the widow’s offering” – that’s the popular title given to our Gospel story today, and we all know what I’m supposed to say about this story.  The widow had very little and yet she still gave her two copper coins (all that she had to live on).  She gave them to the treasury, to the temple.  Realizing that what she gave was a drop in a lake considering the financial burden of the temple, Jesus says she gave more than those wealthy folks who gave large sums of money.  So, I’m supposed to raise her up as an example of faith in God and encourage everyone here to contribute to our common life here at St. Mark’s; even if you only have a little bit, give what little you have, show how faithful you are, and God can do great things with it.  He’ll probably also like you a little better.

I think such an interpretation of today’s Gospel passage, minus the part about God liking you better if you give, such an interpretation certainly has merit to it, but I don’t think that is the lesson Jesus was teaching.  He had just blasted the Scribes for their long robes and prayers, making sure they looked good and righteous in front of everybody, and Jesus had blasted them for devouring widows’ houses. 

We don’t know exactly what that means, but we can surmise that they were pulling a bit of a Jiffy Dillard on folks, calling on everyone to “give, give” so that they could fight the wicked, wicked sin.  In ancient Israel, the poor didn’t have to give; they could if they wanted to out of their love of God and their love of the religion.  The scribes, however, look like they were demanding, cajoling, enticing as much money out of the widows as they could.  “God needs it, guys, you better give.”

So Jesus is calling the scribes hypocrites.  They were teaching the people, “you’ve got to give (so we can look really religious and God will be less angry with you)”, and they were forgetting the teachings of God in scripture.  God cares for the orphan and widow.  God doesn’t desire temple sacrifice.  Let justice role, defend the orphan and widow.  Let your sacrifice be a heart full of love for all people.

The religious leaders seem to have forgotten those teaching and were following the words of God that made themselves look important and needed in the eyes of the people.  They were forgetting the words of the prophets before them.  Care for my people, God said.  Care for my people; those are the sacrifices I want you to make.

So Jesus is teaching this, and pointing out how the scribes are missing the boat, and just after Jesus points out the fault in the scribes’ way, God highlights Jesus’ message by sending this poor widow to give all she had to live on for the sake of the temple.  How awesome is God at this point, sending the widow right then, saying to Jesus, “That’s a great lesson, Son, let me give you a little exclamation point on that!”

I’m guessing folks are wondering, “so are we supposed to give to the church or not?”  Well, we’re not “giving to the church,” as though it is something other than ourselves.  We’re not giving to someone else’s ministry.  We’re contributing to our common life here at St. Mark’s.  Should we contribute to our common life?  Well, if we want a building to come together and pray in, yeah. 

That’s not giving to God’s ministry as though it is separate from ourselves.  Deciding that we want a common life together and contributing to that life financially is a blessed thing and a wonderful way to be and to live together.  We pray with and for each other.  We share our faith.  We the joys of our lives and our sorrows together.  We share Jesus with one another. 

Does that mean we are supposed to contribute every last dime we have?  Well, I supposed if we all lived in the same house and shared cars and food, then sure, but we don’t.  Are we supposed to look at the widow in our Gospel story and feel like compared to her we are terrible, faithless people?  No.  I don’t think that’s the point of the story. 

We don’t function and live for the sake of our religion.  Our religion, the practices of our faith, the ways of the Episcopal church, function for our sake.  In pointing out the widow in the story today, Jesus is once again showing us God’s grace.  Contra all the Jiffy Dillards out there, God’s grace is not that if we give enough to make our religion rich and mighty then God will forgive us of our sins and dislike us a little less. 

God’s grace is that he loves us, period.  God’s grace is that he forgives us, period.  God knows we mess us.  God’s knows it’s hard to be human.  God knows we are bound by our sin, feeling shame and regret over the things we’ve done which have hurt people and hurt ourselves.  God’s grace is that he loves us, with all that crud, and he frees us from it, taking our sin, holding it for us, and saying, “you are beloved.”  God’s grace is that he cares for those we often forget to care about, and he then reminds us to care for those people as well. 

God does tell us to give, give.  Give, give the grace that you have received.  Give, give the love with which you are loved.  Give, give the forgiveness with which you have been forgiven.  Give, give the thoughtfulness, the care, and concern which God gives even and especially to those we often forget.  Amen.