Love Until it Hurts

Mark 12:38-44

November 8, 2015

Two small copper coins that added up to a penny.

So this story is usually a good start for a stewardship sermon

The widow gave a little bit, but she gave “more”

because she had less money to begin with.

So if you have less money like the widow,

keep giving the little bit, don’t worry about it.

But if you have “more” money and you want to be

like that widow, then give even more money to the church,

And it will count as more.

It’s all about money, amounts of money, percentages of money.

Be like the widow be acceptable to Jesus

and give a large percentage of your money to our church.

Right? Someone in some church is giving that sermon right now.
If you’re quiet you can hear it.

Now there’s nothing wrong with that sermon really.

I do think this lesson that Jesus is teaching

is about giving, and faith and stewardship,

but maybe Jesus is not only talking about money.

I think there’s more.

Jesus is sitting with the disciples and watching

people put money into the treasury

people would put their offerings into large

metal urns that were small at the top and large at the bottom.

The only money was coins in that time

there were no check books or automatic transfers

so you could easily hear the difference between

a large contribution and a small contribution.

The large ones made a racket and no doubt

the people who gave them were happy to

make that racket and have everyone else hear.

  

The more you gave the better you were seen

in the eyes of the temple and the community.

And supposedly in the eyes of God.

Now, the people who gave large sums of money

may have actually been giving the same percentage

of their income as the widow gave.

We don’t know.

But I think the difference with the people

who gave out of their wealth and

the widow who gave out of her poverty

is that the widow actually felt it.

It made a difference in her life.

If she gave two coins,

that was money that she would have used

for food, rent, heat, bus fare.

She’s got no savings, no extra at the end of the month.

She gave that and she felt that loss.

The ones who gave larger sums that were a small portion

of what they had, it didn’t really make a difference to their life

they might have given a lot, they may have tithed,

but they still had enough for all their necessities

and probably some savings, movie nights,

new furniture when the mood struck,

and maybe even a week’s vacation at the Dead Sea.

They gave more money to the treasury,

it made more of an impact,

But they didn’t necessarily feel it

it didn’t make a difference in their lives.

  

A professor at Trinity tells the story of

baptism in the first century.

People were devoting themselves to Christianity

and getting baptized, washing their sins and

starting to live a new life.

But soldiers in the Roman army

would go into the waters of baptism and hold their

hand up outside the water because

that was the hand that would hold their sword

when they went into battle.

The habit of humans when dealing with God

and faith and religion is that people

feel drawn to it, but then we try to

to isolate it into a little corner of our lives

where it will do the least amount of harm

where it will cost us the least.

We say, okay, we’ll give up an hour of our lives

on an occasional Sunday but that’s it.

Don’t let my faith interfere with the way that I am already

conducting my life.

Don’t let it bother my schedule, my sports, my free time.

don’t let it change my opinion

don’t let it force me to make choices,

Don’t make me feel guilty,

Don’t challenge my convictions,

I don’t want to give up anything or change anything in my life.

I don’t want to be disturbed.

I don’t want to offend my friends.

I don’t want to have to choose between God’s way and my way.

Basically, let me keep God over here

and my life over here.

I don’t want to feel it.

If Jesus’s lesson is  only about giving the 

right amount or percentage of money to the church,

then the middle class and wealthy in our midst have it easy.

We get a free ride. All we have to do is write a check.

Even if it’s a big check, it probably all sort out next month.

So it’s not just about giving money.

It’s about giving ourselves.

If we’re doing this Jesus thing and we’re not feeling it

we’re doing it the wrong way.

- If we’re doing this church thing and we’re not feeling

uncomfortable at times, we’re not doing it right.

- if we’re following Jesus and hoping that he will just

take all our pain away and leave us happy and peaceful,

we’re not digging into the story of Jesus far enough.

-If we’re doing this and it’s not an inconvenience to our lives

there is something wrong with it.

The story of Jesus is s story of

God who loved us so much that

he would die for us.

Jesus shows us that love is not puppies and kittens,

or rainbows and unicorns.

There is joy, but love is often pain, sadness, struggle,

change, compromise, and love sometimes even involves blood.

The story of Jesus is not about skating by as easily as possible.

The story of Jesus is about loving until it hurts.

Maybe giving up money is what hurts the most for you.

Maybe it’s time, commitment, closeness,

vulnerability, forgiveness, control,

where is your poverty that God wants you to give out of?

  

That day in the temple,

the widow gave her last two coins.

I can guarantee that no one noticed the

quiet sound of them going into the treasury.

Not the rich people who had big, noisy bags of money to give.

Not the Pharisees who were too busy showing off their

long robes and making up their long prayers.

But Jesus noticed. Jesus noticed the smallest offering.

And the good news is,

And God notices our gifts too.

God knows and cares about our struggles, our worries,

God notices the little that we give that are hard for us to give.

Those little ways that we try to live out our baptismal calling.

God is with us on our journey of faith.

Even if those gifts are as small as two little coins.

Jesus notices them.

Whether we’re rich or poor.

We are not alone in our struggles here.

The good news is that God loves us until it hurts.