Our readings this week, as so often, amplify the place of tension and paradox that so many of us find ourselves in. (Mark 12:38-44. Twenty fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Proper 27 [O32]) Many of us, whether due to election results, or the horrific news of ongoing violence, or the destructive outworkings of climate change, or our own personal struggles, find ourselves with Jesus in the beloved city of Jerusalem for a showdown between love and hate, hope and fear, faith and despair, and life and death. And with Jesus we are invited to focus on the power of two coins worth of faith – of doing and being who we are called to be – in the face of overwhelming issues.
We think we know the widow’s story well because we learnt it at Sunday School and because we have probably heard many a sermon or appeal for donations using this Scripture. This widow is held up as the example of how any and all of us can be generous for God and of how God can use this generosity to further the kingdom. And I think that this is true enough – she is a wonderful example of generosity and faithfulness which I am sure God can use for God’s good purposes. But I also think something a bit edgier is going on as well.
Firstly, as our Old Testament story indicates, Jesus is not preaching out of a vacuum but out of a long and established tradition of stories about widows and other barren women. Women don’t appear very often in the Old, or even New, Testaments. And even when they do they frequently don’t have personal names. So when they do appear you can be sure that the author is about to make an important point usually to the effect that God is so powerful and God’s purposes are so important that they can be achieved even through the role of women – or the unnamed apparently powerless ones!
Indeed there is some sense that the more lowly the human actor the more glory goes to God. There is also the related theme that humble faithful humans, male and female, can be used in bringing about the purposes of God. More contemporary theologies would emphasise that humanity and God are co-creators of the kingdom. So our story this week of the faithful widow who shares her last meal with the prophet and thus plays her part in God bringing judgement and renewal to the land is an important backdrop to the gospel story.
Secondly Jesus has been making many comments about the arrogance, hypocrisy, and this week the outright corruption of those who run the temple. Mark and the other gospel writers, particularly Matthew, seem to see the destruction of the temple in 70 CE as a judgement by God that the temple was so corrupt that it had to be destroyed. So Jesus is not only making a strong contrast between the scribes and the widow but also, I think, saying that the widow’s lot is as hard as it is because of the injustice and hypocrisy of the religious scribes! Doubly damming.
And thirdly, and inconveniently, Jesus also seems to be holding up her sacrificial generosity as a model of the life of discipleship “... but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” This is sacrificial giving. Now many of us will work hard to reduce the sacrificial aspect of this teaching and contextualise its unpalatable implications. But many of us pray week by week as part of our liturgy, just before we are sent out into the world that God loves, “...send us out as a living sacrifice”. What might we mean by this?
Firstly that as Christians we do believe that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection has created a living way between us and God. That we are justified or saved or made alive most fully through faith and relationship with the divine and not by our good works or sacrifices. This is foundational to our understanding of the life we are called into.
Secondly that we are called to be living sacrifices – that is fully alive, drawn into life abundant and the fruits of the spirit include joy, peace and love. That the divine gift to us, and our gift to the communities of which we are apart, is life. Even in the hard times. Even in the hard places. Particularly in the hard times and places.
But thirdly, and there is no getting away from it, that we are called into a life of sacrificial living. For some this includes the ultimate sacrifice of life being taken away, as with the martyrs. But for all this includes a life in which we seek to give up and to give over all that separates us from God. For most this includes giving material wealth up and over for the needs of the kingdom and our neighbours – to church, to charity, to family etc for the needs of today and the hopes of tomorrow. But for all of us the sacrificial life includes the more constant and subtle giving up what keeps us small and anxious and distracted from God.
Day by day we are asked to give up ideas about ourselves and others that are too small or too grandiose.
I believe that we are called to live fully – full of hope, joy, love, forgiveness, gratitude and peace enjoying all that God has given us in creation and the human family. And full of tender concern, of loving kindness – in feelings and action – for others. And that sort of fullness will lead us into lives that are a living sacrifice.
Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ come lead us on paths of life, hope, faith and love even in hard times and places.
This is my work informed by all i have heard, read, and experienced. This week all I have to offer is my own humble reflection and re-commitment to live fully.
If you are thinking ahead to Advent you may like to consider this work.
Comments