Pentecost 23

Truly I say to you that this poor widow put in more than all the others who were contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed from their abundance. But she from her poverty contributed all she had, the whole of her life.

So how much do you give? When you put your offering in the plate on Sunday morning, how much have you put in? Is it a lot? A little? Have you given freely and willingly? Have you held something back? How much do you put in?
And don't think I am talking about currency. Our coins and dollar bills have numbers on them to rank them in order of their value. Pennies and nickels and dimes. 5's, 10's and 20's. We count them up. We collect them. We store them away for when we think we might need them. We keep careful track of them – where we spend them, how much of them we have spent and how many of them we have left over. We compare how many of them we have versus how many of them we think we may need. And then comes Sunday morning. Time to put some of those hard earned and easily spent dollars into the offering plate. How many do we put in? How many can we afford to do without? How many have you put in?
When we begin to think about our offerings to God and to the church we always ask the wrong question. We think that the amount has to do with the little numbers in the corner of the bill – is it a 5, a 20, a 50 or even a 100? God doesn't care about those numbers. While those numbers mean everything to us, they mean nothing to God. God, after all doesn't have a buget. He doesn't need to save up for things. He doesn't need to earn things. Everything is already his to begin with. Our currency and the numbers we put on it don't impress God at all. Rather what impresses God is what is found in your heart. When you count up those dollar bills and place a few of them in the offering plate how much of your heart, how much of yourself have you placed into that envelope. That is the real question. That is the question that God is interested to answer.
In our Gospel reading for today Jesus and his disciples were witnessing the contributions given to the temple treasury. There were receptacle placed around the temple where people could come and deposit their gifts. Many, in a show of their abundant means and their great wealth, not to mention their supposed religious devotion, placed large sums into the treasury. (How impressive must that have been?) Yet Jesus was unmoved by their giving. Yes he saw what they gave, but more than that, Jesus saw what they did not give, Jesus saw what they held back in their hearts. And then a poor widow came to the temple treasury. She had two small copper coins in her hand. The sum total of her subsistence. She placed both in the temple treasury. Both of her coins. Every last penny she had to her name, the whole lot of it, she gave into the temple treasury.
We might pause to ask ourselves why. What was the point of giving those coins? Their value was small. Two pennies wouldn't do the temple much good, they wouldn't cover the cost of maintaining its building and structure. They wouldn't pay the wage for the priests. They would likely get lost in the shuffle. And for that matter, why give both of them? She had two. Why not give one and keep the second to buy a piece of bread?
Jesus knew. He understood her motive. He understood the reason for her gift. Again, Jesus was not impressed with the amounts, with the numbers, with the accounting of the coins. This woman was not giving her coins to God. She was not counting up the dollars and sense the way that we do. She gave herself. Everything she had. She held nothing back. She gave her gift to God and she gave it all. While everyone else at the temple was impressed with the numbers, Jesus was impressed with the heart.
So how about you? How much do you give? Today in our Stewardship Sunday, our pledge Sunday. Our board of Stewardship is interestd to encourage you to think about your gift to God – not just the amount. Not just the number printed on the paper that you put into the envelope. What is the condition of your heart? How much of your self have you put in to that envelope or offering plate? Have you given your all?
Let's be honest – with ourselves and with God. We haven't even come close. And I am not talking about the numbers on the bills or on the checks that you have put in. I am here talking about our hearts. We haven't even come close to giving our selves, our hearts, to God. We have held back.
These are lean economic times. I saw in the news paper that unemployment is up to 10%. That makes us nervous. That makes us feel like we have to
Stewardship sermons are always offensive to people. The pastor is going to tell me I have to give more money. Maybe we are paying him too much. Maybe we are paying too much for the school, for the teachers, to the district and synod. We might not have raised our hand either way at the voters meeting, but we still cast our ballot with our dollars.

Our currency
Every Five? Ten? Fifty? One Hundred dollars a week? Have you given enough? Could you or perhaps should you give more?
The widow in our text today gave everything. If only we could say the same...
Today is our pledge Sunday. Our Board of Stewardship has made it its intention to assist our members in planing for their gifts to God and to the Church. We do that by means of a pledge Sunday. You get a card. You fill it out and put it in an envelope. We store it away for you here at the church and send it back so you can test yourself against your pledge. Some of you will participate. Some will not. Either is fine; God does not command us to pledge. He does not even command an offering from us at all. It is up to your freedom as a Christian to decide if you will give, let alone to decide what you will give. And so we pledge. Whether you have written it down on a card to place in a box or whether you have just determined in your own heart what you will give, what have you pledged? Have you given enough?
Usually when we consider that question, we think in incremental terms. We measure out our gifts by counting coins and percentage points. We think if we give up to and including these certain amounts than we can say that we have given enough. We think that we can claim that we have done our part. Usually what we really mean, usually what we are too ashamed to say, is that I don't have to do or give any more. I have done my part, now you do yours.
Faith doesn't talk that way.
Faith doesn't count and measure. Faith doesn't weigh and compare. Faith simply receives from an empty hand and then responds with thanks. Faith says to God, “I have nothing. You have given everything.” Faith says to the neighbor, “God has given to me. Therefor I will give of myself to you.”
Notice the example of the widow. She made her way to the temple and placed her offering into the temple treasury. She was not the only one who came that day. There were others. Many bringing large gifts and ostentatiously placing them into the receptacle, wanting to attract attention for their large sums that they were giving. Jesus was not impressed with large their amounts and their outward demonstrations. The widow came with everything she had – two small copper coins. A few pennies, a she put them both in the temple treasury. Jesus took note of her gift. Because Jesus knew that while her gift was small compared to the large sums given by the wealthy, her gift was greater because she gave everything she had.
The question I would like to put before you today is this; why? Why did she give? It certainly wasn't because the temple couldn't do without her gift. After all, how much can you do with a few pennies. They weren't going to use the money to hire another priest or add a new wing. It probably wouldn't have even have paid for a loaf of the show bread that they used in their offerings. What good would her offering do for the temple? No, that wasn't why she gave. She didn't give because she thought her gift was necessary for the temple.
Also notice the amount that she gave. Mark distinctly tells us that she had 2 pennies. Not just one. She had 2. She gave them both. Surely she could have gotten by with given only one. Surely she would have had good reason to with hold one of her pennies – she needed it for her next meal. But she didn't. She was poor – had 2 pennies to her name. She went to the temple and gave both to the treasury, offered both to God. Why?
Jesus tells us why. You and I are limited in our understanding and in our knowledge. We could not determine why. But Jesus was able and he tells us. She gave her whole life.
Our translation tells us that she gave all she had to live on. This is true, but this is not the most literal translation – the text literally says that she gave “the whole of her life”. She held nothing back and she gave everything.
Oh yes, we might be tempted to say but that was easy for her. She didn't have that much to part with in the first place. I have a church worker friend who sat through a congregational budget meeting with a man who worked as an executive in a large corporation. The executive told my friend that it was easier for him to tithe since he didn't earn that much. He had a smaller check to write – True. But he also had less left over.
In a sense the man was right, however. It is easier to part with your money when you are poor. It's like Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Rich people have more stuff, more baggage that they feel compelled to carry with them. They have worked too hard collecting it all to let it slip away so quickly. You and I fall into that same category. When we consider our offering we spend too much time worrying about what we have left when we are done. God takes his cut. Uncle Sam takes his. Everything else gets divvied up between the banks and the credit card companies.
So Jesus commends the woman for her gift, meager though it was, of two small coins. She gave more than all the other because she gave from her poverty while they gave from their abundance.
The difference is faith. When you are rich it is easy to put your faith in your bank account. It is easy to believe that you are safe and secure because you have enough money to bail you out of trouble. When you are poor all you have is faith. All you have is God. All you have is God's promise that He is good. That he will feed you, that he will clothe you, that he will shelter you. This woman believed God's promise and she put her life, the whole of it, securely into God's hands. How about you?
While we might be impressed with the example of the widow, how she gave everything and held nothing back, while she completely put her life in the hands of God, lets consider the greater example of Jesus. If the widow was completely in the hands of God, Jesus was and more so.
Jesus placed himself in the hands of his father – completely and totally. Jesus was raised in the house of a carpenter. His father taught him the trade of wood work and surely Jesus could have a career of this. He could have earned a living wage and had a house and food and family. But he did not. Jesus did not come to earn a living for himself, he came to earn life for you. So instead of a house, a business, a job, Jesus lived his life completely in the hands of His Father.
Setting aside his hammer and saw and lathe Jesus took up the vocation of Messiah. Not a well paying occupation – infact not even a paying vocation. Surely there were supporters and donors who provided him with food to eat and a place to stay when he had need. But day to day, Jesus had no home, no steady income, no promise of a meal for today let alone tomorrow. Jesus was completely dependent upon the mercy and goodness of God. And God provided for him what he needed. Likewise will God provide for you.
But Jesus is far more than merely an example of faithful living and the goodness of God. Jesus is our Saviour. The reason why Jesus placed himself into God's hands and set aside all possessions and income was so that he might be the one who earns for us the forgiveness of sins.
Again, Jesus placed himself comletely and totally in God's hands. And look where that got him. It was God's will that Jesus, not only do without earthly comforts, not only suffer from hunger and thirst and cold. But that he suffer the very wrath and anger of God. Jesus felt the full force of God's anger for sin. Jesus stood in our place to face the anger of God at a world of sin so that we could be set free.
Jesus died on the cross for you.
We hold things back. We keep things for ourselves. We horde and guard. We foolishly think this hording and guarding preserves us and our life, that it provides our security. Jesus set all o these things and he suffered what we fear the most – being completely hung out to dry being completely helpless and alone. But he did it for you.
God's promise to you is this. Follow Jesus into his selflessness, follow him into his willingness to place hiimself entirely into the hands of the heavenly Father and he will care for you.

He will provide for you. He will not allow you to go hungry. He will provide for you moer than
For those times that you are selfish, for those times that you are too tied to your job, for those times that you have held back parts of your self and your income, for those times that you have



You and I are guilty of placing our confidence in our possessions and income. Jesus did not. He could not. After all, being the Messiah was not exactly a well paying vocation. Jesus was poor. As he said, he didn't even have his own bed to sleep in. He didn't own a pillow for his head, let alone a house, a horse, a business. He owned the clothes on his back and was at the mercy of others for their generosity to provide him with meals and a place to stay.
Yes, you might say, but Jesus was God. Whenever he wanted he could feed thousands with only a few loaves. Surely he could feed himself in a pinch. Yet when presented with that very opportunity, when tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread, he could have but he did not. Jesus chose to go hungry and to suffer rather than use his divine power to serve himself. Jesus was not, nor was he ever concerned to use his power, his authority, his glory for his own comfort or advantage. Jesus was always and ever a servant.
Consider also his clothing. God in his goodness has given to you and to me closets filled with clothes of many styles and colors and textures. Jesus had the clothes on his back


Amen.