I preached this sermon on Sunday, November 10, 2024 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH. The lectionary text cited is Mark 12:38-44, Jesus observing a widow giving her last coins to the temple.
I don’t have any stories of my own to tell this morning. I must begin by speaking plainly and naming something we all know: it’s been a complex week. And for many people (many of you, I know) a very difficult week. A lot of people are feeling a lot of intense things. That said, I know that we are not all feeling the same things, and that’s ok. That’s a normal part of human life in community. It’s complicated…and it’s ok.
But before I reflect on the story found in our Scriptures, I want to invite us to abide, together as a parish, for a moment, in that distinctive space where we have always been called to dwell as the Church–the place where humility and hope coexist. A place where each of us acknowledges the limits of our own understanding; where we affirm our desire to love one another as best we can; and where we commit to a generosity of spirit towards those who are experiencing this time differently from us. I want to encourage you to care for and look out for each other now and in the days to come. As I said at our prayer service on Wednesday evening, in times of anxiety and division, we must not lose sight of each other, or of ourselves, or of God.
The challenge, with God, is that sometimes we aren’t sure where to look for him, or even exactly what we are looking for. In stressful times, especially, his exact location and nature can feel elusive. We might look to the sky and say, where are you, God, where have you gone? Why don’t you come down here and do what we want you to do? Why have you left us to our own devices?
But perhaps part of the problem is that we are looking in the wrong places for signs of God’s presence and action. We think he’s in one place but really he’s in another place entirely. Those who were expecting Jesus to be a purely political messiah when he turned out to be a cosmic one is an example of this.
So it can be good, sometimes, to practice reframing the stories we tell.
I find it helpful, sometimes, in a retreat setting or a Bible study, to look at a particular passage in Scripture and to wonder where people might fit into the narrative. Where am I in this story, and where is my neighbor, and where is God? Sometimes it’s surprising what this exercise can reveal to us.
Take, for example, this morning’s Gospel, where Jesus is observing and commenting on the wealthy scribes and the poor widow and their respective gifts to the temple treasury. He wants his disciples to see something important, and he wants us to see something too—the question is, what exactly are we supposed to be looking at? Who are we meant to be in this story, and where is God at work in this story?
A cursory reading, and an interpretation I’ve heard many times, might suggest that we, the followers of Jesus, are meant to be like the widow. We are meant to give all we have to God, in whatever way we must. Dig deep and hand it over– your coins, your heart, your body and soul. You have nothing left to offer? That’s ok, give your very life itself.
And if the powers that be want to exploit you? Well, we all have our cross to bear. You’ll get rewarded in heaven.
That’s one version of the story.
And I don’t know, maybe its just because I am a little run down this week, but that story just sounds like a bunch of junk. That is not Good News. It does not sound like love or hope or fullness of life to be bled dry by an insatiable God who is counting up our coins on his throne, untroubled by our scarcity, unmoved by our poverty of spirit. That image has nothing to do with the Jesus we know in Scripture: the one who promises rest for the weary and freedom for the oppressed.
And that’s the problem with this interpretation—this assumption that we are to be the widow in this story. It mislocates God. It suggests that God is somehow bound up in those corrupted temple authorities. That God is an ally of those scribes who devour widow’s houses and drape themselves in the profits. It suggests that God is found in the gleam of gold and marble and the imperviousness of unjust systems. It suggests that holiness just means paying the current price of admission to privileged spaces, scrounging for whatever we have to hand over and prove our worth.
But the problem, which some of us know all too well, is that we can pay and pay and pay and yet those earthly authorities will still tell us we are not *quite* deserving of entering their holy of holies.
St. Anne, that is not a story I am interested in retelling. Too many of us have spent too much of our lives wondering whether we are worthy of love, figuring out how to give just a little more of ourselves to get into the club. The Jesus I know says we’re done playing that game. We’re done groveling for grace. It is free.
So what do we do instead, my friends? Where is God today, here, in this story and in this world where wealth and power still seem to dazzle and deceive at every turn? How do we find hope and strength when it’s hard to know where to look?
The answer to that question is the same today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow: God is found in the small and simple places, usually the ones where we didn’t think to look. God tends to show up in the ways that nobody expects from the Creator of the universe.
So if you are wondering where God is in this particular story that Jesus is showing us today…I would tell you that God is the widow.
God is the widow.
Because God has come into our midst with all he has—his love, his heart, his hope, and he has said to us: here, take it. Have it all. I am not holding anything back from you. I have never held anything back from you. My very life is yours, now. My Spirit is yours, always. It is all I can give you. It is the one thing I must give you, because it is the one thing that can’t be taken away.
Like that widow, God, in the flesh of Christ, is all in with us. He has cast his lot in with ours and he is standing here at the threshold of the temple of our hearts, waiting, hoping, wondering when we will look down and look within and see who he really is and find him where he actually tends to show up.
Which is in the faces of our neighbors. In the acts of kindness and care and generosity we can offer each other. And in the voices and the stories of those who are different from us, who are overlooked, or easily dismissed by the prevailing order.
Those are the places where we need to be looking for God right now. Because I think many people are living through a moment where certain narratives or expectations no longer seem to fit or make sense. And in such moments, one of the most important things we can do is to stay open to the new things that God might be trying to show us rather than retreating or hardening our hearts or turning our faces away from one another because the story didn’t go the way we thought it would.
If you are struggling to make sense of the world right now, that’s ok. It may take some time. And some things in this life never make much sense. But this much I know: God is still present in all of it, and we still have a part to play, too. We just have to decide what that part will be.
For us at St. Anne, I believe that part will look something like this:
We will be a community that continues to foster inclusivity and welcome for all people, no matter who they are, what they look like, who they love, how they vote, how much money they have, what language they speak, or where they were born.
We will be a community that speaks the truth in love–to one another and to those in power, whether in the church or in the public square.
We will be a community that takes seriously Jesus’ call to serve the least of these, because it is in such figures—the widows and the orphans and the neglected and the forgotten—where God will reveal himself to us most consistently.
We will be a community that is undaunted by the changes and chances of this world because we have each other, and we proclaim the victory of a love which favors no nationality or race or tongue or party.
We will be, in this Gospel story today, we ourselves will be the temple of God’s Spirit, doors ever open to receive him. He who comes not as a conquering king, but as a widow with two coins. And when she comes, this God of infinite generosity and care, we will say, oh, of course—there you are. We see you now. This is who you are. Come in. Come in. Come into your dwelling place, Holy One. Help us receive all that you want to give us.
And when we do…on that day the story we tell will be very good news.
By Another Road 