Sermon: Not of This World (2018)

Originally delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on November 25, 2012, Christ the King Sunday

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Not of This World

Audio Version

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”  Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.  What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?”  Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.  For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

John 18:33-37 (NRSV)

Heal my heart and make it clean

Open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like You have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks Yours

Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause

As I walk from earth into eternity

From “Hosanna” by Brooke Fraser

Church congregations around the world order worship around the liturgical calendar.  By observing the various seasons and holy days of the liturgical calendar, we essentially reenact the entire Biblical history of the Church over the course of a year.

During the season of Advent, we look around us and see that the world is not as it should be, and we remember that we, like the ancient Israelites, are waiting for our Messiah to come into the world to set things right.  At Christmas, we join with the shepherds and heavenly choirs in welcoming Jesus Christ, our newborn King, into the world.  On Epiphany Sunday, we watch as astrologers from the East arrive to pay homage to a young Jesus, presenting Him with extravagant offerings of myrrh, incense, and gold.

After Epiphany, we remember the Baptism of the Lord, and travel with Jesus to the Jordan River.  We see the heavens open; we hear a loud voice call out, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”; and we see the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of dove.  On Transfiguration Sunday, we hike up a mountain with Peter, James, and John, and we fall to the ground as we watch a glowing, radiant Jesus speak with Moses and Elijah.

During the season of Lent, we follow Jesus into the wilderness where, over the course of forty days, we confront our own weaknesses, temptations, and demons, all the while knowing what lies ahead of us.

On Palm Sunday, we follow Jesus as He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, greeted with the accolades of the people.  We see palm branches waving in the air, and we hear shouts of “Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

On Maundy Thursday, we sit around the table with Jesus and watch as He takes some bread, breaks it, and gives it to us, saying, “This is my body.”  Then we watch as He passes a cup of wine to us, saying, “This is my blood.”  Throughout the meal, we feel the weight of the bag of silver in our pockets.  Afterward, we watch as Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.  On Good Friday, we watch the man who was supposed to be our Messiah languish on a cross, crying out, “My God!  My God!  Why have you forsaken me?”  We see the sky turn black and feel the earth shake beneath our feet as we watch Him breathe His last breath.

On Easter Sunday, we run with Peter, John, and Mary Magdalene to Jesus' tomb and find it opened and empty, and, just when we least expect it, our eyes are opened, and we see that Christ our Lord is risen and that not even death could stop Him.  On Ascension Sunday, we watch our Lord disappear into the clouds as He tells us that we will be His messengers to the whole world.  On Pentecost, we hear a mighty rushing wind and then watch as the Disciples are baptized by tongues of fire, and we remember that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we carry the Good News of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

Throughout the rest of the year, we stand with Peter, James, John, Paul, and others, trying to figure out what it means to be the Church, the Body of Christ.

On All Saints Sunday, we remember all the saints who have come and gone before us, the “great cloud of witnesses,” the great multitude who have come out of the great tribulation that is this life and have washed their robes clean.

Today, on Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar, we come full circle.  Again we look around us and see that the world is not as it should be, and we remember that we are waiting for our Messiah to come back into the world to set things right.  We await the day when heaven and earth are made new and when the new holy city comes down from heaven like a bride walking down the aisle toward her groom.  We await the day when God's home is among humans and when God brings healing to all nations and wipes the tears from our eyes.

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Today we return briefly to a scene from Good Friday.  During the night, Jesus had been betrayed by one of His own disciples, arrested in a garden by soldiers and temple guards, and taken before the high priest for questioning.  Now it is early in the morning, and Jesus has been taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.¹  Pilate asks Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus responds, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

Pilate fires back, “I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.  What have you done?”

Jesus then says to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world.”

It is this statement I want to examine today.  What does Jesus mean when He says that His kingdom is not of this world?

Jesus continues, “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  At first, it might sound as if Jesus is saying that, because His kingdom is not from this world, He has nobody to fight for Him.  On Good Friday, we criticize the Disciples for running away with their tails between their legs when Jesus is arrested, but, if we read the stories of Jesus' arrest carefully, we will see that the Disciples' first impulse is to draw their swords and strike.²  Peter even attacks one of Jesus' captors, cutting off his ear.  The Disciples are ready, willing, and able to fight – but Jesus says to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath.”³

Earlier in the Gospel story, Jesus feeds five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, and somehow the Disciples manage to collect twelve baskets of leftovers.  When the people see this feat, they begin to think that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the prophets.  Jesus has to get away from the people because He knows that they intend to “take him by force to make him king.”⁴  Not only does Jesus have disciples who are willing to fight to protect Him, He also has followers who are willing to take on the Roman Empire to make Him king!

When Jesus tells Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world, I believe He means that His kingdom is fundamentally different from the kingdoms of this world.  Jesus once said, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.”⁵  All we have to do is to open the newspaper or turn on the news to be reminded that the kingdoms of this world operate on violence.  Historically, the kingdoms of this world have worked out their disputes by going to war.  Maybe Jesus refuses to let people fight for Him because His kingdom operates differently from the kingdoms of this world.

In Jesus' day, there was within the hearts of the Jewish people a hope for a messianic age of peace.  The Greek phrase often used in the New Testament to refer to life in this coming age is zoe aionios, which literally means life of the age.  This phrase is typically translated into English as eternal life.  To the Jewish people, the “present age” was marked with suffering, oppression, and violence, but the “age to come” would be an age of peace, justice, and healing.⁶  When Jesus performs miracles – feeding five thousand people with a sack lunch, for example – people begin to suspect that He is the Messiah who will usher in the coming age of peace.

Jesus has people who are willing to fight for Him, but He has nobody who is willing to suffer with Him.  The Messiah is expected to be a great warrior king who will ride into town on a white horse and liberate the people from the oppression of the Roman Empire.  Jesus, on the other hand, is a humble rabbi who rides into town on a modest donkey and is executed on a Roman cross.

We sometimes call the week preceding Easter Passion Week.  The word passion literally means “suffering,” but, in our day and time, we typically associate passion with love.  These two meanings are not unrelated, for it is only by love that one is able to suffer for another person.  Jesus' kingdom, the Kingdom of God, could not be brought into the world through violence, but only through God's love and Christ's suffering.  Christ did not fight political oppression; He fought the oppression of sin and death.  Christ drank the cup of sin and death when He suffered and died on the cross, and He triumphed over them when He left behind an empty tomb.

When we celebrate Holy Communion, we “declare the mystery of faith” that “Christ has died,” that “Christ is risen,” and that “Christ will come again.”  Today, on Christ the King Sunday, we focus on the last part of this mystery.  Like the ancient Israelites, we realize that our present age is plagued with violence, poverty, oppression, and suffering, and, like the ancient Israelites, we look forward to the day when our Messiah comes “in final victory” to usher in the age of peace foretold by the prophets.⁷

The prophet Isaiah proclaims the following about the messianic age of peace:

In days to come

the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised above the hills;

all the nations shall stream to it.

Many peoples shall come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning-hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more.⁸

The reign of Christ will mean the end of the injustice that is so prevalent in this present age.  If you pay attention to the news, you will see story after story of people being victimized and exploited.  Isaiah says that, in the age to come, God will be judge and arbitrator.  Gone will be all injustice and all perversions of justice.  The reign of Christ will also mean the end of all violence.  Isaiah prophesies that people will no longer go to war with each other, nor will they even learn how to fight.  Swords and spears will be turned into plowshares and pruning-hooks.  To speak in modern terms, tanks, guns, and drones will be dismantled, melted down, and recycled to make tractors.

Isaiah also offers this description of the world when the Messiah reigns:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze,

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

They will not hurt or destroy

on all my holy mountain;

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.⁹

The reign of Christ will mean the end of oppression.  Isaiah envisions creatures that are normally in predator-prey relationships eating and resting together.  The strong will no longer take advantage of the week, nor will the wealthy take advantage of the poor.  Former politicians and business tycoons will befriend people who were formerly homeless.  Former CEOs will sit down to dinner with the former assembly line workers who once made them rich.

St. John the Revelator had a vision of the age to come when heaven and earth are made new.¹⁰  In the midst of this vision he heard a loud voice saying,

See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.¹¹

The reign of Christ will mean the end of death, sadness, and pain.

When we look at the world around us, the reign of Christ seems far, far away, but, then again, maybe it is closer than we think.  Jesus once said, “The Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!'  For, in fact, the Kingdom of God is among you.”¹²  The Kingdom of God is sometimes described as both “already” and “not yet.”  Though it can be understood as a time in the future when God reigns on the earth, having done away with injustice, oppression, violence, and death, it can also be understood as simply the place where God reigns.  John Wesley once defined the Kingdom of God as the “happiness and holiness” that is “the immediate fruit of God's reigning in the soul.”¹³  If God reigns in our hearts, then we are the citizens of the Kingdom of God.

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When Christians speak of the end times, the conversation sometimes turns to the subject of readiness.  Some have used the books of Revelation and Daniel and various teaching of Jesus and St. Paul to piece together a timeline of events that will precede the return and reign of Christ.  Some believe that, at some point, all true followers of Christ will be spontaneously taken to heaven in an event called the “Rapture.”  Those who remain will face a seven-year period of hell on earth called the “Great Tribulation,” during which the world will be under the dominion of an evil ruler called the “Antichrist” or the “Beast.”  This period of time will end with the Battle of Armageddon, after which Christ will return to reign on the earth.

People who strongly believe in this framework take great measures to make sure that people are ready for the end times.  In the 90s, two authors started writing a popular fiction series to educate people about end-time events.  Some look to current events as signs that the end times are near, and some try to figure out who the Antichrist might be.  Some have even made videos to instruct the people who will be "left behind" after the Rapture.  Several years ago, one man thought he had found a formula in Scripture to calculate the exact date of the Rapture, and he determined that it would occur on May 21, 2011.  Many people believed him, and they left everything behind and devoted their lives to warning people.  This date came and went, and the Rapture did not happen.¹⁴  This man was not the first person to make such a mistake: years earlier someone else wrote a book titled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.

I don't believe that such measures are the best ways to prepare for the reign of Christ.  First of all, it is important to remember that the popular framework of end-times events is simply a theory based on a particular interpretation of Scripture.  The truth is that we really do not know what will happen between now and the day Christ returns.  Second, it is pointless to try to figure out when Christ will return.  Jesus said that even He, the Son of God, does not know when that day will come.¹⁵

Perhaps there is a better way to prepare for the reign of Christ.

When Jesus began His public ministry, one of His first messages was, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”¹⁶  The Greek word metanoia, which is translated into English as repentance, literally means a change mind.¹⁷  The Kingdom of God is fundamentally different from the kingdoms of this world.  When Christ reigns, the world will operate very differently from the way it operates now, so we need to be willing to change the way we think about everything.  St. Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”¹⁸

I think that the best way to be ready for the reign of Christ on earth is to let Christ reign in our lives right now.  The words we pray so often – “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done [on] earth, as it is in heaven”¹⁹ – should be for us not a wish for the future, but rather a mission statement that guides everything we do today.  We must show other people what it means to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God.

One day, some parents bring their children to Jesus.  The Disciples try to send them away, but Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”²⁰  In Jesus' time, children had low status in society, but in the Kingdom of God, social status does not matter.  I believe that children are actually more ready for the Kingdom of God than the rest of us.  When we are young, we are idealistic, but the grown-ups around us scoff at our innocence, saying that someday we'll understand how the world really works.  Inevitably, the world squishes the spirit out of us, and idealism gives way to cynicism.  Little children have not yet conformed to the patterns of this world, and, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, we must reclaim the childlike hope, wonder, joy, and love we once knew.

Today, on Christ the King Sunday, we remember that the present age will someday come to an end and that Christ will someday return to reign on the earth in an age of peace.  May we let Christ reign in our hearts today, that we may be ready for Christ to reign over the whole earth.  May we live as children of the Kingdom of God.

Christ says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

“Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!”²¹


Notes:

1. John 18:1-32
2. Luke 22:49
3. John 18:10-11 (NRSV)
4. John 6:1-15 (NRSV)
5. Matthew 24:6 (NRSV)
6. N.T. Wright.  “Going to Heaven?”  Published in The Love Wins Companion.  2011, HarperOne.  pp. 33-35
7. Quoted phrases are taken from Holy Communion liturgy.
8. Isaiah 2:2-4 (NRSV)
9. Isaiah 11:6-9 (NRSV)
10. Revelation 21:1-22:5
11. Revelation 21:3-4 (NRSV)
12. Luke 17:20-21 (NRSV)
13. John Wesley.  Sermon 7: “The Way to the Kingdom.”  part I, paragraph 12
14. Tiffany Stanley.  “No Rapture, Just Judgment.”  NPR's The New Republic, May 23, 2011.
15. Matthew 24:36
16. Matthew 4:17 (NRSV)
17. Wikipedia: “Metanoia (Theology)”
18. Romans 12:2 (NRSV)
19. Matthew 6:10 (KJV)
20. Matthew 19:13-15 (NRSV)
21. Revelation 22:20 (NRSV)

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem was painted by Benjamin Haydon in the nineteenth century.  Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was painted by Viktor Vasnetsov in the nineteenth century.

Introspection: Gone Fishing

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Gone Fishing

Simon Peter told them, "I'm going fishing."

They said, "We'll go with you."  They set out in a boat, but throughout the night they caught nothing.

John 21:3 (CEB)

Hey you

Out there beyond the wall

Breaking bottles in the hall

Can you help me?

From "Hey You" by Pink Floyd

For the last few weeks, the pastors of my church have been preaching a series of sermons based on the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero.¹  Reading the book for myself and discussing the sermons with my small group have helped me to gain a new perspective on some things in my life.

In one chapter of the book, Scazzero describes what he calls the "Wall."  The Wall is what St. John of the Cross called the "Dark Night of the Soul."  It is a season in one's life marked by doubt and spiritual dryness.  This season is often brought on by some sort of crisis or disappointment.  During this time, God might seem distant, and one's faith might not seem to work as it once did.  When we reach the Wall, we need to somehow make our way through it, but we will need God's help.  Many people find themselves stuck at the Wall, while others bounce off the wall more entrenched in their ways.²

As for me, I feel like I hit a Wall back in 2013.

A couple of my friends from my small group, both of whom are retired pastors, seem to think that I ought to go into the ministry.  December 28 of this year will be the tenth anniversary of the day I delivered my very first sermon, so the idea of going into the ministry is not new to me.  For a while, I thought I might actually be headed in that direction.  To dip my toe into the water, I started preaching at my home church.  Later on, I started taking classes with Lay Servant Ministries so that I could fill in as preacher at other churches within my denomination.

A series of events starting in 2013 showed me that I just don't love people enough to be a pastor.  I realized that I tend to bail out on people when I feel that they want too much from me.  There is simply no point in trying to be a minister if I'm too selfish to minister to people.  I did feel as though a rift had opened between myself and God, not because I felt that God had disappointed me but because I felt that I had disappointed God.

What Scazzero calls the Wall, my pastor Jonathan calls the "Wilderness."  In his sermon on the subject, he referenced a number of people in the Bible who went through a Wilderness of some sort.  At God's call, Abraham and Sarah journeyed through the wilderness into the unknown.  After leaving Egypt, Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years before they finally reached the Promised Land.  Elijah fled into the wilderness when the queen threatened his life.  The Israelites walked again through the wilderness into exile when their homeland was conquered.  Even Jesus himself wandered the wilderness for forty days, where He faced temptation.  Jonathan encouraged the congregation to consider which of these stories parallel our own.³

When it comes to my own experience at the Wall, the Biblical story that resonates the most with me is that of Peter.  Once known as Simon, Peter left behind his job as a fisherman to become a student of Jesus.  Always the most brash and most eager of the Disciples, Peter once declared that he was willing to die for Jesus.  Jesus, who knew that trouble was coming, warned Peter that he would deny knowing Him three times by morning.⁴  A few hours later, after Jesus was arrested, Peter denied that he knew Jesus, just as Jesus had predicted.⁵

I suspect that Peter hit a Wall of his own when he denied Jesus.  One night, after Jesus had been crucified and resurrected, Peter told some of the other Disciples that he was going fishing.  The others went with him, and they spent the night catching nothing.  There are various interpretations regarding the significance of this fishing trip.  Personally, I suspect that Peter must have felt like a failure and that, by going fishing, he basically tendered his resignation as a disciple and returned to his former line of work.

When I hit my Wall, I too "went fishing," so to speak.  I gave up on ever becoming a pastor, and I kept doing what I was doing as a layperson.  I kept writing, teaching Sunday school, and preaching on occasion.  After years of taking classes, I was finally certified as a Lay Speaker, and I even started teaching one of the classes I had taken.

Peter might have resigned as a disciple, but Jesus reached out to him once again.  Three times, Peter had denied knowing Jesus.  Three times Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?"  Three times Peter said yes, and three times Jesus called him to feed His sheep.⁶  Peter was still a "rock" on whom Jesus would build His church.

The journey through the Wall is a time of learning and growth.  According to Scazzero, people who make it through the Wall become less judgmental, more comfortable with mystery, more patient, and more detached from their circumstances.  Scazzero said that, when he made it through his own Wall, he was more free from the opinions of others, more clear about who he is, and more assured of God's love for him.⁷

I'm not sure I've fully made it through the Wall, but I feel like I have been changed by my experience.  Looking back, I think that, if I gone into the ministry years ago, I would have been eaten alive.  People expect pastors to be all things to all people, and I have no doubt that I would have expected the same of myself.  I did not have clarity about what is mine to do and what is not mine to do.  I did not think realistically about what others should expect of me and what I should expect of myself.  I did not see a difference between being selfish and doing what is right for myself.  My experience at the Wall has forced me to reconsider such things.  I'm starting to see that neither selfishness nor selflessness is really a good way of life.  The world doesn't revolve around me, but I still matter.

I've never been very good at predicting my own future.  I suppose it's still possible that someday I'll find myself in pastoral ministry, but, for the time being, I'll keep on "fishing" by serving as a layperson.  Whatever happens, I think I'm better off having hit the Wall several years ago, because it showed me that, regardless of what I do, I have to be myself and not what everyone wants me to be.  If we could see the difficulties that obstruct the path ahead of us, we would doubtlessly take detours, but, when we look back on the trials we've faced, we can see how they've made us stronger.


Notes:

1. Peter Scazzero.  Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It's Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature.  2017, Zondervan.
2. Scazzero, ch. 4
3. Jonathan Tompkins.  "In the Wilderness."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 10/28/2018.
4. John 13:36-38
5. John 18:15-18, 25-27
6. John 21:15-17
7. Scazzero, ch. 4

The photograph of the fishermen was taken by Francis Hannaway and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Sermon: Two Cents on Justice

Delivered at McBee Chapel United Methodist Church in Conestee, South Carolina and at St. John United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on November 11, 2018

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Two Cents on Justice

Audio Version

As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!  They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.  They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury.  Many rich people put in large sums.  A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.  Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Mark 12:38-44 (NRSV)

Stopped at a red light, looked out my window

I saw a cardboard sign, said, “Help this homeless widow”

Just above this sign was the face of a human

I thought to myself, “God, what have I been doing?”

From “My Own Little World” by Matthew West

In early 2012, Jefferson Bethke stirred up a bit of controversy when he released a video in which he recites a poem he titled “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.”  He begins his poem by asking, “What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?”  He goes on to raise what I consider some very valid concerns, including the relationship between religion and partisan politics in our country, the tendency of religious people to be judgmental and hypocritical, and the reality that there have been numerous religiously motivated wars.¹  Bethke echoes the sentiments of many who argue that true Christianity is not a religion but rather a relationship with Christ.  Though I think I understand what they're trying to say, I suspect that they might have misunderstood the meaning of the word religion, for religion is the way we have a relationship with Christ.

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Jesus had been shaking things up ever since He entered Jerusalem.  On the first day of the week, He rode into town on a donkey, as if He was in a royal procession, while the crowds shouted, “Hosanna!”  On the next day, He stormed into the temple, turned over the tables where people were doing business, drove out the money changers and animal sellers, and blocked the door, effectively closing the temple for business.  On the third day of the week, the chief priests, the elders, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and supporters of King Herod struck back, asking Jesus loaded questions about authority, taxes, and resurrection, hoping to trap Him in His own words.  Fully aware of their intentions, He skillfully responded to all of their questions without getting caught in their snares.²

Jesus returned to the temple, having silenced His detractors, and He sat down near the treasury and watched as people gave monetary offerings.  A number of wealthy people came into the temple and gave large sums of money.  While Jesus was still watching, a poor widow came into a temple and gave two copper coins, which St. Mark tells us are worth a penny.  These two pennies were apparently all the money the widow had to her name.  Jesus called the Disciples over and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

This story is often told by preachers to encourage their congregations to be generous.  If this poor widow was willing to give her last two pennies to God, then how can we, who most likely have more than two pennies to rub together, be unwilling to give at least a tenth of our earnings?  Today, I would like to suggest maybe this story should deeply trouble us or even make us angry.

Before Jesus returned to the temple and watched people put money into the treasury, He issued an indictment against the scribes.  The scribes were essentially scholars of the Jewish Law.  They helped people to apply the Law to their everyday lives; they passed along the rules and regulations that were not put into writing; and, when necessary, they interpreted the Law in regards to specific situations people brought them.  Especially great scribes were given the title Rabbi.³  Jesus said that the scribes wore long robes, said lengthy prayers, relished being greeted with respect in public, and loved sitting in seats of prominence at gatherings.  Simply put, the scribes were showy, and they loved attention.

The most damning charge Jesus leveled against the scribes was that they “devour widow's houses.”  There are a number of interpretations regarding what Jesus meant.  William Barclay suggests that, because the scribes were forbidden from receiving payment for their work, some might have preyed on widows by convincing them that supporting them financially would earn them favor with God.⁴  Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan suggest that, as a literate and educated class of people, some scribes might have acted as predatory lenders, loaning large sums of money to widows and then foreclosing on their houses when they were unable to repay.⁵  Some have suggested that scribes might have managed the property of widows for a fee.⁶  In one Gospel, Jesus said, amid a litany of woes upon both the scribes and the Pharisees, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.”⁷

When it comes to the Jewish Law, we cannot discuss matters like justice and mercy without addressing the treatment of widows and other vulnerable persons, like orphans and immigrants.  When we read the books of the Law, we see that God has a special concern for such groups of people.  The Book of Deuteronomy describes God as an impartial Judge “who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.”⁸  According to the Law, widows and other vulnerable populations were to be protected.  In Exodus we read, “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.  You shall not abuse any widow or orphan.  If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry...”⁹  Exploitative practices like predatory lending were strictly forbidden.  Again, in Deuteronomy we read, “You shall not take a widow's garment in pledge.”¹⁰

The Jewish Law even provided a social safety net for widows and other people in need.  Every three years, farmers were required to give a tenth – or a “tithe” – of their crops for the year, so that people who could not provide for themselves would have something to eat.¹¹  Farmers were also forbidden from picking their fields clean, so that widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor could glean from what was left.¹²  You might remember a story about a widow named Ruth, who survived because a farmer named Boaz obeyed the Law and allowed her to gather grain from his field.¹³

When the people failed to extend justice and mercy to widows and other vulnerable persons, God sent the prophets to remind them of what God had called them to do.  For example, at a time when national leaders were acting unjustly, the prophet Isaiah reminded the people to “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, [and] plead for the widow.”¹⁴  Like Jesus, the prophet Jeremiah went to the temple to protest injustice, and he went so far as to suggest that God no longer dwelt in the temple.¹⁵  He said,
If you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.¹⁶

The story of the widow at the temple should upset us because the very fact that she had only two pennies on which to live shows us that something had gone horribly wrong within the religious establishment of Jesus' day.  A case in point is that the scribes, the very same people who were trusted to make sure that the Jewish people knew the Law – which mandated that they take care of widows and other vulnerable persons – were financially exploiting widows.  It is quite possible that the widow gave her last two pennies to the very same dysfunctional system that had already robbed her of everything else!

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After entering Jerusalem, Jesus began raging against the religious machine headquartered within the city, pronouncing Judgment upon it for all the ways it had neglected to do what it was established to do.

Before Jesus caused a ruckus at the temple, He spotted a leafing fig tree and started looking for figs.  Finding none, He cursed the tree, saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”¹⁷  The next day, when Jesus and the Disciples passed by the fig tree again, they saw that it had withered.¹⁸  Jesus' cursing the fig tree was a symbolic act of protest against the religious establishment.¹⁹  Jesus was suggesting that, in the same way that the fig tree left Him hungry, the religious system was leaving people spiritually and physically hungry, and that, as the fig tree quickly withered, so the days of the religious system were numbered.

When Jesus barged into the temple and drove out the animal sellers and money changers, He proclaimed, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?  But you have made it a den of robbers.”²⁰  We might be tempted to think that Jesus was angry about the apparent commercialism in a house of worship or that He was angry that people were being cheated there.  Both the animal sellers and money changers had legitimate purposes in the temple.  It would be difficult to travel long distances and arrive in Jerusalem with an animal still fit for sacrifice, and it would not be right to buy one in the Temple of the Lord with currency that exalts the Roman emperor.  It is important to note that a “den of robbers” is not the place where robbery happens but is rather the place to which robbers flee after they commit their crimes.  Jesus was basically saying that the temple was harboring perpetrators of injustice.²¹

When the Disciples expressed amazement that the fig tree Jesus cursed actually withered, Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.”²²  Jesus was not just making a commentary about the power of prayer.  When He said “this mountain,” He was referring not to some random mountain in the distance but to Mt. Zion, on which the temple was built.²³

When Jesus and the Disciples left the temple, having just watched the widow give her last two pennies, the Disciples marveled over the large buildings.  Jesus chillingly said, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”  He went on to describe the future destruction of the temple.²⁴

In Jesus' eyes, the religious system had failed.  Not only had it failed to uphold Scriptural justice, it had even become a perpetrator of injustice.  I am not suggesting, like Jefferson Bethke, that “Jesus came to abolish religion.”  The word religion is derived from Latin word ligare, from which we also get the word ligament.  A ligament, as you probably know, is the tissue that connects two bones at a joint.  Religion, as its name implies, exists to reconnect us to God and to one another.²⁵  I cannot imagine that Jesus would want to abolish anything that effectively draws people closer to God and closer to one another.  What I am suggesting is that Jesus is not very fond of dead, fruitless religion and that He views any religious system that exists primarily for its own preservation and glorification as disposable.

As a first-century Jew, Jesus had a lot of problems with the religious establishment of His day.  As twenty-first century Christians, we need to realize that no religious system of any era is immune to corruption and that our own is no exception.  We need to be willing to take a good, hard look at our own religious structures and to consider honestly whether or not they are doing what they were established to do.

Among the people who asked Jesus questions that day was a sincere scribe who actually wanted to know what Jesus thought about a particular matter.  Impressed with how Jesus answered all the other questions, he asked, “Which commandment is the first of all?”  Jesus replied, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’”  He continued, “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.”  Impressed with Jesus' answer, the scribe affirmed that loving God and one's neighbor is more important than offering sacrifices at the temple.  Jesus told the scribe that he was “not far from the kingdom of God.”²⁶

Notice that, even though the scribe only wanted to know what Jesus considered the most important commandment, Jesus offered him the most important and, for some reason, went on to offer him the second most important as well.  I think that maybe Jesus couldn't tell the scribe the most important commandment without also telling him the second.  Maybe loving God cannot be divorced from loving one's neighbor.  To paraphrase St. John, we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the neighbors we can see,²⁷ and we cannot love the Parent if we do not love the children.²⁸  We cannot love the Creator unless we love those made in the Creator's image.  In other words, our practices of piety must be accompanied by acts of justice and mercy.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we read about the first community that formed around the way of Jesus.  The first Christians did not abandon the Jewish imperative to serve and protect vulnerable populations.  Landowners within the community sold their property and laid the proceeds at the Disciples' feet, and the money was used to ensure that nobody in the community was in need.²⁹  They understood that, as Jesus taught, “from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required.”³⁰  At one point, a group of servants was appointed to ensure that food was delivered to widows.³¹  The Church began as a community of love for God and love for one another.

As time goes by, people have a tendency to lose sight of what really matters.  At the beginning of the Book of Revelation, the writer describes a vision of Jesus.  Jesus stands in the midst of seven lampstands, each of which represents a church in the region that is now modern-day Turkey, and Jesus dictates a letter to each of the seven churches.³²  In the letter to the church in Ephesus, He acknowledges the church's hard work, endurance, and discernment, but He goes on to say, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.  If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”³³  A church that has lost its love has lost its light... and its reason to exist.

Many Christians today are concerned that Christianity seems to be in decline in our country.  Maybe, instead of deflecting the blame onto the secular culture, we need to take a good hard, look at ourselves.  As the Church, are we doing what we have been called together to do?  Are we, to borrow a phrase from the prophet Micah, doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God?³⁴  Have we forgotten that our God is a God of the oppressed and the downtrodden?  Are we reaching out to people and meeting their needs, or are we leaving them spiritually and physically hungry?  Are we promoting justice, or are we harboring injustice?  Do justice and mercy accompany our piety?  May we be willing to look critically at ourselves and at our institutions; may we be honest about what we see; and may we repent of the ways we have gone astray.

Amen.


Notes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY
2. Mark 11:1-12:37
3. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 35-36
4. Barclay, pp. 350
5. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.  The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem.  2006, HarperOne.  p. 74
6. Chris Spearman, et al.  “The Widow's Last Dime.”  The Loft LA, 09/20/2014.
7. Matthew 23:23 (NRSV)
8. Deuteronomy 10:17-18 (NRSV)
9. Exodus 22:21-23 (NRSV)
10. Deuteronomy 24:17 (NRSV)
11. Deuteronomy 14:28-29
12. Deuteronomy 24:19-22, Leviticus 23:22
13. Ruth 2
14. Isaiah 1:17 (NRSV)
15. Jeremiah 7:1-4
16. Jeremiah 7:5-7 (NRSV)
17. Mark 11:12-14 (NRSV)
18. Mark 11:20-21
19. Borg and Crossan, p. 56
20. Mark 11:15-17 (NRSV)
21. Borg and Crossan, pp. 58-59
22. Mark 11:20-22 (NRSV)
23. Borg and Crossan, p. 56
24. Mark 13:1-23 (NRSV)
25. Kent Dobson.  “Religion, Rites + Rituals: Rebind.”  Mars Hill Bible Church, 04/07/2013.
26. Mark 12:28-34 (NRSV)
27. 1 John 4:20
28. 1 John 5:1
29. Acts 4:34-35
30. Luke 12:48 (NRSV)
31. Acts 6:1-6
32. Revelation 1:9-20
33. Rev 2:1-7 (NRSV)
34. Micah 6:8

The Pennies of the Poor Widow was painted by Paulus Lesire in the 1600s.