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.

---

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!

---

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.