Sermons for the Month
The Blessings of Trust and Risk
DATE: November 12th, 2006
SERVICE: 23rd Sunday After Pentecost
TEXT: 1 Kings 17:8-16 and Mark 12:38-44“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
We can learn something from four people whose stories I am about to tell. These four individuals have three things in common. First, they are all women. Second, they all faced particular challenges. And the third commonality we will get to later. Two of them are Biblical, and we do not know their names so they are identified as the Widow of Zarephath and the Widow of the Temple. The other two are modern women named Bernice and Ivory. Let's begin with the Widow of the Temple about whom we read in Mark 12. We know little detail about her other than the fact that she's poor, and it's no doubt true that the reason she's poor is because she's a widow. In the first century widows owned nothing; they were forced to live off of the good graces of male relatives and anyone in the community who might provide a meal or a little money. This widow is described by Jesus as being in the Temple at the Women's Court where metal receptacles to collect the offerings are located. The gifts are coins and the large gold ones make such a clanking noise upon being deposited that it's obvious whose offering is significant and whose is not. The widow's is not; she gives two small copper coins that hardly make any noise as they fall into the coffers. It probably was enough to purchase a simple meal, scholars say, so she may have missed supper that day. But, the larger point is that with or without the coins this woman still is a dependent person. So, when Jesus comments that she has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury he is noting not what she gave, but what she had left. You see, it is one thing to give generously while still having more than enough to live on and quite another to give when there is nothing left over. We'll come back to this Widow in a moment, but let's move on to Bernice's story. (1) Bernice is a single mother who has suffered abuse at the hands of the men in her life and who was addicted to cocaine. She had heard that a Lutheran church in her community was providing gifts for children at Christmas, so she requested help. On the morning she was picking up the gifts her plan was to sell them to buy enough drugs for an overdose. But, she was side-tracked into a conversation with a member of the church staff that led to prayer and a tearful embrace. Bernice later commented that the tears that were shed on her behalf opened her heart. She came back for Bible study that happened to focus on women whose messed-up lives had brought forth miracles. She asked if she could detox by sleeping in the church and stayed close to the altar night after night. By Easter she was clean and baptized. That's not the end of her story, but let's move on to the Widow of Zarephath. She is not an Israelite, and yet is used by God to save the Prophet Elijah. A terrible drought has descended on the land, a consequence of Israel's self-centered behavior. The Prophet survives for awhile by drinking water from a brook and eating bread and meat delivered by ravens. But, when the brook dries up he is sent by God to the village of Zarephath to find a widow who will feed him. Now keep in mind that this widow, this single mother, has to be one of the people most affected by the drought. Her needs would be at the bottom of anyone's list, and she's about to prepare a last supper for herself and her son when this man shows up asking for bread and water. That's not the end of that story either, but let me tell you about Ivory. I heard her story on NPR; she had written as essay for the "This I Believe" segment. (2) Ivory is a waitress and a college student who has done a tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force. She works at a diner in Texas and noted that the biggest need her customers have is not for coffee, but for a connection. She tells the story of a woman with rotted teeth and tired eyes who sat drinking coffee for three hours. She asked about the cost of one breakfast taco, a question Ivory could not answer because she had never served one by itself. So, Ivory offered her a free pancake breakfast, fibbing that it was leftover from an order she had messed up. When the woman asked to borrow bus fare, Ivory handed over tip money from her apron pocket. The woman smiled a ragged grin on the way out the door. As you might guess, there's more to that story too. But, let's back track. These are the four women and their stories. You may recall that I said they have three things in common; the first two are that they are women and they faced challenges. The third is that each one was called upon to trust and to risk. The Widow of the Temple could not depend on her money or her status, because she had neither. But she had enough, at least, for a modest meal and she risked even that, trusting that God and other people would be there for her. She is a reminder of what we are to be like before God, dependent on nothing but God's grace. She challenges us to think about what we count on to give us all we want and need from life. (3) Bernice risked being vulnerable in front of people who might have judged her. As it turned out there was plenty of opportunity for that; baptism did not fix her life. While she stayed clean of drugs, she ended up in more abusive relationships, brought more children into the world, lived in shelters and became infected with HIV. Yet, she trusted that God's love was unwavering, and drew on the power of the Holy Spirit to help other addicts, to seek education, and at the time her pastor wrote about her, she was serving as president of that congregation where at the altar she had let go of at least one of her enemies. And what do we know about the Widow of Zaraphath? This woman is about to die with her child, a mother unable to feed her boy, and she still manages to make that cake for the Prophet. Indeed an amazing thing then happened; that jar of meal and the jug of oil were never empty and they ate for many days. While Elijah predicted the miracle, she was the one who set that miracle in motion by her trust and her risky generosity.(4) Finally, we come to Ivory. She trusted that her simple attempts to break down isolation could make a difference and risked being disappointed and disillusioned. As it turned out, that did not happen. Three weeks after she gave away breakfast and her tip money the woman returned. She paid back the bus fare and offered to buy Ivory breakfast on her break. This cause Ivory to wonder, "Can one act of friendliness generate peace?" And so there we have the stories of four women, each one trusting and risking, and teaching us a lesson in the process. There are times when we are compelled to trust and to take risks, because circumstances are so dire that there is not much else we can do. Yet, as was true for the widows and for Bernice, we can always choose not to do so. And, there are other times when trusting and risking are among the list of many options, and it may well be that every other choice looks more attractive. In some ways that's the more difficult situation because it's easier not to step out into the unknown. In either case the choice is in our hands, will we crack the door open for God to respond in amazing ways? Just think about today's example. Jesus declared a poor widow as the epitome of faithfulness, a crack head became a church council president, three starving people were fed in the midst of a terrible drought and a waitress challenged the isolation of modern life and became a bearer of peace. And it all happened because they trusted and risked. Who knows what might be in store for us if we do the same!
AMEN
(1) "The widow's hand - Elijah and the widow of Zarephath" by Heidi Neumark, The Christian Century, Sept. 27, 2000, www.findarticles,com.
(2) "Peace Begins with One Person" by Ivory Harlow, "This I Believe" essays, www.npr.org
(3) "Widow's Walk" by Mary W. Anderson, The Christian Century, November 1, 2003, www.religion-online.org
(4) Same as (1)