Sometimes, the passages selected for a particular Sunday are just a gift to a preacher.  I mean, who could ask for anything better than Jesus approval of someone giving their last penny to the church during stewardship season?

I could just stand here and say – Jesus approved of what she did.  Do what she did.

This passage has often been preached as an example of for us.  If the poor widow could give her last two coins out of her poverty, the lesson goes, we should not be so resistant to giving generously out of our abundance.

But, seriously, don’t you think that if I were to suggest anyone put themselves into poverty to give to the church, you would all be asking, “What was she thinking?”

I have been thinking about this story this week, and I notice that Jesus does not affirm that the woman has come close to the kingdom; nor does he say “go and so likewise.”

In fact, I do wonder about the woman.  What was she thinking?  But before we get to that, it might be interesting to wonder what Jesus was thinking.  The gospel write provides a very interesting context for this story.

There is a foreclosure crisis – and Jesus is holding the religious officials responsible for it.  Throughout the development of Israel’s life, and the development of the culture of temple worship, there have been offerings and collections.  It has always been true that once religious life takes on an institutional structure, there is a need for money.  It is also true throughout the development of Israel’s life that those who occupy the priestly class have administrative responsibility to make sure that the resources of the community are distributed to those who have no resources of their own.  Widows were a special class of people in the ancient world.  Without a male to whom they could relate, they could not own property and were without legal and economic protection.  In the religious community of the temple, the priest became, as it were, their guardians, charged with ensuring their well being.

Jesus, as always, painted as an astute observer of temple life, charges the officials with “devouring widows homes.”  Jesus notes that they have become enamored of the status and prestige that goes with their office.  In the midst of this, the poor and vulnerable members of the community, here represented by the category of “widows” are suffering.  This conversation is one of many the gospels offer where Jesus is placing human need above religious duty.  Whatever their temple duties, the religious officials should be taking care of the widows.

So this is the scenario.  Just as a conversation about taking advantage of widows is underway, who should appear but one of those about whom Jesus is speaking.  Jesus watches her give her last two coins to the treasury of the temple.  He watches her, in essence, give away the last of what she has to people who we, the listener, now know cannot be trusted to use that money in her best interest.

What was she thinking?

What is going on here is not just about the money.  It’s about ethics and relationship and the role of the religious institution.  Since we are a religious institution, we may find that Jesus message to us is not in his words to the widow, but in his words to and about the religious officials.

Every year at North Broadway and at countless other congregations, we go through the great autumn ritual.  We prepare a budget, and we conduct a stewardship campaign.  Church leaders work hard to connect giving to spiritual maturity and to connect budget to ministry.  The institutional life of the church demands that we do this.  The demands of maintaining a building as a fixed location for worship, education and ministry outreach are significant.  In order to facilitate the worship, educational, outreach and administrative life of the congregation, staff is required.  Since the church operates in the marketplace, we must have money.  Few economic partners in the marketplace will forgive our expenses because we are a church.  To exist as we exist is to require funds.  And we have no other source of funds, really, than each other’s generosity.  What one of us does not give, someone else has to give, or else the resources that we depend on for ministry will have to go.  We will have to eliminate staff.  Or consider downsizing to a smaller building.  Or merge with another congregation.  Or eventually cease to exist.

We humans tend to think short-term.  We tend to think in terms of what we want and need to get for our own needs in our own time.  We don’t stop to think very often that the church we call “ours” may not always exist as a structure.  Or it may exist as a structure, but have a totally new and unrelated use.

Here’s what churches usually do when faced with diminishing resources.  And by churches, I mean the people who are members of the church and especially those who lead the church.  Usually, ministry declines as more and more resources go to support the building.

What are we thinking?

If we read further on in Mark, we will discover Jesus telling the religious officials that the temple will, in fact, cease to exist.  So the widow, already taken advantage of by the religious officials, has just given her last two coins to an institution that is doomed to destruction.  What was she thinking?

What is Mark thinking, in telling us this story?

Remember that elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus is reported as saying that the Sabbath was made for people; not people for the Sabbath.  Perhaps this is what Jesus is trying to tell the religious officials- you and your institution were created to serve people.

If this is the message, then this is the task of we who call ourselves “the church.”  To use the resources we have, including institutional resources, to serve people.  So we must continually assess how the resources we have are being deployed and utilized.  The resources themselves may be the same in two different settings... in one they will be serving people and in the other people will be serving them.  We who call ourselves the church must continually discern which it is in our own faith community.

The scene in this story where Jesus and the religious leaders are engaged in conversation serves to point out that in the temple life of Jerusalem in the first century, priorities were out of balance.  This scene raises these same questions for us.

But it is when the woman enters the scene that we begin to understand how to make that assessment.  It is she who shows us the way.  We do need to ponder “what was she thinking?”

Of course, we cannot know for certain – but Jesus affirmation of her action suggests that she was on to something that has nothing to do with our pragmatic sensibilities.

Maybe she doesn’t care about the corruption of the temple officials.  Maybe she understands that there is something that transcends that corruption to which she is still called.  Maybe she remembers that this is about the God who created, sustained and redeemed Israel, and maybe in spite of the temple officials’ corruption, she is going to give to that God.

What is she thinking?  It’s her last two coins.  Maybe she gives them as an act of faith... that in spite of our own anxieties about material security, God will provide what she needs.

Maybe she gives her last two coins to the temple treasury because she, too, wants to be included in the life of her faith community.  Maybe it is about her participating.  As long as she has two coins, no temple official, no matter how fancy his garments or lofty his seat can prevent her from participating in the part of temple worship where one offers one’s life to God through the work of the faith community.

Maybe she just wants to participate with her gifts, too.

And her presence here, in this story, with her two coins and her marginalized excluded status both judges and redeems us.  It shows us that the church needs the gifts of everybody – perhaps most especially those it has traditionally exploited and excluded.  When we have excluded people who have gifts to bring, however that exclusion has been accomplished, we have impoverished the community of faith.

A scene from General Conference reminds me of this... after those with the coveted seats on the floor of the conference had voted to continue excluding people with same gender sexual orientation from full participation in the life of our institution, the doors at the back of the room opened, and the excluded ones and their friends and family began to pour onto the floor of the distinguished and orderly assembly.  They each carried a piece of black veil.  One by one, they went to the large round communion table that sat at the center of the room, and draped their veils until, finally, the gifts of God on that table were hidden from view by the gifts of those who had just been excluded by the ordered life of the institution.  To some, this was a rude disruption of the ordered proceedings.  To others, it was a moment of judgment on our institution.  Who are we to decide whose God – given gifts we will receive and reject?  What were we thinking?

This woman, excluded, marginalized, abused, taken advantage of, brings her gift anyway.  She gives because she has it in her heart to give.

I don’t know what she was thinking – but I see that she was not the foolish one here.

Her gift unmasks the religious officials for the fools that they are.

When this woman enters the scene, it is she who carries with her not just two coins for the temple treasury, but a word of grace to us.  God invites everyone to participate, and received the gifts of all, and knows what those gifts have cost us.

So I would offer that the spirit speaks two words to the church today:

One:  We dare not serve the material trappings of the institution at the expense of the people we are called to care for.

Two:  We dare not give to serve our own interest, or even to serve the interests of the institution.  We are called to give as the widow gives... everything we have as an expression of trust in God.

That is what the offering in worship is really for.  it is really for us to give ourselves.  The money matters.  it’s important.  It’s needed.  We need to let go of it.  But it is a sign of Jesus invitation to give our lives to the cause of healing, loving, just and whole community.

This woman comes into the story, and we see that she brings not just her two coins... she brings grace.