A central focus of my preaching here has been the up-dating of Biblical interpretation so that we are reading things written two thousand years ago with a sense of their historical setting and an awareness of their relevance or irrelevance for us today. I say that again because this past Wednesday after I got back from voting in New Jersey (somewhat unsuccessfully), I turned on the television in my apartment to check on results in other parts of the country. I happened on a talk show in which four women were interviewing a well-known televangelist, who was pushing his latest book. One of the woman, a lesbian, asked him about his view on homosexuality.
The man said, with all the charm he could muster, "I love my gay and lesbian friends, but the Scriptures are clear that that is not how God intends people to live." The questioner said, "Then you believe that sexual orientation is a choice."
The televangelist, still smiling, said, "I don't know about that. All I know is what the Scriptures teach, and it is that God doesn't intend people to live that way. And I love my gay and lesbian friends."
What astonishes me is that the man has a huge following. When I was in my teens and early twenties, I saw the Bible the way that televangelist probably sees it, as an authority not to be questioned, not to be understood in its historical context. But as I took the time to read all of the Bible, and not just selected parts of it, I realized how misleading it can be to say, "The Bible says..." and not go on to say something about what the Bible says when read with full awareness of its complexity, the humanity of its authors, as well as the power of its message to convey the truth of God's unconditional love for the world and everything in it.
Because I read the Bible that way, I was able to preside at the commitment ceremony of two very fine women last Sunday evening on the stage of the Saint James Theater here in New York City. I told the congregation, which was really the audience, that there was Biblical warrant for what we were doing. In the second chapter of Genesis there are the words, "It is not good that the man should be alone." Updated those words would read, "It is not good that anyone, man or woman, should be alone." And so we were witnessing and blessing the vows of two people, who happened to be women, promising to be together in love—body, mind, and spirit, for the rest of their lives.
What can it mean to read this morning's Gospel lesson with an openness to truth that speaks to us in the twenty-first century? The lectionary puts together two incidents that took place during Jesus' brief ministry in Jerusalem before his opponents succeeded in doing away with him. When it became clear that the young teacher from Nazareth was going to breathe fresh air into the spiritual understanding of his own people, the Jews, some of the religious leaders of his time came to regard him as such a threat that they conspired to have him put to death.
The New Testament refers to those religious leaders in various ways because they were of different groups: the Pharisees, the Saducees, the scribes, and the chief priests. Not all of them felt threatened by Jesus, but enough of them did that he sometimes singled them out for rebuke. In this morning's Gospel lesson, Jesus says, "Beware of the scribes (who were the recognized experts in religious law). They like to walk around in long robes, being greeted with reverential words and sitting in the best seats in the synagogue. They offer long prayers for the sake of appearance. They also take advantage of widows who trust them." In other words they want people to see them as authorities who deserve honor and privilege. But all is not right beneath the surface.
Last week I had a wonderful conversation with someone who is in her fist year of theological education at a seminary. One of the joys of my ministry has been spending time with seminary students, as a teacher, as a field education supervisor, and as a listener. I sometimes run into students very different from the woman I met with several days ago. I run into students who are sure they know the answers to all the questions people ask, and they can't wait to get ordained so they can tell people how to live. They remind me of the Biblical scribes and Pharisees.
When we move forward from Jesus' warning about the scribes to the second part of the lesson, we see beneath the surface of the text. Mark tells us that after Jesus pointed out the danger of pietistic display, he sat down in the Jerusalem Temple and watched the passing throng. It's amazing what you can learn by observing people, not with an intent to criticize, but with an openness toward appreciation.
Jesus watched people putting money into the Temple offering receptacles. The subject of money in churches is a tricky one, because churches need money to operate, to carry out the mission God gives to the Church. And giving is an essential part of spiritual growth. But too many churches are guilty of haranguing people to give more money so that the church can simply prop up a stagnant institutional life. This text is often used in stewardship sermons, but there is so much more to it than that. Jesus has a way of taking us beneath the surface of things, to see what we need for our souls.
Think of the contrast. The religious experts strode around the Temple in their long robes, praying long and loud prayers, advertising their righteousness, if you can call it that. A woman who had experienced the death of her husband, which in that culture meant she lost her income, her economic security, and her social standing—a woman who was a widow, walked over and dropped two little coins into the receptacle and went on her way.
What I take from the story is that it was important for the woman, the widow, to give an offering, to give something back to God. I think Jesus must have seen the look on her face as she quietly dropped her little coins into the container. I doubt that she was acting in bitterness, or Jesus would not have praised what she did. I like to think she had allowed herself to feel the pain of her loss, not trying to put on a brave face when her heart was breaking. She had done the work of grieving, and now she had the confidence to go where the rich and powerful were putting in their large sums, dropping in big gold coins that clanked when they hit the bottom of the metal receptacles. And she dropped in her two little coins that hardly made a sound. And seeing her, Jesus nodded in affirmation.
Seeing that widow through the lens of my own experience and my understanding of the way life works, I remember the profound words of the psalmist: the offering acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51) For the care of our souls we need not go in search of pain or brokenness. They will come to us at some time or other. What we dare not do is deny their reality when they come.
In my work and in my life, I meet a lot of people who are deeply afraid of sadness, terrified of grief and loss. They want to believe, they try to believe, that life can be totally positive, as they say, totally happy and pleasant. Personally, I much prefer joy to sadness, happiness to grief. But I know life is not always that way, not for me, not for the people I know, not for anyone really. For most people there are times of exhilaration when life is so good we can hardly contain our joy. And then there come experiences of loss—the loss of a job, a marriage, a parent or friend, the loss of a child, the loss of a dream. Whatever it is, if we let ourselves feel it, the loss can be a pathway to deeper, fuller life.
Like all of you, I've been thinking a lot about the families of the people, so many of them young, killed in Fort Hood, Texas, as well as the people dying daily in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world. I think of Jack Edward, whom we baptized a few minutes ago. The old liturgy for baptism contained a prayer with these words: Deliver him from the perils of childhood and the temptations of youth. It might better read: Deliver him from the perils and temptations of life.
In Elizabeth Lesser's book Broken Open, a man named Glen tells about the death of his twenty-one year old son Eric in a motorcycle accident that happened in New Zealand as Eric was driving to the airport for his flight home to the United States and his family: his mother and father, his twin brother and his sister. Glen, the father, says, "The agony of the days that followed shocked me to the core. I had never dared to dream of such darkness. I clung to my family and friends as we plummeted into the depths of despair.
We walked as if in a terrible dream, praying to be awakened from the reality of it all. ...our minds reeled...from the horror.
And we awoke, each of us in our own time. Were it not for friends and family—who flung themselves into our brokenness, to hold our heads above the water—we may well have drowned in our sorrow. This place of hopelessness and fear is real....We came to understand that, although we do not have control, we do have choice. God or Spirit or Creator or Insert Name Here wants us to go down into the dark waters, but also wants us to come up to the light.
By the grace of God, I chose life. I chose to find a way back up. It helped me to visualize myself climbing out of the dark sea, and back up onto the table of daily life. I actually began drawing pictures of tables as I attempted to communicate my deepest emotions to my wife, son, and daughter. I named each of the table's four legs: Faith, Courage, Growth, and Love. The leg of faith was the weakest part of my table. And it continues to be the primary focus of my path forward. My daily mantra is 'Surrender and relax into the mystery.'" [excerpted from Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser, Villard Books Trade Paperback Edition, 2004]
Jesus' observation of the widow and her offering took place as he was preparing to demonstrate the awesome dimensions of God's love for the world. He did not shrink from what life held for him. He trusted that God would lead him through the valley of the shadow of death and restore him to fullness of life.
In the words of this morning's Gospel lesson, the widow who put her coins in the offering receptacle was acting in faith. Maybe her mantra was "Surrender and relax into the mystery." Mark says she was giving everything. If we put ourselves in the hands of God, we can let go of our need to control everything. We will gain the wisdom to know the difference between what we can and cannot change. We will discover that the deepest satisfaction comes not through what we gain or possess, but through the love of people who accept as we are, and through the assurance that whatever life brings us, we will be held by a love that will never fail, a love that assures us in the end all will be well.
Thanks be to God.