Exceedingly Generous

Staggering Generosity In A Me First World

11.10.24 [Mark 12:38-44] River of Life (24th Sunday after Pentecost)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from the Lord Almighty who opens his hands and satisfies the desires of every living thing. Amen.

It happens every time we check out at the grocery store. Or go into a gas station. Or walk past a vending machine. Or the floor around those coin counting machines. My son is always on the lookout for loose change. And it’s amazing how much he finds left behind in vending machines or on the ground in parking lots. I never saw it. He always does. I’m busy spending money at the store and he’s finding it.

I have to admit, his passion for pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters has opened my eyes a little bit. I do see them more now than I used to. Sometimes, the sunlight hits a penny in the parking lot just perfectly. Other times, there’s a nickel that rolled on the floor next to the grocery bags. If I’m not in a hurry and the loose coin doesn’t look too grimy, I’ll usually pick it up and give it to one of the kids.

How about you? Are you someone who picks up loose change? I bet more than a few of us are. It almost feels wasteful not to, doesn’t it?

But—unless you’re my son or just like him—you probably do a quick mental calculation of whether or not its really worth bending down and picking up. A shiny quarter just sitting there on the sidewalk screams for us to rescue it and put it in our pocket. But a grubby penny on the floor of a gas station bathroom is just going to stay right where you found it. We do these calculation instantly in our heads!

What is the smallest amount of money you would pick up? Does it have to be a bill? How about a quarter? A dime? A nickel? Will you pick up a penny?

How about a 10 centavo coin? It’s worth about an 1/8th of a penny. Now, if you’d never seen one before you might pick it up just because you were curious. Or because it was novel. But if you already had one, or had seen one, and knew what it was worth, would you pick it up? The vast majority of us would leave it right there, right? It’s not worth it to even bend over and pick up, is it?

It’s natural for us to make these kinds of value assessments and to make our decisions based on them. That’s why Jesus gives us this lesson in Mark 12. In seven verses, Jesus looks pasts the facade and unmasks what’s truly important. He teaches us staggering generosity.

On the Tuesday before Passover the Temple must have been bustling.

Men and women and children traveled to the Holy City of Jerusalem to celebrate one of the high festivals of the Jewish faith. While he was there, Jesus was doing some people watching. He saw how the teachers of the law craved attention and respect and honor. They put on flowing robes with long tassels. They wore large boxes on their foreheads with snippets of Scripture. They insisted on being greeted formally and having the best seat in the house, whether they were in the synagogue or the supper table. They prayed aloud on street corners with many words because they liked to be seen and heard. Whenever they gave to the needy, they announced it with trumpets. Mt. 23:5 Everything they do is done for people to see Jesus remarked.

Jesus saw right through it all. He had warned men like this on many occasions about their hypocrisy. How they were like white-washed tombs. How they were like cups that were filthy on the inside and washed on the outside. But, now, as he was preparing his disciples for his death, resurrection, and ascension, he wanted them to see the danger of spiritual hypocrisy.

You see, being a hypocrite isn’t what we often think. It isn’t saying one thing and doing another. That’s called being a sinner. All God’s people say they want to do the righteous thing God wants and fall short in shameful ways. That’s not being a hypocrite. A hypocrite perpetually puts on a spiritual mask. They are reputation obsessed. They are spiritual influencers who have not been transformed and shaped by the grace of God. 2 Tim. 3:5 They may strive to have the form of godliness but deny its power. Their motivation is them.

Proper motivation is something we all struggle with in many areas of life, especially in areas of service and sacrifice. What we give, where we serve, how much and how often we make those precious personal sacrifices is a causal calculation.

We give of our time, talents, and our treasures cause this issue or institution means a lot to us. We give cause it makes us feel good. We give cause we want the tax break or because it will be a good chance to network. We give cause someone put us on the spot and we don’t want to look cheap. We give cause we’re bad at saying no. We give cause we know what it’s like to be in need. We give cause of the impact that work or group is having. We give cause we know how much it is needed or appreciated.

When, where, what, how much and how often we give of our time, our talents, and our treasures is typically determined by its impact.

We think in terms of usefulness, benefits, and value. We give of ourselves prompted by pragmatism. And that’s why we struggle to understand the widow at the tail end of our text.

Mark tells us after warning the people about the teachers of the law, Jesus sits near where the offerings were collected. They didn’t have offering baskets, but trumpets on top of strong boxes that funneled the coins in. A little like Salvation Army kettles. The more a person gave, the more noise these treasury boxes made.

But the one Jesus noticed is the one who didn’t make a big scene, whose gift didn’t make a lot of noise. Mk. 12:42 A poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

Her gift does not compute to our casual calculations way of thinking. Her gift was free will. She didn’t owe a Temple tax. This wasn’t her tithe. And with it being Mk. 12:44 all she had to live on—clearly she needed it more than the Temple or the priests did. Not only that, but with what Jesus just said about teachers of the law devouring the houses of widows, you wonder if the spiritual leaders were the very reason that these two coins was all she had.

But instead of of saying that her gift was foolish or manipulated, Jesus says that she put more into the treasury than all the others. Jesus commends something that we see as a good work, but not such a good idea. Why does the Lord see it so differently?

Jesus recognized the close tie between our precious resources and our hearts. Giving of our time, our talents, and our treasures does not make us generous, grateful people. The motivation matters. But faithful giving is a little like a dog’s tail wagging. It an indication of our contentment and our trust in God’s power & love.

This poor widow understood how her heavenly Father operated. What and when and where he gives were not calculated according to our pragmatic ways of thinking. God doesn’t just give good gifts in places where it will be appreciated or used faithfully. God sends the Mt. 5:45 rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Not only that, but God even, at times, seems to give more and better to the people who don’t acknowledge him at all. Asaph said this about the wicked: Ps. 73:12 They are always free of care. They go one amassing wealth. Ps. 73:4 They have no struggles. They are healthy and strong. They are not plagued by human ills. How much and how often God gives good gifts to people has nothing to do with how deserving they are or how much praise God will get.

This isn’t just true of material things, even. God gave his most precious gift, his Son, as a sacrifice of atonement for the world. Not just for the sins of those whom God knew would ultimately repent and trust in him for salvation. Not just for our sins. But the for sins of the whole world. You see, what Jesus said about the close connection between our hearts and our treasures isn’t just true about us. It’s also true about our God. We learn about the character of his heart—what his love is and does—by what he does with his treasure. His one and only Son, whose blood is more precious than silver or gold—gave himself up for our sins. He loved those who did not love him. He loved those who would not love him. The Son of God bent down and picked up grody pennies. Our sin made us more repulsive than loose change on the bathroom floor of a gas station. But the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost and even celebrated finding lost coins like us.

Remember as he was dying on the cross, how he loved his abusers? As he prayed for his Father to forgive them, he was basically saying put it on my tab. As he promised the thief dying next to him, today you will be with me in paradise, he was giving this man a glorious eternity and he had done next to nothing for God or his fellow man. Yet our God considered him precious. The Son of God was staggeringly generous to sinners who repented and those who remained stubbornly stuck in their wickedness.

Jesus made himself poor, was treated as a hardened criminal and suffered the pains of hell, so that we might be made rich. He has gifted us the most precious thing—his spotless righteous record. He gave us all that he had done in his life as our own.

That staggering generosity of God’s grace changes our calculations and makes us more generous. Just like my son’s passion for pennies has opened my eyes, my God’s staggering generosity has opened our eyes. The cause is not how does this impact me. The cause is Christ. How has his love changed me? How has his mercy changed how I view my time here on earth? How has his grace impacted the way that I use the wealth he has blessed me with? How has God’s unconditional love transformed how I understand the end goal of my talents? These things are not about me. They are gifts from him meant to be used to bring him glory. What would your life look like if you looked for opportunities to be staggeringly generous? Well, it would look like your Savior. Amen.