Proper 27

As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts.

But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

There is a famous quote from an old football coach, Barry Switzer, who said “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

I think that quote has many applications.

At the heart of it, it’s about privilege and a false sense that we’ve earned everything we have in life and that if we have more than others, if we’ve gotten to more bases, it’s because we’re just better.

And that largely reflects the way our society thinks in general.

We still largely believe this myth of meritocracy and the idea that the playing field is perfectly level for everyone and every baby is born onto a clean slate with the same number of bargaining chips and then it just depends on their inherent capabilities whether they will succeed or not and so everyone who rises to the top is just better.

That guy is a billionaire because he’s just smarter and worked harder than everyone else.

And by extension, the only reason you’re not a billionaire is because you either lack what it takes (bummer for you) or you’re unwilling to DO what it takes, which is seen as a character flaw in the competitive marketplace.

And in this system we rank people based on their success, assuming those who have acquired wealth and/or positions of power must simply have virtues that the rest of us don’t.

So we look to them for decision making, etc.

How many of you have been a part of a church where the elder board was like the pastor and the five most successful business men in the congregation?

People who have wealth and/or positions of power MIGHT BE virtuous. But their success doesn’t tell us that.

And the other side of that coin is that if a person DOESN’T have success it’s not inherently because they are simply less than.

There are so many factors that contribute to a person’s socio-economic reality.

If I can extend the baseball metaphor, there are some people who are only on first base and they had to foul off 10 impossible pitches and grind out an at bat to just get a walk.

If we look at this passage, who might this poor widow be in our context?

A sixty year old woman whose husband just died of COVID and they didn’t have life insurance or retirement so she’s now working at Walmart.

An immigrant, single mother who’s working as a cleaner 60 hours a week but still below the poverty line.

Are these women inherently less virtuous than the successful dudes swapping real estate on the golf course?

Are they poor because they aren’t smart or willing to work hard?

Poor doesn’t mean virtuous any more than rich does.

But that’s the point.

The ranking system we operate with based on the false notion of meritocracy is bogus.

What we see in this passage is that the teachers of the law are really leaning into the ranking system.

They see themselves as being at the top and they are ENJOYING IT.

But we don’t know these dudes.

Being a teacher of the law means they went through a lot of training, but let me tell you there are people in the American political system that went through a lot of schooling at the highest levels and I cannot believe the level of ignorance they put on display on a regular basis.

These guys are pretty sure they’re better than everyone and, as such, everyone should follow their lead and give them their devotion.

And what we see is that operating in this framework, even their acts of so called generosity serve the ranking system.

The text tells us rich people put a lot of money in the offering.

But in the socio-economic ranking system, “I give more” means I deserve more

I deserve more credit

More respect and honor

More of a voice

Again, how many of you have been in churches where big donors have much more influence than anyone else

It works the same in politics, right?

But Jesus, as he does, calls out the bogus way of thinking and disrupts it.

He shows honor to the poor woman

And he says, “this woman is the leader we should all follow today”.

And it’s not because, percentage wise, her offering represents a bigger portion of her income

It’s because displaying generosity in poverty, in a way that will score her no points in the ranking system, reveals a different framework altogether.

This woman is not playing to the game the teachers and rich folks are playing.

Now let’s be conscious here to not take the turn that prosperity gospel teachers would take and say that her giving out of her poverty is like a seed that will grow and materialize INTO riches.

She’s not buying a lottery ticket.

She’s not making an investment that will allow her to move up the rankings.

Again, her giving reflects a totally different mindset altogether.

In 1 Corinthians 4 Paul asks the church “What do you have that you did not receive?”

He’s not talking about finances, but his point can be applied broadly.

The rich man says, “everything I have is because I earned it and so it’s rightly mine and if I give ANY of it away I deserve all the praise in the world because how generous and virtuous of me to give away what I rightly won.”

The poor woman says, “everything I have comes from the Lord and belongs to the Lord and it’s not really mine to begin with.”

The first mindset competes and acquires and hoards and shares from a position of superiority.

The second receives, takes whats needed with humility, and passes along the rest

That requires a pretty radical detachment from the way our society operates

And I’m not going to say it’s easy to work out how to be responsible and care for your kids and so on while aiming at this

I’m not going to council you to donate everything you have to live on to the church

Sometimes the line between faith a foolishness can be a little blurry, right?

But I think we should be challenged by this woman operating out of a completely different framework.

Ultimately you can see how this overlaps with Jesus’s other teachings on not being a slave to money.

We might be tempted to look at the rich person who gives a lot as the person who really has a healthy relationship with money.

But there’s a reason Jesus said its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom.

If you’re still tethered to the socio-economic game and that’s still your framework for life you haven’t yet fully embraced the radical nature of the kingdom.

The reason Jesus talks about not being a slave to money so much is that we can’t serve two masters.

If our life is built on the socio-economic game of competition and acquisition then it’s not built on Jesus.

We follow prospects and opportunities for advancement, rather than following the Lord, who might very well take us on a downward path

So what we see here is a woman who seems to be absolutely untethered money. It holds no power over her.

She doesn’t have any and what she has she lets it flow through her.

She is free to follow Jesus in a way most of us are not.

I do not have a script for how we are meant to model that in our context and in our unique lives.

But we would do well to sit with it and ask the Spirit to challenge how we see others and show us where our relationship with money and status needs to change