Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Once upon a time, dearly beloved, poor people could hardly find room under God's tent. (That was before a poor widow dropped two copper coins into an offering plate in Jerusalem, and Jesus noticed, and told his disciples -- to their surprise -- that her tiny gift was greater than all the ostentatious offerings of the rich.) That was an eye-opener! Because, in those days, if you were poor you didn't stand a chance, certainly not on earth nor even in heaven. Poverty was more than a lousy life style. In the minds of many, it was also a sign of God's displeasure -- an idea still lurking around today when people say too easily, "Well, if he's poor, he must be doing something wrong." If poverty is a sign of God's displeasure, wealth must signify that God is pleased with you and your life. Well, that's neat. What made this whole system doubly unfair was that the rich, because they had a lot, were able to compound God's favor by giving to him more generously. The poor, having nothing to give, could not make the prescribed offerings and therefore descended further into God's disfavor. So, even in the eyes of God, the rich got richer and the poor got children! At the root of the problem, of course, was the ancient belief that God valued gifts in the same way we do -- dollar for dollar. He who came before God and gave a hundred sheep was a hundred times more blessed by his gift than he who gave one. Simple math.

The Parable of the Widow's Mite turned that math upside down. It emphasized proportional giving. God requires us to give in proportion to what we have. This idea was not new with Jesus. The Old Testament notion of tithing (giving ten percent of ones income to God, and trusting him to take care of you on the other ninety percent) -- tithing was proportional, wasn't it? Several of the prophets railed against the old system of counting a dollar as a dollar, a system in which poor people were condemned forever to be losers. But it is in Jesus' comments about this poor widow and her giving that the death knoll of the old system is heard. Basically he is saying that God can and will attribute different values to the same copper coins, depending on who gives them. In the hand of a rich scribe, they are a paltry and selfish offering. In the hand of a poor widow, they are a priceless sacrifice. Giving is measured in proportion to our means. Thus there is a place for poor people in the church, and a very important place. Seems "ho-hum" to us, but it has not always been so.

Today, when we appeal for support of the church's ministry (as we will be doing toward the end of this month) we often include a little table showing what proportional giving might look like for you. It says, if your income is such and such, and you want to give such and such a percentage, your weekly gift would be such-and-such. Some people find that offensive. Think how much more offensive it would be if we simply decreed that everyone should give $1,000. That would be audacious, even dangerous! But (more to the point) it would be unfair -- far too much for some and far too little for others. Proportional giving is here to stay. But it is not the whole story.

Look closely at the Parable of the Widow's Mite. I saw something in it, this time, I had not noticed before. Jesus summarizes it by saying, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty…." (And I would have thought it stopped there, simply affirming proportionate giving. But it doesn't.) What Jesus actually says is, "she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." It's not, "she gave her fair share." She gave everything! Now that's a horse of different color!

Maybe she was just taking a chance. Maybe, for her, giving everything was like playing the lottery. Poor people do that and get poorer. Two copper coins were not going to solve her problems, so why not take them and bet them on God? Maybe he would send some kind of jackpot, and she would rise from rags to riches. That's one explanation.

It's not a happy thought, but maybe she was dealing with some sin and was overwhelmed by the guilt of it -- something from the past, for which she felt the need to make eternal recompense, and no gift on her part ever seemed big enough to wash it away. People always used to sacrifice for that reason: to cover their offenses -- until Christ took care of that for us, once for all.

Or maybe it was generosity meeting generosity. See, it's not what people give but why they give that makes the difference. If we get the why right, the what (and the how much) take care of themselves. People don't give away all that they have, as this poor widow gave, just to impress others. We might give a tad for that reason, we might drop a tip in God's box and try to make it look bigger than it is. But others will not be impressed if we give everything away. They will think us foolish. People don't give their all to meet some percentage either, because a percentage (by definition) is not all. But they might give everything (heart, soul, mind, body, life itself) if they understood what God had done for them. This widow knew the story of God's generous creation, how the earth was the Lord's and every blessed thing in it! How he made us, and we didn't do it on our own. How we are the sheep of his pasture and the flock of his hand. How he leads us beside still waters and restores our souls. There is grace to respond to, even when you are poor. She didn't have the benefit of the Gospel. Had she known the gift of Jesus, she would have been even more inclined to give -- to meet God's generosity with her own. That's just what happens. I've seen it. People stand at the foot of the cross, and don't know what to do. Pretty soon they start giving, trying to ape God. They give money (that's the easy part), then they start giving time, and skill, and heart and will and devotion. Some give their very lives. They know from what they saw on Calvary that they can never outgive God, yet giving becomes an obsession with them.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

My friends, the fact that Loyalty Sunday is coming up (and we have to think about next year's expenses, and they'll be letters, and we'll get new boxes of envelopes) -- my friends, that is almost nothing. Just a reminder. Just a mechanical procedure to help us do something we can't help doing. For the whole point of Christianity is to give. If we reduce it to wrenching another dollar a week out of our people, we are lost before we've begun. But it's not that, and never has been. If it becomes how little can I give, if we're looking at it as we might look at a minimum monthly payment on a credit card, we are in the wrong ball park. If giving is an obligation for us, and we give reluctantly, we have missed the whole point. You know how it is with those we love. We cannot give them enough. My little granddaughters steal my heart, and I just want to give them everything -- things they don't need, things bad for their teeth, things their parents don't want them to have, things that might even spoil them. I don't think of it as an obligation. Nor do I fix a percentage that I should give to them. It's spontaneous with me, not something controlled. When we truly love God and neighbor, we don't have to be reminded to give. It’s spontaneous, and it gets kind of out of control.