Don’t Give Up Hope!

Text: Mark 12:38-44

Focus: Living by faith

Function: To help people trust God for the future instead of their own wealth.

Form:

Intro: There are a lot of takes on this passage. If one does research on it, it always falls into the category of Stewardship Sunday.

That’s a Sunday that some people dread because the Church emphasizes the importance of giving to God.

And, the passage speaks of how a woman, who is completely destitute gives all the money she has to live on.

But it first starts out with the religious people loving the places of honor when they appear to glorify God.

And then it segues into this woman’s gift which is used as an example of living sacrificially here on earth with our eyes fixed on the heavenly reward.

But that isn’t what strikes me this morning about this passage.

Instead of looking at the monies involved, I want to look at the faith of this woman.

(SHOW) God is calling us to live by faith.

In the story of this passage of scripture, apparently Jesus is near the offering box at the temple with the disciples.

He is giving them some lessons from what He sees.

They see the Religious people acting haughty as if they were more special than others.

Jesus points out their hypocrisy. He says: “They want to take the best seats of honor at the banquets. They want everyone to think they are the best.”

They see how when they pray, it is well rehearsed and it is a great show.

And Jesus points out to them that their faith is meaningless. He even implies that they are going to receive eternal damnation because although they appear religious, they do not care that if in their business practices poor people suffer.

And you know this: (SHOW) true holiness is demonstrated by our compassion instead of appearances.

So, I have covered the stewardship aspect.

Let us move on and look at the faith of this woman who gives everything she has.

(SHOW) Is her example of giving everything she has a command for us to follow her example?

Are we put to shame because we spend enough on ourselves to survive?

Of course, we all know that we all spend more than what we need to survive. Maybe a little bit more for leisure since we work so hard. So, what is this passage telling us?

Does God want every one of us to give away everything and depend on the ravens to feed us like God did with Elijah?

Is that presuming on God for a miracle? Is it testing God?

Let me refrain the story with a more modern example.

A pastoral colleague was telling me about how they had a family who had relatives who lived outside of the US.

This man had a difficult time making ends meet and it was their church’s privilege to support and love him. He brought a lot of perspective to them and they enjoyed their relationship with him.

One day, he mentioned to someone else that he had sent several thousand dollars to his overseas family.

That caused a bit of controversy in their reaction to giving to him. The pastor explained to the man that although he had a lot more money than his family out of the country, it costs a lot more to live here in the US.

The man was giving what he needed to live on to his relatives and then asking the church to help him make his own ends meet.

So, in a way, the church was supporting his overseas family.

And there was nothing wrong with that. The passage says that the wealthy gave out of their excess, while the woman gave all that she had to live on.

But I have to confess, it didn’t seem right to me that he was presuming on their generosity.

Isn’t that the way we feel sometimes when we help out some poorer people?

We wonder: are we encouraging laziness, irresponsibility or even funding their addictions?

We know that there are a lot of people who take advantage of those who are generous.

For myself, and me only, I would rather err on the side of generosity.

So, was the man foolishly taking advantage of God’s generosity?

Let us go back to this woman.

She gave all she had to live on. The amount given, the “widow’s mite” would equal about a fifth of a day’s wage. It was probably enough to live on for a few days.

If she had children, friends or others who were aware of her circumstances, would they have told her that she was foolish?

Remember, the wealthy were giving extravagant gifts, but those gifts came out of their excess.

This woman gave extravagantly because she gave all she had.

But what about it? (SHOW) Is it a foolish act of desperation or a genuine act of faith?

The widow gave everything she had.

It could seem like a desperate act. People would think her foolish.

But I don’t believe that is what was happening. Instead of giving up hope (in an act of desperation) she placed all of her hope in the Lord.

And look at it, the Pharisees would praise the rich for their bags of gold and excessive gifts, but their confidence was in their wealth.

The woman’s confidence was in God.

This passage exposes the core of where our own hope lies.

(SHOW) Is our confidence in God or in wealth?

Again, I am not asking these questions to shame anyone.

What I see in this woman is an unrelenting hope in God no matter what the circumstances.

She gave everything she had as an act of faith.

One could surmise that she since she was so desperate, one day’s worth of food, or two days worth of food, or a week’s worth of food was irrelevant because there was no hope for her beyond those two mites.

But this act of giving is her testimony, it is her witness, it is desperate cry to God to deliver her from her poverty.

We don’t know what actually happened to this woman.

We can guess that since Jesus praised her faith, she received an amazing miracle. But the scripture is silent.

What I find beautiful in this is that she was just like David facing Goliath. In the midst of impossible circumstances, she makes a public declaration that her confidence is in God.

Was that foolish? Was it presumptuous? Or is it the only choice we have?

I submit that compared to the wealthy who were giving extravagantly, this woman’s testimony isn’t about sacrificial giving of money, but learning to trust in God.

I mentioned two weeks ago when pleading for people to vote against the casino industry in Ohio that our first ministry was working in the Ghetto in Atlantic City, NJ.

I worked for a construction company, non-union, that paid a pretty small wage. We were in a situation where we were living from week to week, from day to day trusting God.

And God did some miraculous deeds to keep us solvent.

Then one day, the inevitable came and I was laid off from my job.

I remember Friday night, sitting at the dinner table. Kathy was pregnant with John, our third child and Philip and Candace were just 3 and 2 years old.

I was on the brink of tears, wondering how I would provide for them.

And my daughter looked at me with those big, pure eyes of confidence in her dad and said: “What’s wrong daddy?”

And just then the scripture hit me that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine and He is our daddy. I knew then that God would not let my children starve. And then, God’s peace went over me and I answered her: “God is giving me a new job; I just don’t know what it is.”

So God sent the blizzard of 81. The second casino in AC was not yet opened and housing was at premium. What was happening was that people were converting summer rental properties into year round residences. And all the plumbers here have probably figured this out already. The plumbing wasn’t adequately prepared for a cold snap and plumbing pipes burst all over the county.

A union plumber called me that night and said, “I hear you can sweat some joints.” That is a plumbing term for soldering copper pipe. I was a carpenter and thought he said something about moving some joists. So I said yes and he asked me to work that night.

I got to the shop and he handed me the keys to a plumbing truck and a whole stack of work orders to repair frozen pipes.

I worked for him for 3 weeks at union rates, double time since it was evening work and made more money that I ever made in my lifetime.

After the crisis was over, I found another job.

God does take care of our needs.

However, look again at the faith of this woman. She was content to trust in God.

Think about wealth and contentment.

Look at this scripture:

(SHOW) 1 Timothy 6:6-8: (The Message)

^6-8A devout life does bring wealth, but it's the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that's enough.

You see, this woman had her confidence in her relationship with God. It changes everything in the way she lived her life.

Wealth isn’t about pleasure, or having enough, it’s about contentment, peace and relationship with God.

Kings and paupers have both discovered this truth. And this is how we live by faith.

This woman didn’t give up hope in an act of desperation, she told God and the angels that her hope was in God when she gave her gift.

May we live in that same hope.