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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is, in some of our churches today, I think there’s this tendency, or maybe an inclination, to take this gospel lesson about the widow and her offering, and extract from it certain themes or topics that, while important, might not really be the main thing that we really want to come away from here today knowing today. But we will talk about them a little bit.
And first, there is this notion of stewardship. Stewardship. Maybe you’ve seen this in your years as well, and to be sure, this isn’t really a bad idea. Sometimes you will indeed see this text tied to annual giving drives or efforts to get pledges and commitments to tithing for the next year. Sure enough, we aren’t just at the end of this church year; we are closing in on the end of the calendar year. As many churches do, we are looking at preparing our church budget for next year, and I suppose that we would be foolish to not think about annual giving when fixing this budget. So we can understand why this particular text might be preached in this regard. Again, I’m not doing that today.
But it doesn’t really, to me, seem that this reading is placed here at the end of the church year for that purpose, at least not specifically. There is, I think, also this topic of how we care for those who are not as well off as us. To be sure, our Lord Jesus Christ does want us to look at the needy and those around us who are not as well off and downcast. I hope, and I don’t think that anybody here would argue with that, that that should also be preached.
But I think moreover, there is this common theme presented to us today in both the Old and New Testament lessons, which just so happen to deal with widows. We also heard that in our psalm this morning, Psalm 146. Right? More importantly, not just the widows themselves, but the faith of these widows in their distress and in their uncertainty.
As we do approach the end of the church year, we begin to hear and continue to hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel from St. Mark, as we have been hearing all throughout this Pentecost season. Especially here in these last few weeks, we’re going to hear our Lord talking about how we should always be living like temporal things matter. He is telling us to get ready, to be on guard, to be vigilant, to stay awake. We should think about the things of this world in the way of things in the life eternal, and particularly to know that the Lord promises indeed to give us daily bread for all. We should think about who or what we put our trust, our faith, and our hope and certainty in, for the things of this world will pass away.
As I said, I don’t think I want us to really focus on the widows themselves per se, but really how they responded in faith when they were faced with uncertainty. First, I think we do need to know, we do need to realize that our Lord does make it clear in Scripture that he has this special place where he places widows and orphans among those that he has the most care and concern for. When Moses gave the law to the people, among that law was, “…you shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.” After he remade the tablets, that second set of tablets, Moses told the people that Yahweh executes justice for the fatherless and the widow. David, in Psalms, sings of the Lord as being the father of the fatherless and the protector of widows. St. James writes that religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.
So we see then, widows, especially, were among the most vulnerable in society, and woe be unto anyone who refused to care for them, or much less anyone who took advantage of them. So we do want to take notice of what we hear about widows. We have to wonder, I think, what was going through this widow’s mind when she sees Elijah coming into the city. She sees this Israelite stranger walking into this pagan city of Zarephath, not knowing, in fact, that the Lord had sent him to her.
Elijah, as we know, has essentially fled Israel. The famine that he had prophesied about is going on. Not just the famine, but King Ahab is persecuting him. The people have rejected his word, and so he flees. He comes into this foreign land and sees this widow and doesn’t really ask but basically demands that she bring him a drink of water. I imagine if she walks off to do this, probably begrudgingly, he also calls out and says, “Well, why don’t you go ahead and bring me some bread back also?” I mean, is he nuts? Does he not look around and see this famine that’s going on? And who does he think he is?
But here we see that there is something different about this widow. In her response to him, she actually gives this acknowledgment of the God of Israel, of Elijah’s God, when she says, “As the Lord your God lives,” as if she’s giving some kind of oath by his name. Then she goes on to explain to Elijah that she doesn’t have bread ready because, in fact, she’s preparing to use this last little bit of oil and flour that she has to go bake a small bit of bread with which she may feed herself and her son. Then she’s going to die. Of all the things, that is what she is most certain of.
But does this widow actually believe in the God of Elijah, in the God of Israel? As a test of faith, Elijah then commands her as to what she must do, even as at the same time he gives her this comfort—words that we continue to hear over and over throughout Scripture: do not fear. Elijah delivers to her this promise of Jehovah that she and her son will be fed, and it does become so. If you know the story, you know there’s more to it that we didn’t hear today, and that is that after this happens, her son becomes ill and dies. Another test of faith for her. We think we can understand her thinking this: that Elijah has somehow come now to pronounce judgment on her with the death of her son. Elijah, it appears to us, even maybe thinks the same.
But the Lord answers not just Elijah’s prayer, but he confirms the widow’s faith when he restores her son to life. The widow surely didn’t know any of this before she obeyed what Elijah asked of her because she was obeying the Word of God and submitting to his trust. Now, Elijah was sent into that Gentile land as a test and strengthening of faith, not just for the widow, but also for Elijah. Again, Elijah’s probably wondering, “Why did the Lord send me out here?” But the Lord showed him that despite the rejection and hostility that he found in his own country among his own people, many others would hear and believe, even those who were far off.
In his first teaching in the temple, in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus actually speaks of this widow. Moreover, not just about the widow, but how the kingdom of God will be for all nations, not just the Israelites, but for all people. For God’s love and mercy transcends nations and ethnicities. That widow, whose faith exceeded many of Elijah’s fellow Israelites, gave up all that she had and trusted not just what Elijah had to say but the words of God behind that.
Around 900 years later, we see another widow in a very, very similar circumstance. It is Jesus who sees her. He notices her there in the temple courtyard, across from the treasury, and sees and picks her out among all these faithful, among all the travelers and pilgrims that had come to Jerusalem, to the temple that day. Maybe nobody other than Jesus saw her, and she was probably content with that. She was probably okay that nobody noticed her, that she could quietly go up there and bring her offering and then kind of sneak out without any kind of to-do about it.
You can imagine the small clink of the coins that probably could barely be heard, if at all, given all the noise and cacophony of the temple courtyard. Unlike others, those rich people who made a show of their giving, they were the ones who might go up there and slowly drop their large coins out of this purse and this bag, so as not only to be seen but to be heard giving so much. Least of all, as Jesus says, did the scribes and Pharisees notice her—these same men who claim to care so much about her, about the needs of the widows. How they would love to be the administrators of all their affairs and take care of them, to offer unceasing prayers on their behalf in exchange for the honor of singing to their estates and their needs.
But these men break the very law of Moses that they claim to keep sacred and that they, of course, hold others to. As Jesus says, these men who preach but do not practice. So yes, Jesus is there carefully surveying the scene, there for some time, watching and seeing how the people are giving. He is not concerned with how much. The scripture tells us that this widow’s two coins amounted to nothing—a mere cent, maybe even less than that.
So why did she even bother? Why did she even bother giving this insignificant amount? What good could it possibly serve? Wouldn’t she have just been better off to keep it for herself, given her condition? And wasn’t she worried that in giving everything she had, she now has nothing? Yet the Lord tells his disciples that her offering amounts to far more than the rich people have given because they gave out of their ability, out of their excess and their abundance. They wouldn’t be especially concerned if this gift put some kind of financial hardship on them because it wouldn’t. What they gave wouldn’t be missed.
So, Jesus cares about the quality and not the quantity of the gift—how and not how much. For this widow, she was poor in means, but she was rich in faith and spirit. Now we don’t really know what happened to either of these widows. As for the widow of Zarephath, the Lord, as we read and heard, promised to sustain her until the rains fell. Yes, he brought her son back to life, but what happened after that? We don’t know. Did she thrive or did she continue to live in her poverty and want the rest of her life? We also don’t know what happened to that widow who gave all that she had there at the treasury that day. For all we know, she left there and died in her poverty.
I think it’s probably good that we don’t know because we don’t want to use that in some way to concern ourselves with whether their faith resulted in some type of material gain, some type of improvement in their situation. To think that if we only do what God expects of us, then he won’t help but bless us. And so we are left with that uncertainty—not just about what happened to these widows, but what is going to happen to us.
The Lord knew how these widows would respond in faith, just as Jesus knows our thoughts and how we will respond. He knows our doubts because he knows our hearts, and he knows how we give and how we sacrifice based on our trust in him, or maybe even our lack of trust in him. So, yes, the day-to-day matters of life are indeed uncertain, and it causes us worry. Well, the Lord says to not worry—not to worry about the things of this world, not to be anxious, for he has something far greater for us to dwell on and to be certain about, and that is his kingdom, his righteousness, and our salvation.
Our lesson from Hebrews this morning reminds us that all our earthly gifts and all the things that we sacrifice are imperfect, incomplete, and insufficient. Even those that we make with good intentions—intentions of helping others—those gifts made by the most of us and the least of us, regardless of our station or status in life. For it is only the sacrifice of Christ that was made and done once that was the ultimate satisfaction for sin. It is this sacrifice, made once for all—that is only his—that makes our giving and our gifts and our sacrifices acceptable to God at all.
So we must trust in the sufficiency of his most blessed and holy sacrifice of himself and his death on the cross. Now these widows sacrificed all they had without knowing what would become of their situation. They gave not expecting anything in return, not seeking any kind of glory for themselves or any kind of merit. And so when we give, we do in the same way. We return the gifts that the Lord has given to us for all that we need of this life.
Let’s be honest: most of us have way more than we need. So we give not for our benefit, but for the benefit of those who may come to know the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do this all simply in faith, in the desire that others would believe the same. Jesus promises, as he did for that widow, to sustain us until that day—until that day when we are either delivered into his glory by a blessed death or when he himself returns in his own glory. Jesus died not just for the children of Israel but for many. And among the many are those who are the least of us.
So let us be certain of these things: that, as we heard, Christ has entered into the holy place, into the presence of God the Father, only for a time until he returns to us to gather those of us who eagerly await him. Be certain that he has put away sin as his sacrifice and for our salvation. Be certain that he is our certainty in these uncertain days.
So we watch and we wait and we pray. And as we do, may God give us the faith of these widows to trust that we can give everything we have to him and still have more than we ever need. To know and believe that he is with us today and even forevermore. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
