Radical, Defiant Generosity (Sermon for Proper 27 B)

1 Kings 17:8-16

⁸The word of the Lord came to [Elijah,] saying, ⁹“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” ¹²But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” ¹³Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah. 

Gospel: Mark 12:38-44

³⁸As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
  ⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

This might be a tall order for a sermon,

            but I hope to convince you of something radical.

Well, I think most of Scripture

            and most of what Jesus says and does and means is radical.

But I’m going to focus on one thing,

            and here is where it starts:

Being generous is an essential part of the joy of being human.

            Think about that for a second.

            What does it mean for you to be generous?

            When have you been able to give of yourself

                        and experience the deep, spiritual joy in it?

            Was it supporting your favorite charity?

            Parenting or grand-parenting and all that costs you?

            Giving to your church to ensure that many others

                        will know the love of God in Christ Jesus?

            Buying a hungry stranger a cheeseburger?

            Doing something from your work life pro bono?

            Maybe it was just being the loving person you are

                        without the usual limitations we place on expressing it.

But I’m guessing you know what I mean

            when I say being generous is an essential part

                        of the joy of being human.

Now think of a time

            when you needed or wanted to be generous

and you were unable to be.

Maybe when money was tight in a down time.

Maybe when someone else’s need was greater

            than your capacity to meet it.

Maybe when you were in a fearful place in life

            and it felt too risky to offer something of yourself

            because it might be judged or inadequate.

Think of what it feels like

            when you have nothing left to give,

            and what that does to your own humanity.

There are two widows in our biblical texts

            that have nothing left to give.

One is the widow that Elijah encounters.

            She lived during the reign of King Ahab.

            Ahab led Israel away from faithfulness to Lord God

                        to worshiping false gods,

                        gods who said you should live for yourself only,

                        gods who said we must plunder other nations

                                    to get what they’ve got

                        so they spent vast sums of money on military power,

                                    sums often taken from poor widows.

            Ahab was confronted by Elijah,

                        who said he must change his ways.

            And since he didn’t,

                        Elijah said there would be a drought, and there was.

                        Because of the lack of rain,

                                    there was a lack of food.

            And because there was a lack of food,

                        there was a hungry widow who had only enough food left

                                    for one meal for herself and her son.

That’s when Elijah appeared.

            Elijah said: Make me something to eat.

            Well, on a normal day, in good times,

                        this woman would have been glad to share some bread.

                        She would have enjoyed showing hospitality.

                        She would have loved the chance to be generous.

            But, between the terrible reign of Ahab

                        and the terrible drought God sent in response to Ahab

                        she had lost that one essential ingredient for being human:

                                    her capacity to give,

                                    her joy of generosity.

I’m convinced that Elijah comes to her

            not only to feed himself,

            and not only to promise her that she will have enough food

                        for herself and her son.

I’m convinced Elijah comes to her

            to restore her capacity for generosity,

                        because without it, her humanity has been diminished.

In what might otherwise seem like

            an act of selfishness and cruelty on his part,

            Elijah forces her to trust what he says,

                        feed him first, risk being generous when it is really hard,

                        and discover that God is restoring her joy,

                                    by providing more than she needs just for her family,

                                    but enough to be able to share with others.

Ahab and God’s judgment on Ahab in the drought

            had taken away her ability to be generous.

God in Elijah restored it.

Consider the widow at the temple with Jesus.

            Jesus said that the Scribes,

                        who loved to show off their wealth and their religiosity,

                        who loved to be treated as if they were most important,

                                    also love to steal houses from widows,

                                    which meant they abused the laws and their own power

                                    to take advantage of them and rob them.

           

Not only had they forced many vulnerable women and children

                        into lives of poverty and dependence,

                        they had robbed them of their capacity to be generous,

                        they had stolen their joy of giving,

                        they had diminished their humanity.

And then Jesus noticed,

            and made sure his students noticed,

            what this one widow who had been robbed

                        did in the temple:

                        She was generous.

                        She was exceedingly generous.

                        She gave what little she had, all of it.

            Jesus notices her for two reasons:

                        In giving her whole life,

                                    she reflects everything he had been teaching his students

                                    about what his life meant,

and what their lives meant in following him:

                                                self-giving love is what it is all about.

                        But the second reason he notices her is this:

                                    Her act of giving in the temple,

                                    the very temple that had robbed her

                                                and diminished her,

                                                is a defiant act of generosity.

                        It’s as if she is saying:

                                    No matter what you do to me,

                                    you can’t take away my humanity,

                                    you can’t take away my capacity to be generous,

                                                because I still have myself to give.

            Jesus loves this woman,

                        admires her action,

                        sees this is a teaching moment for us all:

                                    Generosity is often the most radical,

                                                defiant, bold thing we can do

                                                in a society that tries to take away our ability to give.

This is my tall order in this sermon

            during this time of year when we focus on stewardship:

                        I’d like to convince you that stewardship,

                                    organizing our lives in such a way

                                    that we can be generous with our resources and our lives,

                                    is a radical and defiant way of living

                                                in our society of greed and consumption.

I’m supposed to tell you

            that stewardship is about tithing,

            and supporting the church,

            and doing your part, and all that.

It is all of those things,

            but it is first something much deeper:

                        It is the refusal to let our world of grabbing all you can for yourself

                                    diminish our humanity by taking away our capacity to give.

We might be like the widows in the stories,

            where we have ended up with little in life.

There might be a bank that took our house.

            There might be an investment that fell apart

                        after corporate greed and maleficence ruined it.

We might be working long, hard hours

            for pay that doesn’t even cover the bills.

Or, we might have plenty

            but we can’t escape the constant barrage

                        of messages that convince us that the joy of living

                                    is found in buying, consuming, having.

We might have believed the false Gospel

            that luxury is better than love.

We all have experienced how our capacity to give of ourselves

            has been diminished,

                        either through lack of having, or lack of faith.

And the result is the same:

            Our joy of being human is diminished,

                        our ability to live the life God intended is robbed,

                        our participation in God’s kingdom is dulled.

So here we are again.

            We gathered in the name and presence and life of Jesus.

            He is the one who enacted the full joy of being human

                        by making his whole life an act of generosity.

            He is the one who gives of himself with such love

                        so that we can give of ourselves from the same storehouse of love.

            He is our Elijah:

                        meeting not only our need for bread,

                        but filling us with such faith

                                    that we always have something left to give.

            He is our good news because of how he embodied God’s love

                        by giving it to those in need,

                                    the hungry, the sick, the rejected, the failed,

                                    and us, who need to be generous to be human.

This is my tall order for the day:

            To have us see that living by the good news of Jesus

                        in whom we have love like the widow’s jar of oil,

                                    love that never runs out…

                                    to see that our lives of giving,

                                    our stewardship of all we have

                                                is a radical, defiant, joyful,

                                                loving, divine way of being human,

                                                like Jesus himself was divine and human.

                        Jesus feeds us with himself,

                                    so that we never run out of having something to give,

                                    we never lose the joy of generosity,

                                    the joy of human life itself.