Proper 27(B): Mark 12:38-44
Proper 27, Yr. B (2009)
I Kings 17:8-16
Mark 12:38-44
Some years ago when I was a senior in college I decided to train for a bike race that was quite a prestigious event at the school.
It was a unique event in that it really was a relay race. Each dorm had a team composed of two parts. One-half of the team drank beer and the other half raced bikes. Since I had never taken much to beer, I decided to try out for the bike portion of the team.
Now, the race took place in late Spring, but as soon as everyone returned from Christmas holidays, the training began.
The bike track was paved in an enormous parking lot used as overflow parking behind the gym. We would train as a team 3 afternoons a week. The practices were grueling and quite competitive as a matter of two seconds could bump you off the team.
As hard as I trained, I didn’t make the primary team but was named as first alternate.
The day of the race arrived, and one of our team couldn’t ride, so that bumped me up onto the team.
My heart was pounding,
energy and excitement filled the air,
the prestige of winning the race was enormous.
My time to race had come.
As I sat on my bike at the start line, I had two runners beside me – one on each side. When I heard the signal, I would begin to pedal, and they would begin to run – the three of us together trying to get as much speed as possible to begin.
As I biked just those few laps around the track, my focus was only on pedaling as fast as I could while keeping my bike upright on the turns and not crashing into anyone else along the way. I gave it my all.
When I crossed the finish line, another two runners grabbed my bike and ran along beside me to stop my bike. Another two team members took my feet out of the toe clips, picked me up under my arms and knees and sat me on the ground.
I had given myself so completely to these few laps that my body did not work –
my legs would not straighten beneath me, much less hold up my weight.
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I recalled this experience in my life as I reflected on the two stories from today’s Old Testament and Gospel readings about the two widows….
In the Old Testament reading we hear of a story of the prophet Elijah who has just finished proclaiming to King Ahab that there would be a prolonged drought in the land of Israel. Yahweh tells Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon where a widow would provide food for him.
Now, in ancient Israel women whose husbands had died were dependent on other family members or charity for their survival because they had no inheritance rights. Their identity and recognition was tied to their husband.
So, day-to-day existence for widows and their children was very precarious for those who found themselves alone.
When Elijah arrives at the town of Zarephath, a widow is out gathering sticks. He calls out to her to bring him some water and food.
Apparently, she is a widow left without family to care for her because she responds to Elijah saying, “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.”
She has only enough left for one meal – and a simple one at that. She is preparing to let go of her life and that of her son.
But Elijah responds with an invitation:
“Do not be afraid. Make me a cake and then one for yourself and your son. For Yahweh has said the jar of meal will not be emptied, and the jug of oil will not fail until there is rain.”
“There will be enough,” Elijah says. “God will provide.”
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Then in today’s Gospel Mark tells the story of Jesus who has just finished teaching in the Temple and so he takes a seat opposite the treasury.
Perhaps he is lost in thought as he watches people filing by, dropping their money into the large trumpet-shaped metal containers.
There are people of power and wealth and prestige who dump large bags of coins, announcing large sums to the crowds and listening to the loud clamor of metal clanging against metal.
And then almost imperceptible in the crowd a poor widow dressed in rags walks by and drops in two small coins – the smallest coins there are – and Jesus alone takes notice of her.
Because she is invisible to the others, he calls over his disciples.
Please note: to this point in Mark’s gospel Jesus has called together his disciples for a teaching only a handful of times. This event is important.
“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 has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
All she had to live on….
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Today we hear the stories of two widows-
Two women whose names are not known,
two women whose faces would not be recognized or remembered,
But two women whose actions live on for generations.
We hear the stories of two women who gave all they had to live on.
Why?
Because they lived out a life of radical trust in God.
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Just a few short months after my racing experience, I recall another experience which was a time of great fear and a time of great trust.
I was now a college graduate, spending my last “free” Summer as it were as a camp counselor at Camp Gailor-Maxon up on the mountain in Monteagle, TN.
We were across the road from the camp, out in the woods, taking the junior high youth through the Ropes Course. For those of you not familiar with such a thing, the Ropes Course is designed to help people confront their fears, work as a team and learn how to trust one another.
The “Ropes Course” gets its name from the fact that there are some “high” elements in which you must climb up a tree and cross over to a neighboring tree using ropes or poles or a combination of the two.
One such element is called the “pamper pole.”
Now, there is nothing pampering about this pole. There is a 30-foot high telephone pole with a one square-foot platform at the top. The goal is to climb the pole using pegs sticking out of the side and then to climb up on top of the pole and stand on this one square-foot platform – having nothing to grab onto to stand up on top.
Once standing up, you are then to jump out six feet in front of you and grab hold of a trapeze and hang there a few moments before being the belayer brings you down.
Now, to begin with I must tell you that I am deathly afraid of heights.
One day something possessed me to try this element on the Ropes Course. I climbed to the top fairly easily and then stood up.
Then I froze.
I stood there for what seemed an eternity – probably in reality only 20 minutes. We stood there so long that we began to hear the bell tolling across the fields, calling us to lunch. The kids kept encouraging me – “Don’t be afraid.” “Just jump.”
Well, when you’re standing on the ground that’s easy to say!
It didn’t matter that I had on a harnesses and was well attached to ropes and the belayer on the ground. I was still on my own as far as I was concerned. And I was afraid to my core. And to top it off the trapeze kept swinging in the breeze – a moving target!
I am standing here before you today, so it is obvious that I finally jumped. My hands glanced off the trapeze, but the belayer caught me with his rope and lowered my gently to the ground.
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Now, I grant you that the stories of my two experiences are rather crude and limited in their analogy to the stories of these two widows.
But as my recollections came to mind and I reflected on them, here is the challenge I found in them for me:
These two widows gave all that they had in radical trust in God.
As I recall spending every ounce of energy I had on those few laps around the track, I wondered what my life would look like were I to spend every ounce of energy in radical trust in God.
Think with me for just a moment –
What time in your life did you give everything – if only for a few moments – to the task at hand?
Do you remember what that felt like?
What would it look like and feel like to give of yourself in that way
in radical trust and obedience to God?
By responding to Elijah’s invitation, the widow of Zarephath potentially gave away her last meal.
And yet by accepting the invitation to trust in God her life was transformed.
When Elijah met her, she had no hope for her future, but through this act of faith and hospitality, Yahweh met her needs.
What might our lives look like if we were to put at risk our very existence by giving everything we have to honor God?
By giving everything we have to help our neighbor?
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I close with a story of a man who captured my vision perhaps as profoundly as the widow in the temple treasury struck Jesus.
After I graduated from college, I spent the next year in Atlanta working with homeless men and women through St. Luke’s Community Kitchen.
Each year St. Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta celebrates a Requiem Mass for all the homeless people who have died there on the streets during the prior year.
I remember the first time I walked into the cathedral and noticed the beautiful architecture – the lofty space with high arched ceilings, rows and rows of pews, and the high altar set off in its own space. There was beautifully carved wooden furniture in the narthex along with rich Oriental rugs.
But on this particular cold evening, in my memory the interior of the nave was dark and smaller. The occasion to me was one of sadness, not joy. At one point in the service, names were read for those who had died and very simple wooden crosses had been nailed together with the person’s name written on it. The crosses were brought forward one by one and laid on the altar. Some crosses had no names, but we remembered the man who had died under the bridge or in a particular cat-hole.
The time came for the offertory, and plates were passed.
Now, I was sitting about 2/3 of the way back on the right side of the nave. There were various people there: Cathedral members, people who worked at various churches and social service agencies, advocates for homeless persons.
Several pews in front of me sat a homeless man. I did not know him, nor could I see his face from where I sat.
As the plate came to him, I saw him shift a bit in his pew and dig his hand deep into his pocket. I remember hearing the clink of coins in the plate as he dropped in his offering, as he dropped in everything that he had – all that he had to live on.
For me the service stopped there – I don’t remember anything after that moment.
I simply remember Jesus sitting in my midst.
Amen.
