Sermon: "Prepare the Way"

Scripture Intro - Luke 1:68-79

Before Jesus of Nazareth, there was John the Baptist.

And in these weeks leading up to Christmas, before we hear Mary sing her Magnificat – her celebratory song about the man her son would grow up to be, 

we hear John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah sing a similar song about his son.

Zechariah’s song is called the Benedictus – which is Latin for “blessed be.”

Luke is a master storyteller.

He doesn’t begin his gospel like Mark – with the story of an adult Jesus and John meeting on the shores of the River Jordan.

And he doesn’t begin his gospel like Matthew – with the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.

Instead he rolls the timeline back even further, and begins with the story of the birth of John the Baptist.

In fact, Luke spends the whole first chapter of his gospel – all 80 verses - weaving together the stories of Jesus and John.

He prepares the way for one story with the telling of another.

In a few weeks we’ll hear the story of the encounter between Mary and John’s mother, Elizabeth, as they share the news of the sons they are destined to bear,

but today we hear from John’s father, Zechariah.

Zechariah was an old man when the angel Gabriel appeared and told him his wife would bear a son who would prepare the way for God to enter the world.

The angel told Zechariah to name his son John – which means “God is gracious.”

When Zechariah questioned how this could be true given the couple’s advanced age, the angel responded to the old man’s doubt by making him mute.

For the entire length of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, he could not say a word.

It was only after his son was born, when the neighbors and relatives were giving Elizabeth a hard time for wanting to name her son, John, rather than Zechariah, after his father, that Zechariah motioned to them to bring him a writing tablet.

And on the tablet he wrote, “His name is John.”  End of discussion.

It was then that Zechariah’s tongue loosened and his voice returned.

And in celebration he sang a song of joy and praise,

for the promise that was about to be fulfilled by Jesus entering the world,

and the role that John would play in preparing the way.

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

December 9, 2018– Second Sunday of Advent

Luke 1:68-79

“Prepare the Way”

Are you ready for Christmas?

Imagine if you walked in here this morning, picked up the bulletin and saw the date printed on the first page was December 24, 2018?

What if you then watched as Art and Vicky lit all four candles on the Advent wreath including the Christ candle in the center - just before I stood up and said, “We welcome you all to this service of worship here on Christmas Eve.”

How confused and panicked would you be right now?

At first you’d probably think we’d gotten it horribly wrong.

That we must have gotten the worship bulletins mixed up.

I have so many draft bulletins on my desk right now that could easily happen.

But what if we continued on with the service singing Christmas carols and reading the nativity story and then an usher handed you a lit candle as we dimmed the sanctuary lights to sing Silent Night –

and no one else seated around you seemed to think this was strangely premature –

you might begin to think that you were the one who’d gotten it horribly wrong.

That somehow you’d slept through the last two weeks of Advent and tomorrow is in fact Christmas Day.

So I ask again, are you ready for Christmas?

Have you purchased and wrapped ALL of the gifts for everyone on your list?

Is your tree up and decorated, and are the stockings hung by your chimney with care?

Is your house clean – and not just every-day clean – but “there’s company coming over tomorrow including your mother-in-law” clean?

Is all your Christmas baking and grocery shopping done,

and is the Christmas ham or turkey just waiting to be put in the oven – whether you’re cooking it yourself or partaking in it as an invited guest?

And what about your travel plans?

Have you gassed up the car?  Have you checked the weather forecast?

And, since today is Christmas Eve, should you even be here right now – should you already be on the road, or waiting to board your flight at the airport, or safely arrived at your destination?

Are you ready for Christmas?

Forgive me if I’ve made you overly anxious on this Sunday of Peace.

You can relax.

Today really is the Second Sunday of Advent.

You still have a full two weeks to prepare for Christmas Day.

As much as we bemoan the fact that the Christmas season seems to get longer every year, most of us really do need the extra time to prepare.  

Given all the shopping, and cleaning, and decorating, and baking that needs to be done,

and with all the parties, and pageants, and craft fairs that we cram into the weeks leading up to Christmas,

we actually do need a whole month, or two, to prepare for it all.

Can you imagine having only one day to prepare for Christmas?

Or even just one week?

Thankfully, the season of Advent gives us four full weeks to prepare for Christmas day,

but this period of preparation really doesn’t have much to do with cleaning the house, or baking cookies, or rehearsing for pageants,

or worrying that the packages from Amazon won’t arrive on time.

It has everything to do with preparing ourselves for the arrival of the Prince of Peace, the presence of God – who is seeking to take up residence within our hearts.

We know how to prepare when we’re expecting company to arrive.

But we may not know how to prepare when we’re expecting God to arrive.

Especially if we’re expecting God to show up like a judgmental relative - wearing a scowl and a pair of white gloves,

running a divine finger along our baseboards and poking into our dark corners and closets checking for accumulated dust, dirt and clutter,

declaring us as less than worthy of receiving the divine gifts of love and grace.

If we think we have to have the decorations just right,

and the cookies baked to perfection,

and the house looking like a spread in Better Homes and Gardens, before we’re ready for God’s arrival, then we’ll never be ready for God’s arrival.

We’ll always be waiting, anticipating, preparing - stuck in a perpetual state of Advent, longing for Christmas to come.

If you’re familiar with this sense of longing and waiting then you can relate to how Zechariah must have been feeling.

Not just because he and his wife Elizabeth thought they were well past their conceiving years when a messenger from God told them she was carrying the couple’s first child.

But also because Zechariah and Elizabeth had spent their whole lives waiting - waiting for relief – relief from the pain and struggle of living under the rule of a empire that was not their own.

Waiting for the messiah that the prophets had promised so long ago would come to set them free. 

The promises of those prophets were hundreds if not thousands of years old by the time Zechariah walked the earth.

So we may also relate to the apathy or skeptical disbelief that many in his time must have felt when reminded of the ancient ramblings found in the dusty scrolls carried around and quoted by the religious and the righteous.

By the first century, the story of Israel was just one long never-ending tale of living in captivity. 

They’d been tossed out, beaten down, or locked up by one empire after another – first the Egyptians, then the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Romans.

It’s no wonder that the prophetic voices that called for repentance and adherence to a faith that promised redemption and liberation at the hands of some future Messiah would often fall on deaf ears.

The people were tired of hearing it.

What good would changing their own hearts do, when it was the system and the ones who perpetuated it for their own benefit that needed changing?

What good would it do to cling to the hope that SOME DAY a light would come to drive out the darkness, when they were struggling in the here and now?

Hope doesn’t put food on the table, or pay for oil for the lamps, or keep your enemy from stealing the land out from underneath you.

We may think we don’t have much in common with the people who wrote the stories in this ancient book, but our time and their time is not all that different.

We’re connected across the millennia by our humanity.

We too live in a world where the sun rises and then sets, leaving us in the dark for long stretches of time.

We too live in a world where wild fires burn, flood waters rise, and the earth shakes seemingly at will.

We too live in a world where dictators rule, children go hungry, and nations go to war over land and resources and power.

We too live in a world that longs for a messiah, a savior, a redeemer, a light that shines in the darkness.

Zechariah was a priest, a descendant of Moses’ brother Aaron,

so he likely held onto the hope that many others had already given up on.

When Zechariah learned that God would soon fulfill the long awaited promise – and would do so by giving him a son – John – who would prepare the way for the One to come –  he lifted up his voice in song:

“By the tender mercy of our God,

the dawn from on high will break upon us,

to give light to those who sit in darkness…

to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Zechariah sang his song into a world that was not prepared for God’s arrival.

Despite the thousands of years of notice.

The table was not set, the corners were not swept,

Very few had gifts they were prepared to give.

But God came anyway.

In the form of a gentle teacher, compassionate healer, and merciful messenger.

And as it turns out, there were enough hearts that were prepared to welcome such a God and provide space for an extended stay.

There were enough who realized that the only way to make room for hope, for joy, for love, for peace,

is to let go of the accumulated fear, and anger, and apathy, and judgment…

To clear out the clutter that keeps us from feeling ready to welcome God,

but to not worry so much about the dirt and dust that has collected in the corners.

Because hope doesn’t need a heart that is completely free of despair to take root.  

Just as joy does not need a heart that denies its sadness.

And peace does not need a heart that is free of conflict.

And love does not need a heart that does not know what it means to fear.

The God who came into this world in a manger, needs only a small yet welcoming space to find a home.

Are you ready for Christmas?

Now is the time to prepare.

Thanks be to God, and Amen.

Sermon: "Belonging to Truth"

Scripture Intro - John 18:33-38a

33 Our gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday is one that we’re accustomed to hearing during Holy Week rather than the week before Advent begins.

This text from the gospel of John recounts the conversation that Pontius Pilate had with Jesus just after Jesus was arrested and brought before Pilate to receive sentencing for his alleged crimes.

If this were an episode of Law and Order we might picture Jesus standing in a court room with the judge standing over him asking him how he pleads – guilty or not guilty.

One caveat we need to mention whenever we read from John’s gospel, is that we should hear this gospel in its context.

John was writing in the late 1^st century some 70 to 80 years after Jesus died.

This is a time when the Christian community was experiencing infighting between those who wished to stay connected to the faith’s Jewish roots and those who wished to distance themselves from the synagogue and create a distinct Christian identity.

The community also contained a mix of Gentile and Jewish Christians who for various reasons wanted to distance themselves from the religious leaders who played a part in the death of Jesus.

In John’s gospel, which was written for those who wanted to break away from the synagogue, we find the entire Jewish tradition lumped into one monolithic group and labeled as “the Jews” –

We’re told the disciples hid out of fear of “the Jews”, and it was “the Jews” who called for Jesus’ execution. 

Taken out of context, these texts have fueled anti-Semitic beliefs and acts of discrimination and violence for thousands of years.

Even if we don’t hold such beliefs ourselves, whenever these texts are read aloud in our worship spaces we should acknowledge how they have been heard and how they are still heard – both by those sitting in our pews, and by our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Context matters. As always.

Liturgically, we hear this text today because as we come to the end of our Christian calendar year, before beginning anew with Advent, we reach the culmination of Jesus’ ministry. That pivotal point where we, like Pilate, contemplate whether this man who stands before us is truly the revolutionary leader the world has been waiting for.

And ultimately, we consider, in what way do we allow Christ to rule in our lives?

Beyond asking ourselves on occasion – What Would Jesus Do? – how do the words and actions of Jesus influence our own words and actions – in a real and life changing way?

To whom do we belong? And whose truth do we own?

 

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

November 25, 2018 – Christ the King Sunday

John 18:33-38a

“Belonging to Truth”

What does it mean to belong?

What does it mean to belong to Christ?

What does it mean to belong to a Community of Christ, like this one?

As some of you may know, our congregation is participating in a series of workshops called “Creating and Leading the 21^st Century Church” offered by the NH Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Every other month, myself, Kate, and members of our church council, gather with the pastors and lay leaders of 9 other churches in NH and MA to talk about what it means to be church in this ever-changing world.

We share our success stories, explore our common challenges and struggles, and learn about the underlying historical, relational, and cultural forces that shape each of our congregations, as well as our individual understandings of what it means to belong to a community of Christ.

The workshop we attended this month focused on the way we approach and implement change in our congregations.

Specifically, we talked about the differences between technical change and adaptive change.

As the world changes around us, we often talk about how we as a church must change  - to meet and serve people where they are in today’s world,

to come up with new ways to show others that being a part of a faith community adds value, meaning, and purpose to one’s life,

and more practically, to ensure that our congregation continues to be a presence in this community for many years to come.

But while we may recognize the need to enact change in our congregations, and show a willingness to adopt change, too often the change we apply involves a technical fix, when what is needed is an adaptive shift.

For example, how would you respond if someone came up to you after worship and said,

“I don’t know why I keep coming to church, I can’t hear what’s being said during the service, most of the time I have no idea what’s going on.”

A technical approach would be to assess the problem –

perhaps the person has a hearing impairment, or the people speaking are not projecting as they should, or there’s an issue with the acoustics in the sanctuary or the sound system – or all of the above.

The next step would be to explore possible solutions with someone with expertise in this area – in this case, we’d bring in our resident and gifted sound technician, Herb Archer.

The last step would be to make the necessary changes to address the problem – have the participants speak louder and clearer, adjust the levels of the microphones or speakers, provide personal amplification devices for those with hearing impairments, or if needed, install a whole new sound system.

A technical approach typically has an identifiable problem and solution,

and often one person, or a small group of people, can enact the change with clear results.

An adaptive approach is much more complicated.

What if we make the needed technical changes and the person who shared the initial feedback about not knowing what’s going on in worship continues to feel like they’re missing information or being left out of the loop with what’s happening in the congregation?

Perhaps their concern goes deeper than hearing what is being said in worship?

Perhaps what they’re expressing is a wider sense of not feeling connected – not feeling included – not feeling as if they belong?

In this case, it may be tempting to identify a technical problem that can be solved with a technical change, when the real issue may require an adaptive change – a change that is not as easy to identify,

a change that may involve multiple issues and solutions -  none of which is guaranteed to provide a lasting fix.

And most importantly, an adaptive change involves not just one person or a small group enacting the change, it involves the congregation as a whole.

It involves changing expectations, changing attitudes, changing behaviors, and in this case, changing the congregational culture to one where every effort is made to include, involve,  and communicate – so all members of the community experience a sense of belonging.

But as we know, feeling like we’re connected and included is only one side of belonging to a community of Christ.

The other side of belonging involves the commitment and covenant we make to be an active follower of Jesus, within this community and in the wider world.

It’s the commitment we make to serve others,

to grow in our relationship with God,

and to grow in our relationship with others –

which is the part of the commitment to Christ that we often struggle with the most.

Jesus acknowledged this struggle in his conversation with Pontius Pilate on the night he was arrested.

He said, “My Kingdom is not of this world…and my followers know this.”

As followers of Christ we stand hesitantly in two very different worlds.

One world where we’re told to love our neighbor, forgive our enemy, and care for the least among us.

And one world where we’re told to mistrust our neighbor, fear our enemy, and to care for only for our country, our family, our own people, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves.

In one world we’re encouraged to live as a communal body, to reach consensus, and to ensure every voice is heard and every need is met.

And in the other world we’re encouraged to live as individuals, to seek out what is best for us, and to reprimand or silence those who point out inequalities in privilege, power, and partisanship.

In one world we’re told the last will be first, the meek will celebrated, and those who turn the other cheek will prevail.

And in the other world we’re told the last will lose out, the meek will be trampled, and those with the biggest weapons and the mightiest fists will prevail.

It’s no wonder why many of us stagger in here on Sunday mornings, seeking respite and peace.

We have these conflicting messages playing in our heads all week long and we come here hoping to make some sense of it all.

Yet here again we encounter Jesus talking about this utopian world –

this Kingdom of God that he talks about more than anything else and expects us to help usher in  –

while at the same time we have no choice but to live and function in this less than utopian world - the one that consistently contradicts the teachings of the One whom we’ve committed ourselves to follow.

To say that we belong to Jesus and that his teachings rule our lives is to invite constant conflict as we navigate in this world….

because almost every word and action of consequence presents us with a point of decision, and conflicting choices.

Do we store up treasures on earth, by putting away money for retirement, or do we store up treasures in heaven by giving all that we have to the poor?

Do we welcome the stranger and the refugee, opening our homes and our hearts to those seeking sanctuary, or do we honor our laws and our borders and insist that it’s only fair that all follow the same rules and process?

Do we punish those who do wrong and seek retribution, or do we leave the judging to God and offer forgiveness to those who trespass against us?

These are not easy choices to make, and as members of the community of Christ, we don’t all agree on which are the correct choices.

Some would say that neither is correct – and that what God requires of us while we’re still in this complex and broken world is a nuanced response that lies somewhere in between.

But we can’t deny that the constant wrestling that takes place within us when we’re confronted with these choices can be downright tiring.

In our gospel reading, we can almost hear the weariness in Pilate’s voice as he struggles to keep a foothold in two different worlds. 

Pilate served and derived his power from the world of the Roman Empire, but as a ruler in the Roman province of Judea he also inhabited the world of the descendants of Abraham, who prayed to a God Pilot didn’t recognize and followed a law that he couldn’t comprehend. 

The province of Judea sat at the edge of the Roman Empire, where uprisings could quickly gain momentum and spiral out of control, and Pilate had orders to keep the peace at all costs. 

Which he did. Pilate had the blood of many on his hands,

but he also understood that playing the part of politician in two worlds sometimes required him to bend to the will of others.

Thus, with one foot in each world, it worked in Pilate’s favor to appease the Jewish leaders and keep uprisings from occurring.  

So we can imagine what Pilate must have felt when he encountered Jesus, who was dragged before him in the middle of the night and threatened to upset the balancing act that Pilate had taken such great care to achieve.

Jesus told Pilate, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Not to the voice of powerful.

Not to the voice of politicians and kings and the ones who hold the purse strings.

But to the one who speaks for the marginalized, the meek, the ones who feel like they don’t belong.

There’s an invitation here.

An invitation to step from one world into another.

To stop trying to balance between the two and make a true attempt to shift our perspective, our allegiance, from the truth of this world, to the truth of God’s world.  

Of course, Pilate responded to Jesus’ invitation with the same question many of us ask ourselves, especially in today’s world:   “What is truth?”

Thankfully, God sent us Jesus to answer that question.

And we find the answer…

In the gospel, in the beatitudes, in Jesus’ teachings and parables,

in his life itself.

Which is why we seek to belong to a community of Christ,

So we can learn and practice that truth, together…and adopt it as our own.

If you’ve been in worship the last few weeks you know we’ve enacted a change here in the sanctuary – we’ve installed a new sound system.

The change was partly brought on by a technical issue.

The wireless frequency we use to operate our sound system has been reallocated by the FCC for use by broadband internet and cell services.

Which means if we didn’t make the change we’d soon be hearing cell phone conversations in the middle of worship.

Of course some may find those more interesting to listen to than the sermon.

But the change in our sound system was also part of our longer-term plan to adapt to our changing world and meet people where they are.

With the new system, we’ll now have the ability to digitally record the service and make it available on our website as a podcast,

so those who are unable to be here on Sunday morning can still hear the music and the message and the announcements, and feel connected to this community even when they can’t be with us physically –

because they’re working, or traveling, or have family obligations, or are homebound by illness, age, or other mobility challenges.

Making a change in our sound system is just one way we honor our mission to be welcoming to all.

To help those who wish to be a part of this community to feel like they’re included – like they belong.

Belonging to Christ is a daily challenge – as we seek to distinguish between the truth of this world and the Truth that Jesus offers us in God’s world. 

But I for one feel hope and joy and excitement – as we seek to find this truth and live it out, together, as this community of Christ. 

Thanks be to God, and Amen.

Sermon: "The Widow's Might"

Scripture Intro - Mark 12:38-44

If you listened closely to the reading of Psalm 146 you may have noticed the usual list of the powerless whom God lifts up – the oppressed, the hungry, the stranger, the orphan…and the widow.

Widows in particular make frequent appearances in the Hebrew scriptures, as well as in the parables and stories of Jesus.

Sometimes they’re named – like Naomi and Ruth - but most of the time they are nameless.

The widow who shared her last crumbs of bread with Elijah.

The widow who pestered a judge until he heard her case and offered her justice.

And the widow we encounter here in this passage from the Gospel of Mark –

the widow who dropped her last two coins - or "mites" - in the Temple collection box.

We hear about widows so often in our Bible it’s tempting to paint them all with the same brush – as poor and exploited and largely forgotten in a patriarchal world where woman who lacked a husband could not own property, had no source of income, and had no value.

These nameless, faceless women are often lifted up for their faithfulness, their generosity, their persistence, and the example they set for us all.

The widow in today’s scripture passage in particular has been the subject of countless sermons over the years in which she has been both lauded for her extreme act of giving – and pitied, as a victim of corrupt religious leaders who parade around in fancy robes while convincing those who least can afford it to give all that they have.

But rather than rush to judgment with an interpretation of this passage that either celebrates or laments the widows offering.

Let’s put ourselves in the place of Jesus.

And just observe.

As he sits across the room from the Temple treasury and watches the line of people make their way up to the collection box.

Noticing what they are wearing and how they carry themselves.

Listening for the sound the coins make as they fall in…both large and small.

Watching the expressions on their faces.

And simply noting the character of the giver - captured in that moment -

in the act of giving. 

 

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

November 11, 2018 – Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Psalm 146; Mark 12:38-44

“The Widow’s Might”

At the party celebrating the Christmas in Amherst Village House Tour last year, I was pleased to run into to Katrina Holman.

Katrina, as many of you know, is our resident Amherst village historian.

If you want to know the history of any of the historic homes in the village, you need only ask Katrina, and she can usually tell you down to the exact year who owned what property and what business or trade was once practiced in what are now all historic homes.

She’ll tell you which home was originally the town bank, which was a restaurant, which was home to the local blacksmith, and where the town taverns – all five of them – were located.

Last Christmas, as our congregation was just beginning to talk about launching a capital campaign to fund much needed repairs of this historic sanctuary and the parsonage next door, I asked Katrina what she could tell me about the history of the house that has been home to a multitude of ministers over the years, including myself.

I knew the house was built in the 1840’s but I was curious to know,

had it always been a parsonage?  Had the church always owned it?

Or did it have a previous life that I was not aware of?

Katrina looked at me and very uncharacteristically said,

“That’s an interesting question, I don’t know.”

About a month after we had that conversation, Katrina wrote an article for the Amherst Citizen that told the story of our parsonage,

a story which she said had never been told before.

The house was built in 1846 by a wealthy Boston merchant and banker.

He was the financial advisor for Ralph Waldo Emerson and was one of Emerson’s closest friends.

The original deed for the house names the owner as Abel Adams, Gentleman.

Katrina noted that historically, the “designation ‘gentleman’ in place of an actual occupation signified that a man had attained enough wealth that he no longer had to work.”  (today we just call it “retired”)

Adams paid $200 for what was prime acreage in the center of the village and he spared no expense in building the two-story house that stands there today.

But Abel Adams never lived in the house.
He built it for three of his sisters, Rebecca, Mary, and Lydia.

Lydia had become a widow at age 45, and had four children.

Rebecca was widowed at age 36, and had one child.

Mary was a spinster, which is considered to be derogatory term in our day, but historically referred to an older woman who had never married.

Because a woman who didn’t have a legal attachment to a man, had to be given some designation to identify her status in life.

Since Rebecca lived the longest, until 1884, the house came to be known as the Widow Rebecca Conant House.

Thanks to the generosity of their brother, the three sisters, and two of their adult daughters who also never married, lived out their lives at 11A Church St. 

Over the years, the women also took in their brother Levi’s widow, Lucy, after all her children had married and left home, and then the two unmarried daughters of their sister, Charlotte, moved in as well – Sarah and Mary Stewart.

Sarah and Mary lived in the house long after their widowed aunts had passed away.

They were often seen taking carriage rides together around the village, and were known to cheerfully invite their neighbors to join them along the way.

When Sarah passed away in 1918, the house was finally put up for sale,

and was purchased by the Congregational Church and Society of Amherst,

to be used as a parsonage for its pastors.

It’s humbling to know that during the first 72 years of its existence, the house where I now live with my wife, Stephanie, was home to seven women - widows and spinsters from two generations of the same family, none of them owning the home themselves, but instead being granted the privilege of a lease for life. 

When we place these women in their time and context, there are some assumptions we can make about their lives given their status as widows and spinsters.

As women living in the 19^th century they certainly didn’t enjoy the freedoms and choices that women living today have, regardless of their marital status.

But just as with the widows who appear throughout our Bible, we can’t assume that these women were poor, marginalized, or perceived as lacking in value, simply because they did not have a husband to give them worth.

New Testament scholar and Jewish historian, Amy-Jill Levine, proposes that our assumptions about biblical widows, while well meaning, are often lacking in historical accuracy.

And our tendency to depict the Jewish faith at the time of Jesus as uncaring and complicit in throwing impoverished women out on the street after the death of their husbands is not only not supported by Jewish historical documents and other texts we find in the Hebrew scriptures, but it is also laden with anti-Semitism.

Levine points out that widows in biblical times did have a legal way to retain their homes and their wealth, and plenty of them did. 

And while several of the widows that we meet in the Bible are described as being poor, not all of them are.

In fact the widow who pesters the judge until he gives in to her demands would likely not have been granted time in court had she not had money and means and status to have her case heard. 

To call her powerless and impoverished simply because she is a widow is to deny her power and place in the story.

It turns her into a victim, rather than one who is claiming her rightful voice.

But what does this tell us about the widow we encounter in today’s passage from Mark?

This is clearly a widow who is poor and powerless.

We’re told that she has given her last two pennies to the Temple treasury.

And we’re also told that Jesus has witnessed her doing so immediately after he warned his disciples about religious leaders who wear ostentatious robes and devour widows houses.

Surely there must be a connection between the greed of the religious scribes and the generosity of the widow.

She’s either a victim of an unjust system that takes from those who can least afford to give, or she’s a stewardship poster child, who gives all that she has, despite how little she has, because she just loves God that much.

When I asked the Rev. Dr. Mary Luti, a retired pastor and my former seminary professor whom I greatly admire, to share her thoughts on this text, she said,

“In my years as a pastor I noted that not many thoughtful people like this text very much. And when it was presented in the context of stewardship and pledging, it always raised more anxiety than money.”

The problem with plucking these widows out their stories and out of their context and using them to prop up whatever interpretation best serves the message we’re trying to get across, is that we become guilty of using the stories of these women as a means to our own ends.

It could be argued that the Gospel writers do the same.

We sometimes forget that the Gospels are not biographies.

And they’re not historical records.

They don’t present us with a series of chronological events with factual details that tell us what actually happened during Jesus’ lifetime.

They’re also not a collection of “How To” manuals that present us with practical examples of how we’re supposed to live our lives as followers of Christ.

The Gospel writers set out to provide their readers with a theological record of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,

and in doing so they lay out individual stories in a specific order

that is unique to each gospel, to build a portrait of who Jesus was and is,

and to tell the larger theological story of God coming into our world in an arc that their readers are meant to follow from beginning to end.

When we look at it this way – when we step back and look at each Gospel as a whole - we recognize that each writer sets out to paint a different portrait, and tell a different theological story – one that is tailored for their unique community, time, and place.

Mark places this story about the widow’s extravagant gift soon after he tells us the story of the rich man who walks away grieving when he’s told he has to give away all that he has to be given eternal life.

This is the story we heard a few weeks ago where Jesus says it’s easier for a camel to walk through the eye of needle than for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God.

We’re so tempted to pluck that story out of its context as well and make it a story about money and generosity, when it’s not just about money.

It’s about letting go of all the things that keep us trapped in our human systems of power and status and privilege.

Systems that benefit the few while exploiting the many.

As Jesus keeps telling us, any system that determines value based on “who has the most and who is the greatest” has no place in the Kingdom of God.

And we need to untangle ourselves from all of it to realize the freedom and the connection that we crave and long to experience in the presence of God.

So Mark gives us the story of a rich man who turns away from the promise of the Kingdom because he can’t let go of what anchors him in this world.

And then Mark follows it with the story of a poor woman, who gives away all she has, because she believes in the promise of the Kingdom, and she understands that in order to grab onto it,  she needs to first let go.

In the passage that immediately follows this one, Jesus predicts the fall of the Temple, and then the Passion story begins.

Where Jesus makes the ultimate sacrifice and lets go of his life,

completing the theological arc laid out in the Gospel of Mark.

Mark gives us a portrait of Jesus as a suffering servant.

One who sacrifices everything as an example of what it takes to break the cycle of suffering and death and enter the Kingdom of God.

So I apologize in advance to our Capital Campaign team and our Stewardship team, because this is not a text or a sermon about how we’re meant to follow the example of the widow and give generously to the treasury to support the work of the Temple.

But this is a text and a sermon that speaks to what it is we value.

Because as Jesus said, in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels,

“Wherever our treasure is, there our heart will also be.”

If we value compassion and kindness.

If we value community and connection.

If we value letting go of the things that hold us back, trip us up, and weigh us down….so we can grab hold of the things that push us forward, keep us grounded, and lift us up…

If we value moving towards one another in love,

Rather than backing away from one another in fear…

Then we value what God’s Kingdom has to offer.

We value the promise that we all have a seat at God’s table,

that we’re all meant to share in God’s abundance,

that we all are equal recipients of God’s love and grace.

If we value all of this, then we naturally seek out communities that share these values.

So we can figure out together what it means to live into and practice these values.

And be given the opportunity to practice mercy and forgiveness when we screw it up, over and over again.

When the widow dropped her meager mite (m-i-t-e) in the Temple treasury,

I like to think that she was declaring herself all-in on this promise of a kinder, gentler, more just and loving world.

Even from his spot across the room Jesus could see that she was kindred spirit.

One who was willing to sacrifice it all to gain what she valued most.

The widow’s might (m-i-g-h-t) is found in her act of letting go.

What do we value enough to do the same?

Thanks be to God, and Amen.