A Picture Speaks…

Scripture Lesson: Mark 12: 38-44

Dr. Matthew S. Brown

November 12, 2006

As organ preludes begin and pastors rush down church hallways buttoning up robes, clutching sermon notes, and straightening that lonely strand of hair, we tend to receive a final rush of information. “Matt, would you make an announcement about the women’s circle meeting?” “Matt, would you remind everyone about the covered dish supper?” “Matt, don’t forget to mention Aunt Edna’s cousin in the prayer. Her bunions are killing her.” “Matt, the icemaker in the kitchen is leaking.” “Matt, XYZ.”

Sometimes I can put it all together, often, I cannot.

Years ago in a small church I was busily getting myself ready for worship, just about ready to enter the sanctuary when someone grabbed my elbow, reminding me to remember June’s anniversary. You see in that small congregation there was a tradition of sharing thanksgivings and concerns prior to the prayers of the people, which, I must say, is a tradition that makes ministers extremely nervous because of the way it opens the door for in depth dissertations on the state of Aunt Edna’s bunions or Fifi the poodle’s problems with constipation. You would never know what the members were going to share or how long they were intent on sharing it.

Anyway, this was a milestone anniversary for June and her husband who was at home sick, and so it was indeed an important item to celebrate with the congregation. June and J.P. were charter members of the congregation. J. P.’s name had been the name on the original loan the church had borrowed for the building of their sanctuary. June was a petite, eminently kind and caring Southern woman, brimming with charm and goodness. June had a way of always lifting my spirits and bolstering my confidence. Every week she would come out just gushing over the sermon I had preached that day. It could have been rotten but June was not going to let me leave that place without believing that I could actually do this.

I was more than happy to share the inspiring news of their anniversary. But by the time the prayers of the people rolled around following the hymns, the baptism, and the sermon I, for the life of me, could not remember what anniversary June and J.P. were celebrating. Was it fifty? Was it sixty? I could not remember and so I asked. The time for sharing had come and I tried to say something grand along the lines of: “I was just this morning made aware that this day is a most significant day in the lives of June and J. P. Patterson. And as I said this, June was beaming from ear to ear as she did throughout most worship services. It was almost as if her expression could not be altered from an almost beatific glow. “Yes,” I said, “it is an auspicious occasion for June who is with us today. June tell us what anniversary you are celebrating?”

June’s expression did not alter, but neither did she respond to my question. And so I asked again. “June is it your fiftieth or sixtieth anniversary?” Yet, still, all smiles, no response.

And then it hit me. This marvelous woman who had bolstered my confidence from week to week, who in fact, had made me feel like I could almost be called a gifted preacher, had never heard a single word I had ever uttered from the pulpit.

Life has a way of humbling you, of periodically reminding you that you are not “all that.” And, to be honest, that is a gift. For pride has a way of making you think that you are the one worthy of thanks instead of God.

Have you noticed that? One of the main impediments in the journey of faith is the pride that convinces you that the liturgy should be “Thanks be to me,” instead of “Thanks be to God.”

I had the privilege of eating dinner recently with Roland Perdue, a most gracious and generous pastor who is the interim pastor at Fifth Ave. Presbyterian in New York and he was telling us the story of an experience he had at the time of a church member’s death years ago. The person had been sick and hospitalized for some time and one day when he went to the hospital to visit her, he entered her room and spoke a few kindnesses but couldn’t help but notice before long that she was dead.

And so he went out to the nurse’s station and said, “I’m not sure you’re aware that the patient in Room 235 has died.” And they thanked him and quickly went about doing what they do in those situations, which those of you in the health professions will affirm, does not mean immediately removing the body.

Well, Roland went home and a little later the phone rang, and it was one of the church elders who was truly shaken and upset. She said, “I just returned from the hospital and I’m never going back. You know I went through the church’s training on hospital visitation and thought it would be a good ministry for me. So, this evening I decided to visit Mrs. Green and I went into her hospital room and I said the things I was supposed to say and asked the questions the training said I should ask. And she would not respond to me at all and she didn’t even offer any thanks for the visit whatsoever! It was humiliating. I’m just never going back.”

“But Bonnie,” Roland said, “She was dead!”

Life has a way of humbling you, of periodically reminding you that it is not all about you.

One of the main impediments in the journey of faith is the pride that convinces you that the liturgy should be “Thanks be to me,” instead of “Thanks be to God.”

Be honest with yourself. Is faith for you a matter of God being grateful for your service or you being grateful for God’s unmerited grace?

Jesus today puts before us two powerful portraits of contrasting faith practice. The first focuses on the easy target of all robe donning, Bible quoting, hairspray using, golden-tongued, “how great I am,” preacher types.

Listen to Eugene Peterson’s translation of this image offered by Jesus in The Message:

"Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, 39 basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. 40 And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they'll pay for it in the end."

Gulp! You can usually trust that the prayers will not be long on the days this text is read in worship. But it serves as a cautionary image to any who would forget that the term “return thanks” is not about receiving gratitude it is about expressing it to the one who has created, sustained and redeemed life.

Listen to the confession of one honest preacher from Oklahoma named Robin Meyers. “For the sake of appearances we do say long prayers. When given a chance to pray before our colleagues, we often feel the need to cover every cause, name every country, and in a marathon of self-righteousness, write every last vestige of prayerfulness out of prayer by making it not a moment to confess dependence and gratitude, but the closing argument of a self-nominated saint. No wonder Jesus preferred the prayer of the publican. At least God was the intended audience.” (Robin Meyers, The Christian Century)

Whether it is your offering, your prayer life, your willingness to teach in Sunday school, lead in worship, hammer a nail for Habitat, or visit someone in the hospital, is the goal that you would be thanked or that God would be honored?

Listen to the words of Augustine, after being appointed bishop in the early church. “For you I am a bishop, but with you I am a Christian. The first is an office accepted; the second is a gift received. One is danger; the other is safety. If I am happier to be redeemed with you than to be placed over you, then I shall, as the Lord commanded, be more fully your servant.” (Bennett Sims, Servanthood)

Jesus today is talking about the shape our faith shall become. This was a continuing mantra for Jesus. Where there is preening and pride, where there is self-congratulation and an expectation of gratitude, where there is self-righteousness and self-importance, beware. You may be speaking of God but at the same time moving away from God. The great Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard used the image of a man walking backwards. He speaks of someone who develops the technique of facing the Lord, speaking to and of the Lord, and constantly saying, “I am here,” but at the same time is moving away from the Lord. (Robin Meyers, The Christian Century)

What shape shall our faith become? Jesus now turns us to the compelling image of a widow winding her way through the long-robed, painfully loquacious religious power brokers in order to place an amount that wouldn’t buy a piece of bubblegum into the temple treasury. And with admiration, Jesus says, "The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together.  All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford - she gave her all."

As I read this week, this woman was not a poor widow. She was poor because she was a widow. In that patriarchal culture, when a woman lost a spouse, she not only suffered the grief of lost love, she also lost any means to support herself. Pity would soon turn to prejudice because that’s the way society tends to work. We would quickly forget the loss she has suffered and would begin to treat her with the contempt we tend to offer so freely to all of the poor. We look down on them with disdain because of their dependency without any willingness to recognize the factors that led to their dependence, without any willingness to acknowledge that faced with those same factors we would be enduring the same dependence.

The widow’s gift would not warrant a brass plaque in the eyes of the temple authorities, but Jesus sees what others would ignore. As Peterson translates it, “All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford - she gave her all."

She was not bathing in self-congratulation and looking for thanks, she was offering her life in gratitude to the God upon whom she was totally dependent. Her gift without limits would foreshadow the gift of Christ who offered his life as a sacrifice of love.

What shape shall our faith become? One of the main impediments in the journey of faith is the pride that convinces you that the liturgy should be “Thanks be to me,” instead of “Thanks be to God.”

Will faith be for you a matter of God being grateful for your service or you being grateful for God’s unmerited grace? Amen.

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