Giving Everything

11-11-18 (Proper 27/Ordinary 32 B, Semi-Continuous)

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17; Mark 12:38-44

Giving Everything

It’s not all that often that November 11th tends to fall on a Sunday, let alone that we are given the opportunity to recognize the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that brought the first World War to an end.  Today at 11:11, bells across the country will be rung 21 times in commemoration of this centennial event - both to honor those veterans who are still in our midst, and in memory of those who have already given that “last full measure of devotion” in service to their country and gone on before us.

It’s interesting to think of these events today, particularly as we listen to the readings from this Sunday’s lectionary.  While neither Ruth nor the widow that Jesus points out were great military leaders or soldiers serving on the battlefields, and couldn’t have served in their nation’s military even had they wanted to in their time, they still exhibit that quality of devotion, of sacrifice, and of bravery that we lift up as admirable traits in those veterans whom we honor today.

We left Ruth last week as she clung to Naomi, proclaiming her steadfast loyalty to her mother-in-law as they stared at the horizon and prepared for their journey back to Bethlehem.  As she stares at that horizon, she knows that the future ahead of her is bleak - as a Moabite foreigner and a widow, Ruth’s prospects are slim, and yet she still decides to risk everything and devote herself fully to Naomi, to care for this woman and to provide for her as best as she can.  They come back to Bethlehem and are immediately the talk of the town - Naomi renames herself “Mara,” which means bitter, and as they set up their home, the only resources they have available to them are those scraps that they can glean from the barley harvest, which has just begun.

Ruth goes out into the fields, and while the Hebrew law allowed her to be there and to gather from the fringes of the fields that which was set aside for the poor, the widow, and the foreigner in the land, that same law would have done very little to provide Ruth with safety from harassment and assault at the hands of the field workers.  Fortunately, she happens to start her foraging in the fields of Boaz, who himself happens to be a relative of Naomi’s late husband.  When Boaz sees Ruth gleaning in his fields and learns about who she is and why she is out there, he is immediately impressed by her loyalty and kindness to her mother-in-law.  He takes Ruth aside and recommends that she stick to his own fields, invites her to his home to eat and drink with him, and orders his own workers to leave her alone - even to allow her to take from more than just the area that the laws prescribed.  Ruth’s willingness to put her own safety and security at risk in order to provide for Naomi are rewarded, and so Naomi encourages Ruth to take a further risk.  She tells Ruth to put on her finest, to go to the threshing floor - a place where women were distinctly not supposed to be - to wait until Boaz has eaten and drank his fill, and then to go uncover his feet and lay down beside him.  And this is what Ruth does - she takes that further risk, takes incredibly forward actions toward Boaz, and then goes yet one step further.  Instead of waiting for Boaz to give her more direction, Ruth declares Boaz her redeemer - the one who she wants to marry her as her own husband’s “next of kin” by Hebrew law.  Again - Boaz is impressed.  Ruth could have sought out younger men, and yet once more she has shown kindness and dedication to someone who has cared for her.  Ruth continues to risk everything by doing what she does, and her tenacity is yet again rewarded.

It’s a similar kind of dedication that Jesus chooses to point out, in particular, as the widow comes to the temple with her offering.  Meager as it is in comparison with the offerings of so many others that he and the disciples observe, Jesus nevertheless recognizes that this woman has given everything she had into the temple’s offering box - all she had to live on.  And of course, at this point in the story, it’s my job to put down my sermon, look out at all of you, and give my best stewardship talk.  After all… if Jesus lifted up this widow who gave her last penny to God, how much more should we be giving to the church to help us keep doing all the wonderful things we’re doing in Vandalia?  As we come into this time where we’re giving thanks for the bounty of our own harvests, where should we be addressing that thanks?  Pledge cards can be found next to the green visitor cards, please give as you feel you have been blessed.  And now let us stand and affirm what we believe…

But wait.  Is that truly the message of the gospel here?  We don’t know what happens to the widow after the offering - only the peculiar fact that she gives the totality of her earthly wealth to put at God’s disposal.  There’s no concrete reward for her faith like we hear in Ruth’s story, where God blesses her obedience through giving her Boaz as a husband and making her an ancestor of David.  There’s no promise of further blessing, but there’s also no command to “go and do likewise” that so many of us tend to see.  I guess there goes my stewardship sermon, after all.

But there is still a great importance to this widow’s act of incredible giving.  Jesus lifts her up because she stands directly opposite of the example of scribes who put on great performances for personal appearance and “devour” the homes of the poor to make their own lives more wealthy and comfortable which Jesus gives in the first part of the reading. Jesus isn’t so much pointing out the exemplary generosity of the widow as much as he is emphasizing the failings of a system that was meant to be built on providing for her in the first place so that she didn’t have to give her last two coins to the temple.  This woman risks everything, not out of some hope for future blessings and being paid tenfold “in that coming day,” but because it is the position in which the system has forced her to live.

This year, we’ve heard a lot about money nearly everywhere we turn - and we’re nowhere near done hearing about it, either.  Tariffs, tax cuts, deficits and trade wars continue to leave us nervous and uncertain.  The stock market keeps fluctuating and we wonder about our retirement funds, even as we continue to see fighting over Social Security and whether it will even exist when it comes time for many of us to claim it.  Figures and sums get thrown at us left and right these days - almost as much as the incessant mailings and telephone calls that we received over the last month leading up to the election.  And particularly in the light of these texts, I can’t help but wonder: what if our candidates had spent that money toward improving the lives of the people they wanted to vote for them?  What if, rather than dirty ads and party propaganda, the candidates had used that money to help those in need and provide relief to the afflicted?  What if candidates truly showed the work they were willing to put into making our country a better place instead of offering so many empty promises and platitudes?

And what if we were to strive to do the same?  What if the widow’s offering takes a different shape for us today - what if stewardship is about more than filling out a direct-deposit slip and just putting our resources in God’s hands?  What if it takes making decisions about what our efforts, energies, and -yes- funding goes toward in the long run?  We gather today and we celebrate those people who risked and gave everything out of their sense of dedication and loyalty, whether to country, to family, or to faith.  We see those risks being lived out in Ruth and in the faithfulness of the widow.  I see us as the church reaching out and taking those risks many times, ourselves, as we open our doors to the community, as we seek to walk alongside our neighbors and offer opportunities to meet their needs.  But that calling is still there for each of us - where is God calling us to take more risks?  Where are the places where we are being called to see that our systems have failed and that we are able to step faithfully into that gap?  May God make us bold to take those risks, and may God bless us when we do.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.