I read a story a while back of a man named Larry Fardette. Larry had a wife, a daughter, and a construction business. In 2011, Larry’s business was struggling and his daughter had become seriously ill. To add insult to injury, both of his vehicles broke down in the same week in irreparable ways. He was in a really tough spot. When a local junkyard offered Larry $600 for his vehicles, Larry took it. As he was contemplating what to do with that money, he remembered the words of a televangelist that he liked to listen to. Larry listened to a lot of televangelists, but one in particular, Todd Coontz, had seemed the most compelling. Coontz talked often about “seed money,” and he threw out the number 273 regularly when talking about it. He encouraged his listeners to donate $273 to his ministry as “seed money,” which Coontz assured his listeners would come back to them multiplied. Larry Fardette remembered that message, and he was desperate for the blessing of God. So, he sent Coontz’s ministry a check for $273 and another for $333 (another amount the televangelist often referred to).

Now, you may already have a guess as to how this story ends. Larry and his family waited for the multiplication of that gift they gave. They waited and waited and waited. Two years later, in 2013, Larry’s daughter’s health became critical. Larry was desperate so he sat down and wrote a five-page, impassioned letter to Coontz’s ministry and several others that he had contributed to over the years asking them to help him pay for the medical care his daughter needed. One-by-one he received responses from them, all of them refusing to help. Larry and his wife ended up selling everything they owned and moving to Florida to try to get their daughter the care she needed, but it was not enough. Larry and his wife ended up homeless and childless.

In our passage from the gospel of Mark this morning, Jesus is teaching at the temple, and he warns his listeners about the scribes, who he says, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” “They devour widows’ houses,” Jesus says. Does that sound at all similar to Larry’s story?

In Jesus’ day, women held no power in society or within the judicial system. So, husbands would appoint in their wills a scribe or a Pharisee to be the executor of his widow’s estate. They would control all of the widow’s financial assets, and it would not have been hard for them to finagle the law in order to gain her house and property for themselves. Jesus had seen this happening and he called it out. And it is within this context that we get the story that we’ve come to know as the Widow’s Mite.

After calling out the scribes for their unjust behavior, Jesus sits down in the temple opposite the treasury, where the Jews would come and put their monetary offerings. As Jesus watched, he saw many Jews coming to give their offering. The rich men came (very possibly many of them scribes or Pharisees), and they would give large sums of money. Now, that sounds pretty good, right? The temple was essentially a non-profit organization. And what non-profit doesn’t love a big donation? But Jesus takes a little different look at it. He sees the rich people put large donations into the treasury, but then he sees a widow come and put two small coins in. The text says ‘two lepta.’ Now, two lepta in today’s money would be about $3.50. This widow’s offering was pretty insignificant. But Jesus took note of it. And he said, “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.” Jesus not only takes note of the widow’s offering, but he praises it.

The widow didn’t have much money, yet she gave all she had. I have a feeling this passage comes up in the lectionary at this time of the year because this is the time when most churches are thinking about budgets and asking their members to pledge for next year. And many a preacher has seen this text as the perfect text to highlight godly giving practices. And those sermons always focus on the widow and her gift. Preachers will talk about her faith. She gave away all that she had trusting that God would provide for her. This is a text that preachers like Todd Coontz will use in an abusive way to shame those who don’t give all that they have in order to get them to give more. Preachers will also talk about her generosity. She didn’t hold back anything. She gave all that she had. She believed in the goodness of God and in the sanctification of the holy temple, and so she gave what she could to support the temple. And preachers also talk about the sacrifice of the widow. She gave so much that it hurt. That was her money for food and daily living. But she gave all that up for God.

While there is a good message in all of those points, I believe that there is a different message in this text that is just as important if not moreso, yet it mostly gets ignored or glazed over. That message comes from focusing on the rich people rather than the widow. This is something I talked about in my presentation on Stewardship and Trauma out in Portland. I looked at this story and asked how it would look different to us if we focused on the rich people instead. I suggested three things that we would see. First, the rich gave out of their excess. The money they gave may have been large, but they didn’t even notice it missing because they had so much money. I would wager that many if not most of us do that very same thing. We give what we feel we can give without damaging our lifestyle and comfort. Second, the rich took advantage of the poor. We know this from Jesus’ earlier words about the scribes. The rich, like Todd Coontz, preyed on the desperate poor. They may have been giving a lot of money, but at least some of that money had been obtained through the exploitation of others. And finally, the rich gave for show. They wanted to show off their power so they gave away large sums of money to make themselves look good. It wasn’t about their love for God or their devotion to temple worship. It was about their desire to be looked up to.

Looking at the rich in this story shows us a very different message. This text becomes one that speaks about injustice and about those who perpetuate injustice in our world and in our churches. But how do we apply that message to our lives? I think it begins inside our hearts. Who are we more like in this story? Are we the perpetrators of injustice or the victims? Be careful as you consider that question. Think about the choices you make every day with your money. Think about how the ways you spend your money affect other people. If you don’t know what those effects are, then do some research and find out. When you buy a $10 sweater at Walmart that would have cost $40 to make, what are the implications of that purchase? And what would be the implications of not making that purchase? Once you’ve considered those choices, then you have to decide how you will choose to live now that you know that information. That is where the practices of generosity and faithfulness take center stage.

We ask if our actions are just and pure, from the heart. Then we ask, are we truly being generous? Or are we giving for our own self-aggrandizement? No one can tell us if we are giving generously or not. They can thank us for our generosity when they are beneficiaries of a large donation, but that doesn’t necessarily make the giving of that donation an act of generosity on our part. Generosity begins with an assessment of our hearts and our lives. What kind of person does Jesus want us to be? How can the way we use our money reflect that person Jesus wants us to be? Are we using our money in ways that lift others up rather than lifting ourselves up?

Once we’ve begun to use our money more justly and less selfishly, then I believe it is our task, just as it was the task of Jesus, to call out injustices when we see them. That doesn’t mean calling specific individuals out for practices that we deem unjust. I think we have to call out these injustices on a broader scale by addressing patterns we see within our church, our community, and our overall society. This is about changing the culture, not criticizing those who see things a bit differently. This is about thinking toward the future and recognizing that our choices have consequences, both good and bad.

There were once two young men working their way through Leland Stanford University. Their funds got desperately low, and the idea came to one of them to engage Paderewski for a piano recital and devote the profits to their board and tuition. The great pianist’s manager asked for a guarantee of two thousand dollars. The students, undaunted, proceeded to stage the concert. They worked hard, only to find that the concert had raised only sixteen hundred dollars. After the concert, the students sought the great artist and told him of their efforts and results. They gave him the entire sixteen hundred dollars, and accompanied it with a promissory note for four hundred dollars, explaining that they would earn the amount at the earliest possible moment and send the money to him. “No,” replied Paderewski, “that won’t do.” Then tearing the note to shreds, he returned the money and said to them: “Now, take out of this sixteen hundred dollars all of your expenses, and keep for each of you 10 percent of the balance for your work, and let me have the rest.” The years rolled by–years of fortune and destiny. Paderewski had become premier of Poland. The devastating war came, and Paderewski was striving with might and main to feed the starving thousands of his beloved Poland. There was only one man in the world who could help Paderewski and his people. Thousands of tons of food began to come into Poland for distribution by the Polish premier.

After the starving people were fed, Paderewski journeyed to Paris to thank Herbert Hoover for the relief sent him. “That’s all right, Mr. Paderewski,” was Mr. Hoover’s reply. “Besides, you don’t remember it, but you helped me once when I was a student at college and I was in a hole.”

Do we want a future in which widow’s continue to be taken advantage of and stripped of their property and homes? Do we want a future in which parents can’t get the medical care their children need? A future in which so many people live in a constant state of fear and desperation? Or do we want to make choices that will change the world for the better, even if they mean a sacrifice now? We must all look in our hearts and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. And may we be blessed to be a blessing. Amen.