I was the bane of my math teachers. I was never really very good at math. I was better at reading and spelling (or I was until spellcheck came along), and not very facile at arithmetic or God help me, algebra. Pity poor Brother Gerard, my algebra teacher. I did do fairly well in geometry, because in geometry the numbers are attached to their meaning. You’re describing shapes and solids with geometry – something tangible. Not just pure numbers that exist unattached to what they are measuring or counting. Mr. Wong, my geometry teacher, had a much better time of it than did Brother Gerard.
I didn’t get any better at math until I had a proper use for it, until I had a job that was intricately associated with math. That was not when I became a CPA or an aerospace engineer. I finally became adept at math when I became a waiter.
I got very good – and accurate – at simple addition, because if you undercharge a customer due to a mistake in addition, the boss would make you pay the difference out of your tips. But being able to do a quick calculation of percentages was the best skill to have. If you could calculate percentages at a glance, you’d know just how effusive a ‘thank you’ to give when your table was paying up. “Keep the change” can be an insult or a windfall, and it was helpful to be able to quickly calculate which.
Little did I know that while becoming adept at calculating percentages, I was preparing myself for my later career in fundraising. Because in fundraising, you hope to spend some money in order to raise much more money for your cause. The efficacy of an effort, be it a mailing or a black-tie gala at a fancy hotel, is determined by how much was spent versus how much was raised.
And let me tell you, if you can quickly calculate 15% of a dinner bill, you can quickly calculate the cost of this year’s black tie fundraiser – and you’ll be able to tell by the next morning whether to rebook the ball room at the Waldorf for next year’s gala dinner – or to cancel it altogether.
It’s all about the percentages, all about being able to calculate the cost versus the benefit.
The widow of Zarephath whom we meet in our reading from 1st Kings this morning knows a thing or two about careful calculations as well. She’s carefully calculated the amount of flour left in the jar, and the amount of oil remaining in the jug. She’s probably been watching their declining levels for weeks. Checking often to make sure that no ants or scorpions have found their way into the flour jar. She’s probably doled out the oil a drop or two at a time, being very careful with the pottery jar – setting it down just so, so as not to risk cracking the earthen jug and wasting what little remains to make the bread she and her son must live on.
Such careful calculations, such mindful measures to preserve what little remains, until what remains is just barely enough for a final meal.
When we meet her in today’s reading she knows the next meal she makes will be her last, and the last for her child as well. What must that feel like, do you wonder? Preparing a bit of bread, and feeding it to your child, believing that this bit of bread will be the last he ever eats…
The fact that the child she will soon loose to starvation is a boy is somewhat ironic. If she were able to keep him alive until he comes of age, he would be able to provide for her, and would be bound by tradition and custom to do so. Widows in traditional cultures in the ancient world were an incredibly marginalized and vulnerable group. They were without the legal protections of a male-headed household. They had no means of earning a living, no way of generating income, no way to represent their interests in court or in terms of the law.
Without a husband or son to protect and provide for them, widows were bereft of the means to keep body and soul together. So for the widow of Zarephath, to not be able to feed a son who she hopes will one day feed her, must have been a bitter irony.
To feed your child his last meal, and then to lose that child to malnutrition and starvation is horrible in any place and time. But, let’s be honest, it’s not a particularly uncommon occurrence. It wasn’t uncommon in Elijah’s day, nor in Jesus’s day, and it’s not at all uncommon in our world today. Today, this Sunday morning, a child will die of hunger or hunger-related causes somewhere in the world every 6 seconds.[1] By the time we finish worshipping this morning, 600 children around the world will have died in much the same conditions and for the same reason as the widow’s son in our Old Testament reading today. Every six seconds.
Despite some careful calculations, the math just won’t work out for the widow of Zarephath. The odds are stacked against her. The few measures of flour left in the jar, the few teaspoons of oil will soon be gone. And what lies ahead is the all too common death of her son, and then herself.
How much more astonishing, then that facing a last meal, the widow agrees to give part of it to a travelling prophet like Elijah. Amazing, we think. Foolhardy, even foolish to give away what might well be your last bite. But really, the widow’s generosity is not an uncommon occurrence either, in our time, and I expect in Elijah’s time as well.
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I decided it was time to grow up and get a “real” job doing something other than waiting tables – roughly around the time that my knees began to give out. I segued my restaurant experience into a job with City Harvest. As many of you know, City Harvest rescues leftover food from restaurants, hotels and catered events and delivers the food to soup kitchens and feeding programs throughout
They often live very close to the bone, and therefore they know how hard it is to make ends meet and how much need for food assistance there really is in our city. And they know the value of whatever they have. They are like the widow of Zarephath. They know how to make a meal out of a hand full of flour and a few drops of oil. They know how to take a half case of tomatoes and a few other vegetables from City Harvest and stretch it to make soup for those who’ll visit their soup kitchen that day. They know how to take left over bread from the Waldorf-Astoria and make stuffing and bread pudding and leave enough to go with the soup.
So, it’s not surprising to me that the widow in Old Testament reading is willing to share what little she has with Elijah, because I’ve learned that it is often the poor who are often the most generous, the most ready to share what little they have.
It’s the same in our gospel story this morning. Jesus is bemoaning the hypocrisy of the scribes who in his day often acted as executors for estates. By their exorbitant fees, they would often ‘devour widow’s houses’ by overcharging for the settlement of wills and estates, leaving the vulnerable widow even more vulnerable. Jesus derides the scribes for wearing long robes and demanding the best seats in the house, for making great shows of greeting one another in public and saying long prayers for all to overhear. These behaviors that Jesus calls out are those associated with the wealthy in ancient society. The nice clothes, the prominent pews, the elaborate air kisses when they meet each other.
Then Jesus draws our attention to someone who represents quite a different set of values. And he does it before he says a word. Mark makes clear what Jesus’ position on the issue is when he gives us Jesus’ physical position. He says that Jesus sits down (which is the traditional position for the teacher to take when teaching his disciples) opposite the Treasury. The King James gives us the translation here as ‘over against the Treasury.’ That one word: katenanti in Greek, opposite or over against – is what one scripture scholar calls another of Mark’s “loaded prepositions.” It is against amassed wealth that Jesus takes his position and sits down.
And from this pedagogic position, Jesus points out someone who stands in direct contrast to the greedy scribes. Again we are presented with a marginalized and vulnerable widow, this time paying a visit to the
The archeologists tell us that there were 13 treasuries spread around the
A great load of shekels would make quite a different sound going into the treasury than would the widow’s two tiny copper coins. You can imagine the tiny, tinny sound of the widow’s coins tinkling down the treasury’s horn. And just how small and flat they would sound compared deep, rich clangs of the shekels of the wealthy.
We’ve gotten much more discreet in our day… When the shiny brass collection plate comes by in a few moments, you’ll notice a little velvet pillow in the bottom. No one will know if you have but two tiny copper coins or a great load of shekels to give. The sound of your generosity will be discretely muffled.
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During my fundraising days at City Harvest and elsewhere, every once in a while someone would ask me, “Why do you do all those mailings and throw all those galas? Can’t you just find a few very wealthy people and have them underwrite your whole effort? Wouldn’t that be more efficient and more fruitful?” Well, no. It doesn’t work that way. Because wealthy is not synonymous with generous.
As Elijah learns in our Old Testament reading today, and as Jesus points out in our Gospel this morning, the ones who are often the most generous, generous even to a fault with their meager means, are the poor.
But the widow is not just an example of a generous heart. She is more than that. Again, the original Greek broadens our understanding of the widow’s action. Our version of this text tells that with her gift of two copper coins, the widow has given “all she had to live on.” The Greek itself is somewhat ambiguous. A form of the Greek work bios is used – from whence we get our word biology – and it can mean “all she has to live on” or “her livelihood” or it can mean simply “her life”. Scripture scholar Katherine Greib writes, “(T)he widow is a type of Jesus Christ who similarly chooses to give ‘his whole life’ in the face of those unjust structures that destroy it.”
The widow’s life-giving actions foreshadow Jesus’ life-giving death on the cross.
The poor widow and the Son of God. They’re the last two people on earth who you’d expect to have to give so much. The last two people you’d ask to make such sacrifices. The very last people who it ought to fall to. But, oh, what we have gained by their actions. The poor widow’s generosity is legendary. The story of the widow’s mite is an integral part of Christian pedagogy, an elemental gospel lesson that we all learn. Jesus’ lesson to us from today’s reading has become part of how we understand our Christian responsibility to those in need. And here at Christ & Saint Stephen’s it is a lesson we’ve learned very well.
It’s a bit ironic for me. I spent three years in seminary learning all I could about Scripture and searching out the true meaning of the gospel, so that I could one day stand in a pulpit like this and spread that gospel, so that I could preach about God’s call to us to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God and with one other. But instead, it is you, who I came to teach, that have taught me what the gospel means. In serving the people of God in this place, I’ve found that the gospel isn’t more often found on my lips than it is found in your lives.
There’s a fancy diploma all in Latin on a thick piece of the finest paper hanging in my office. It’s meant to represent all I’ve learned about the true meaning of Christ’s gospel. But the heavy brown Kraft paper of the lunch bags that we will pack with food after this service are themselves a kind of diploma that represent a more profound lesson in gospel truth -- that I learned from you.
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Most of us have a great deal to be thankful for. Most of us are lucky enough to be able to put in a few shekels when the collection plate comes by. Some of us have struggled in our lives and may struggle again. But most of us can count ourselves among those to whom God has been generous. But because of the gospel, because of what Jesus has taught us, we’ve learned to live in ways that are more in keeping with the widows in our readings today than the rich scribes. We’ve learned to give of our bounty -- to the church as they did -- and to the poor as they did.
It’s similar in a way to our salvation. Though we are sinners, we have been promised mercy. Though we are mortal, we have been promised eternal life, thanks to the life-giving death of our savior on the cross.
Yes, I think you’ll agree with me when I say that we have been blessed – both by what has been wrought for us by our savior, and by what has been taught to us by our savior. When we are mindful of these two blessings, then it is we who are the blessing for the whole world. Amen+
[1] State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2004
1 comment:
I love how you contrast the diploma paper with the brown bags! Great post/sermon
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