Jesus can be so annoying sometimes. Look at him in this story, sitting there with his disciples in the Court of Women at the temple in Jerusalem.  He tells them to look at what’s going on as people come by and drop their money into one of the thirteen upside- down-looking trumpets that collect the coins and funnel them down into the treasury. Don’t they have something better to do than to look at people’s giving? Don’t they understand that money and religion are confidential? Polite people know it is none of their business: it is between the individual and God, period.

Well, I don’t know if the disciples know, because they aren’t portrayed in the gospels as Princeton material.  But Jesus ought to know better. And we’re all afraid he does, aren’t we? I mean, if he was looking at what people were giving back then, he might be looking at what we are giving now. How would that work out for us?

We all want to identify with the good characters in every story, right? So maybe we ought to ask what it would take for us to be more like the poor widow that gives her mite than the rich who give mightily but still come up short with God.

One answer is to say we should all give less. But that isn’t possible for about 40 percent of you. Intuitively we know that can’t be his meaning.  So maybe we ought to give more. But that doesn’t seem to be right, because the rich that were giving great sums were said to be giving out of the excess of what they really didn’t need. Which would be the same for most of us. And that isn’t bad. That will get you donor recognition at the university or hospital of your choice, and that will do a lot of good in the process, but it won’t necessarily get you donor recognition in heaven.

Make no mistake; we all want recognition from somewhere. It’s the way we are made. It would be nice to say that we all give just for the sake of doing the right thing, for the satisfaction of the deed itself. But God doesn’t mind our getting some bang for our buck; God just wants to be the one that gives it to us. What Jesus criticized in the scribes was their desire to be praised by people more than by God. The loud public prayers were not meant for a God who hears our hearts. And the robes? Only people who didn’t have to do manual labor and could walk about town without work on their minds wore long flowing robes. What’s more, when the rich were putting their money into the temple trumpet funnels, it was only coins back then — there was no quiet money, no new colorful twenty-dollar bills and no checks to write. The clatter must have been great as they lingered long and slowly dumped the coins from their bag of money, making rim shots as they did. The widow’s mite must have barely made a sound. Yet she is praised for giving the better gift. Why?

Because more money is not the issue. Jesus praises those who give of themselves by giving their money. She gave it all, he says. She gave all she had for life. The word for life here is bios, as in biology. In other words, she gave the very substance that made her life possible.The rich gave leftovers after they had taken care of all their own needs, even though it may have been a lot.

Some children in our church taught me something about this on Halloween night. They had been out in costume collecting their booty in good trick-or-treat fashion. After hitting up their grandmother and having some dinner, they returned home to a dark house. Their parents assumed they would not be handing out candy because the night would late when they got home, so they hadn’t bought any to give away. But the kids wanted to do it anyway.  They gave away their own. The doorbell would ring, and kids from outside the neighborhood would be standing there with their bags and buckets out. (I was on door duty myself for a while that night and thought some of the costumes were incredible. Like a few of them that looked like they had been shaving for ten years!) When one trick-or-treater reached his hand into one of the boys’ bucket and pulled out a handmade candy that was clearly the prize of the loot, he started to put it back, thinking it was special. But our young Wilshire giver told him it was okay; he could have it.

These kids gave generously of themselves and did not withhold anything. They have the right to identify with the widow in the story. Someone has put it this way: The widow’s faith was expressed not by her pride, but by her purse, not by how much she gave, but by how little she held back, not by the richness of the garments she wore, but by the texture of humility she bore. [Homiletics (November 2003): 18.] So if you want to get the blessing of Jesus, it’s all relative — not what you give relative to someone else, but what you give relative to what you have. How are you doing that way?

Now, this is the point where we could bring up tithing as the proper relative measurement for everyone. We could say that if everyone gave at least one tenth of their gross income, then the relative contribution of each would be the same, even if the sum were different. Tithing is a biblical standard to be considered. And our mission as a church could be funded fully and more equitably if everyone tithed. But you don’t. And sadly, you are all too typical. According to the Barna Research Group, in the average church 17 percent of the members say they tithe, but only 3 percent actually do. Forty percent give nothing at all, and yet 91 percent say they make more than they ever have in their lives. And here’s the kicker: every study consistently shows that the more people make, the lower percent of their income they give. We have found that about right in this church. It’s not right, though.

This being stewardship season, I have talked with several members who are taking this seriously. Every one of them that has sought me out is trying to find a way to tithe and to be faithful to God and the church. But all of them are poor by our church’s standards or at least struggling financially. Some have even received help from our church to pay bills just to keep the power on or not lose their homes. Yet these — and only these — are the ones who desperately ask me to pray for them that they will trust the Lord and find a way to contribute. Go figure. One gave me a money order a week ago for $39. He had gotten a job and said this was his chance to begin on the right foot. He gets to identify with Jesus’ blessing of the widow. What about you?

Tithing is an important mark for a Christian steward, but it is a threshold to cross, not a destination to end at. Tithing helps you pass through the door into greater giving of yourself and your resources. If you think you have satisfied God and the church by giving 10 percent, when you can live on so much less than 90 percent, then you are still closer to Jesus’ condemnation of the rich than his blessing of the widow.

Again, your giving is relative to what you have more than relative to what others are doing or even relative to a standard like 10 percent. The duty of love is greater than the duty of law.

But there’s another relative matter at work here in the story. Jesus claims that the scribes walking about in their flowing robes were devouring widows’ houses. We don’t know exactly what that means, but here’s what we know: when a woman lost a husband in that time, she had few options. Most people were poor, and there was barely work for men. So she could go back to her father’s house or receive assistance from the only social service agency of the day — the temple treasury. When people put money into the treasury, a good portion of it went to meet the basic needs of the poor. So when Jesus says the rich scribes were devouring widows’ houses, he might not have meant they were bankers foreclosing on their homes. He might have made the connection to their giving that the next scene in the temple court proved out. By withholding their rightful gifts, they were living well off the backs of the poor that God intended them to help. 

Because the temple treasury was robbed of rightful funds to help the poor, an injustice was occurring among the people in the community of faith. And yet people were still praising the rich for their generosity! God wasn’t, but people were. The rich had forgotten the verses that precede our text: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. God’s blessing depends on our blessing our neighbor. Because the rich had lost a sense that the poor were their relatives, their neighbors, they could not expect a blessing from God, even though they were giving great sums. It’s all relative means that we are all relatives to each other in the economy of God.

The word devouring in the text could also be translated “consuming.” In Barna’s survey, 71 percent of pastors say they believe church members are more consumers than stewards. I wasn’t surveyed, but I would vote with the majority, don’t you know?!  And too often I would be guilty of the same crime.

Craig Gay comments on the problem of consumerism: … the meaning of consume is to burn, to exhaust, and to destroy completely. The object of our response to consumerism, then, is to try, with the Lord’s gracious help, to avoid destroying ourselves in this behavior and to try to prevent our neighbor from being destroyed by such behavior as well. [Sensualists Without Heart, in The Consuming Passion, ed. Rodney Clapp (InterVarsity Press, 1998).] How can we do that? By giving generously as the first priority of our lives, we fuel rather than consume God’s kingdom economy. We voluntarily redistribute income in order to make a more just and livable world. We love God by loving our neighbor as ourselves.

You’ve heard about the fires in San Diego County these past few weeks. Two hundred thousand acres lay consumed by a cedar blaze. The best story comes from Cuyamaca, where experienced fire hounds and green volunteers worked tirelessly to save the homes of their neighbors. Seven of the eight firemen sacrificed their own homes as they protected the homes of strangers they viewed as neighbors. Twenty-four-year veteran fire volunteer Bob Garner lost his own home but without regret. Said he: We became firemen to fight fire and to protect the community, not to worry about our own personal property. [www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfld=1490281.]

Jesus would say he acted as the poor widow who gave her mite. When you figure your gifts through the ministry fund of the church this year, consider whether they will make you a closer relative of the rich that Jesus judged selfish consumers, or the poor widow whom he judged a selfless steward.