Jesus warned about greed among religious leaders – and then observed the consequences.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the twelfth chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 12:38-44). At the end of the chapter, as Jesus and his disciples were sitting in the Temple, and none of the officials were any longer willing to ask him any questions or engage him in conversation, Jesus looked around at them all and told his disciples to beware of the scribes. That is, to beware of those who had high position in the official religion of the day.
He criticized them for their appearance, criticized them for their affection for power and respect. He warned that they devour widows’ homes.
And in the next story, Mark describes Jesus as he observed a woman putting two small coins into the giving box for the Temple treasury. “She has given more than any of the rest,” he told his followers, “because she has given everything she had, everything she had to live on.”
It is, on the one hand, an example of extraordinary generosity, of faithful giving, of giving with faith that something will come from God tomorrow — because there is nothing left from today. On the other hand, it is also an example of what Jesus had warned about in the preceding paragraph, in what he taught about religious leaders. “They devour widows’ houses.” And that is exactly what happened when that woman put in the last two coins, all that she had to live on.
I am a religious leader and I am familiar with all the anxieties of maintaining a budget for a church. It is no easier in the twenty-first century than it was in the first century and I am sure that the priests and the scribes and all the rest of them wondered how it was that they were going to maintain that magnificent Temple there in Jerusalem. I wonder how we are going to maintain our structure, how we are going to maintain our programs, how we’re going to maintain our ministries, how we’re going to maintain our faith without significant gifts from our worshippers and our friends.
But do not let me do not let us devour the houses of the most vulnerable, of the most needy in the world.
Do not give us your last two coins.
Give us that — not so much which you can do without — give us that which will enable you to feel good about your giving, to know that you have extended yourself, and are still able to maintain yourself in a life that is rich and full (not wealthy, necessarily, but rich and full).
I would not devour any widows’ home, any poor person’s home, any person that is struggling: I would not devour their home. Give what is right, but also give with an eye to tomorrow, that you may have something to live on.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
