Jesus declared that he had come to fulfill the law and the prophets – and it’s worth remembering what the law and the prophets had insisted upon.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 5:13-20), the continuation of the Sermon on the Mount. That began, as we heard last week, with the Beatitudes, that series of blessings. It continued with Jesus first saying to his listeners, “You are the light of the world,” and “The city on a hill cannot be hid…” “so let your light shine.”
Jesus then said that he had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The ancient Law and the guidance of the prophets was still relevant hundreds of years after they had been driven or spoken to the people. And so it’s worth remembering some of the things that it says in Law and Prophets that I think do represent that true light that can be seen as it shines from a hill.
A lot of people will tend to tell you it’s all about idolatry, about worshipping foreign gods, and indeed, the Law and the Prophets were concerned with these. The Law and the Prophets, however, were also concerned with the way that we treat one another. Over and over again the Prophets raised the question: what is happening with the widows and the orphans? What is their condition?
It is the welfare of the most vulnerable in a society that measures how well it is following the directives of God. If the widows and the orphans are suffering, if the foreigner among you is oppressed, if people are cheating one another in the businesses and the marketplaces, if they are lying to one another: Well, that is a measure of a society that is failing to keep the word of God.
So many things we shortcut. I’m not talking about dietary regulations or things like that. I’m thinking about the ways that we kind of let things slide and not insist upon a real diligence in our own ethical behavior. Those are the kinds of things that Jesus was concerned about. Jesus always raised the bar. He increased the challenge.
So for us, I think, the question is not just how are the widows and the orphans doing, but how are those other people who fit into groups that are usually dismissed, disregarded, dishonored? How are they doing?
And if they’re not doing well, then we as a society are not doing well in fulfilling the will of God.
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.
There is a lot going on in the twelfth chapter of Luke. Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell the story of the Rich Fool, who saved up lots of goods and didn’t enjoy them. The lectionary editors, in their wisdom, skipped over verses 22 through 31, containing Jesus’ advice not to “worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.” He observed that birds don’t worry and they eat; flowers don’t worry and they blossom into beauty. Worry, it turns out, doesn’t accomplish anything.
That brings us to this section. And here it turns out that the only thing we have to worry about is… what Jesus said next. “Sell your possessions and give alms.”
Jesus tended to ask a lot.
Isaiah, about 770 years before, had expressed God’s dissatisfaction with a people who had industriously participated in religious ritual but had failed to treat their neighbors well. “Cease to do evil,” said Isaiah. “Learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow… If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”
To quote something Lorraine Davis said in a Bible study some time ago, something that’s implanted in my brain, “It’s all about the widows and the orphans.”
Is it? I did a quick search to see how often the Hebrew Scriptures demand the protection of widows. Exodus and Deuteronomy say it a total of eleven times. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Malachi named it a total of nine times. In the Psalms you’ll find it another three times. That adds up to twenty-two calls for the protection of widows. I got similar results with a search for “orphan” (I won’t bore you with the numbers). Oh, and there’s one other category that usually gets added to “widows and orphans” as worthy of particular care and protection.
Foreigners. “Aliens” in the usual translation of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The first assertion of the Hebrew Law regarding foreigners in Exodus reads, “There shall be one law for the native-born and for the alien who resides among you.” Further, “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy make clear that foreigners are to be honored and protected no less than 21 times.
If you’re depriving the widows and the orphans, who are the poorest of the poor, of justice and sustenance; if you’re abusing the foreigners, who are the most vulnerable of those living in the nation, then you are failing to do the will of God. As Isaiah put it, “Cease to do evil; learn to do good.”
Why, I wonder, do people with so much wealth and power find it so easy to deprive the poor of what little support they receive? Why, I wonder, do people with so much wealth and power find it so easy to shortcut legal due process for those from other lands? Why, I wonder, do people who claim to follow the ways of Jesus cheer when the supports of the vulnerable are pulled away, when the hopes of the foreigner are dashed?
Fifteen years ago the comedian Stephen Colbert said on the Colbert Report: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition … and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
I’m surprised CBS/Paramount Global ever hired him, not that they’ve cancelled his show.
It is all about the widows and the orphans and the foreigners. If you want to know about a society, take a look at how it treats those on the margins, those without powerful protectors, those most quickly disposable.
Sell your possessions and give alms, said Jesus.
As Erick J. Thompson writes at Working Preacher, “Are we, as individuals and as a church, ready to help others in need? Have we considered the issues of peace and justice that our society is wrestling with so that we can be a part of God’s solution?”
Dr. Thompson asked that question nine years ago when government acknowledged a role to create a social safety net. For quite some time, religious and non-religious non-profit agencies have labored to fill the gaps in that net. Those can be substantial, but imagine what would happen if local, state, and federal assistance to the vulnerable were ended or severely cut back. We would need to take the lead in God’s solution, to care for the widows and the orphans and the foreigners and the impoverished.
All indications are that we will need to take the lead.
It’s not going to be easy. About half of the US population – and it’s about the same here on Hawai’i Island – belong to communities of faith. We typically pay more in taxes than we give to charities, religious and non-religious combined. I suppose it’s not a secret that not everyone listed on a church’s rolls contributes, generally for very good reasons. That’s not a complaint, but it is a reality. We don’t have the resources government has. Do we have the ability to match what they’ve been doing? I don’t know.
But it’s all about the widows and the orphans. It’s about justice for the foreigners. It’s about solidarity with the poor.
It’s going to be even harder, though. On July 25th the President issued an executive order that essentially calls for the criminalization of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. UCC General Minister and President the Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson responded this week by writing, “While there are members of the homeless population who have substance abuse and/or mental health challenges, these are not the experiences of the entire homeless and unhoused population. Nor is this population solely responsible for ‘crime and disorder.’ It is disingenuous to opine that incarcerating and institutionalizing the homeless population will end crime and disorder.”
According to United for ALICE – ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed – 10% of Hawai’i residents lived below the poverty level in 2023. Are you shocked by that? I’m appalled. One in ten of our neighbors can’t meet their basic needs. And: an additional 35% of Hawai’i residents have ”income above the FPL [Federal Poverty Line], but not enough to afford basic expenses in the county where they live.”
“Households below the [ALICE] Threshold are forced to make impossible choices — like deciding whether to pay for utilities or a car repair, whether to buy food or fill a prescription.”
Because housing is the biggest expense for most people, everyone in an ALICE household – a third of our neighbors – is one crisis away from homelessness. One crisis: something like a medical emergency, a work-interrupting injury, a house fire, or a natural disaster.
It’s all about the widows and the orphans. And the foreigners. And the folks for whom the ends just don’t meet.
In the meantime, wealthy Americans get trillions in new tax breaks – but the new law imposed a curious cap on the deductibility of charitable donations for the wealthiest. Really. That took me by surprise, too. Make lots of money, pay less taxes. Just don’t help people with it.
Not even the widows and the orphans. Definitely not the foreigners. Don’t aid the poor.
That’s a long way from Isaiah. It’s further from Jesus.
The irony to all this is that Jesus’ story about the servants who stayed awake to welcome their master home experienced a grand reversal. Did you notice? They could have expected to set out a light supper for him, but instead, he had them sit at the table and the master served them.
The master served the servants. The master expected attentive servants, alert servants, prepared servants, active servants. The master asked a lot. Then the master served them.
There are masters in this land who are determined not just to fail the widows, orphans, foreigners, and poor. They are determined to abuse and oppress them, and I don’t think I’m overstating the case. These are the masters whom Isaiah condemned. These are the masters that crucified Jesus.
Let us be the diligent, attentive, and active servants. Let us be the ones who meet the expectations of Isaiah and strive to meet the expectations of Jesus. Let us be the ones to welcome the widows, the orphans, the foreigners, and the poor. Let us be the ones to shed the burden of our possessions and take on the freedom of generosity.
Let us be ready to be seated at Jesus’ table.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric does tend to depart from his prepared text while preaching, so the recording will not precisely match the text above.
Our Every Member Canvass is coming up, beginning once we’ve approved a budget at the All Membership meeting next Sunday. In one sense, that makes this story of the widow’s two coins just a little early. In another, of course, God’s call to generosity is evergreen, always in season.
So. Give everything you have to the Church of the Holy Cross. Down to the last two pennies.
I’m kidding. Unlike some of Jesus’ contemporaries, the scribes he criticized so harshly, the ones who devoured widows’ houses, I’m kidding. Unlike some of my own contemporary religious leaders, who call for major donations while buying mansions and private jets, I’m kidding.
Keep the last two pennies.
All right, I’m kidding again.
But you see the problem, right? It’s a good thing for people to be generous to their faith community, to their neighbors, and to strangers. Love makes the world go around, as the saying goes, and giving goes with love. Do you love someone? You give them what they need. You give them what will delight them. Do you love God? You give God things. You give what will delight the Holy One.
Like two small coins. Or as we might translate it, she gave “her whole life.” That’s how it reads in Greek.
Having warned of religious leaders who devoured the houses of widows, Jesus watched it happen right in front of him, recognized it, named it, and, I would guess, wept.
D. Mark Davis writes at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “In a profound way, she [the widow] is acting with nobility and self-sacrifice and she is contributing toward an unjust system. She is giving all that she has and she is abetting a system that will take away all that she has. It is truly a tragic situation facing the widow, because her means of practicing true piety is at the same time a system that is devoid of justice and will, in turn, exploit her.”
As it did.
It wasn’t supposed to. The Law and the Prophets of ancient Israel made abundantly clear who was to be protected and cared for in that community: the widows and the orphans. Oh, and the foreigner, too. As Sung Soo Hong writes at Working Preacher, “If the leaders had kept the Law (for example, Deuteronomy 24:19–20; 26:12–13) and feared God, who is portrayed as the ultimate defender of widows in many passages of the Hebrew Bible, the widow in our passage would have not become that poor. The widow’s extreme poverty is the evidence that the leaders have failed.”
And they still invited her to put money in the treasury.
Debie Thomas asks at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Should we cheer or weep in the face of this story? Or — here’s a third alternative — should we call out (as Jesus did) any form of religiosity that manipulates the vulnerable into self-harm and self-destruction? Any form of piety that privileges long-winded prayers over works of compassion and liberation? Any version of Christianity that valorizes soul-killing suffering as redemptive? Any practice of faith that coddles us into apathy in the face of economic, racial, sexual, and political injustice?”
My answer to Ms. Thomas’ question is: Yes. We should call it out.
Don’t give us your last two pennies.
I say that despite having a certain amount of anxiety about the financial situation of this church. The pandemic has been hard for us. We have spent more than we brought in for four years for several reasons. Our expenses, as you might expect, haven’t gone down, and some have gone up. Insurance has been a major headache. Our income has suffered. During the pandemic we lost revenue from rentals of space on our campus, and that hasn’t yet returned to 2019 levels. Our members maintained faithful levels of giving, for which I’m grateful, but there have been fewer of them. Mercifully, we lost very few people to COVID in this church, but some people moved away, and other people’s health deteriorated, and some precious people died. I’m afraid that during COVID none of us in leadership here, starting with me, figured out how to welcome new people into this congregation through the virtual space. We’re delighted that new people have joined in the last year, but that’s still nearly four years of losses to make up.
The budget you’ll see in the mailing from our Moderator, Stefan Tanouye, projects a substantial deficit. I simply don’t know how to cover it. Except.
To ask you.
Sometimes when strangers ask me what I do for a living (which isn’t often; most people in Hilo recognize me for some reason), I’m tempted to say that I’m a professional beggar. I literally ask people for money, money that I live on, every week. You might say, “No, pastor, it’s the lay reader that says such things,” and you’d be right, except for one thing:
Where do you think the invitation to the offering they read comes from?
That’s right. The professional. The professional beggar.
That’s OK. I signed on for this thirty-six years ago. Frankly, I just wish I was better at it.
If I was really good at it, do you suppose we could afford a mansion for me and a private jet?
I really do wish I was better at begging because it really isn’t about me. It’s about the church. It’s about maintaining a space in which we can worship. It’s about providing compensation for the hard work of the people who make the music, print the bulletins, and clean the floors. It’s about making spaces available for people to support one another through hard things, for celebrating the blessings of life, for learning about God and God’s world. It’s about having the means to assist those who are hungry, homeless, or hurting. It’s about providing nourishment for the soul, perhaps starting with actual bread (or breadfruit; this is Hawai’i, after all). It’s about sustaining ourselves in a community living out its mission as part of the Body of Christ.
That’s worth begging for.
What do you think? Is it worth giving for?
That’s a good ending, don’t you think? “This church is worth begging for. What do you think? Is it worth giving for?”
I’d like to end it there, but I can’t.
You see, it’s not just religious leaders like me who devour widows’ houses. It’s other leaders, too. People who underpay their workers, and perhaps have either not read or simply ignored these words from Deuteronomy 24: “You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns.” People who reduce the taxes on the very wealthiest and pass on the debt to future generations. People who separate fleeting refugee children from their parents and essentially create orphans when they neglect to track either the children or the adults. People who lie as casually as I drink coffee.
The United States has re-elected as President a devourer of widows’ houses. Plain and simple. Already his followers have sent messages to African American children telling them to report for sale as slaves. Already his followers have sent messages to women: “Your body. My choice.”
I have no words of comfort about this, and I have no patience with those who deny the extraordinary risk now faced by a number of people. What rights will be maintained by LGBTQ people? The Constitution, I’ll remind you, makes no guarantee about the rights of women except the right to vote. Religion is protected by the Constitution – but who defines religion? May not a Congress or a court conclude that “religion” must meet certain criteria? As for race, well. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing equal protection under the law did not protect American citizens of Japanese origin – including children – from being incarcerated during World War II. Oh, and having that upheld by the US Supreme Court.
I am not optimistic.
I will also not give up the faith. I will not surrender in advance. I will not permit the widows and orphans or our day, the most vulnerable of our neighbors, to have their houses devoured by a government unrestrained by moral sense, sound judgement, and effective oversight, without my voice raised in protest.
I do not expect to succeed. Jeremiah didn’t. Hosea didn’t. Amos didn’t. Elijah didn’t. The nations they sought to guide went their own way. Others preserved their words and stories because, it turned out, they’d been right all along to plead for the welfare of the widows and the orphans, the most vulnerable of their societies.
Jesus didn’t succeed, either. Perhaps if the Temple scribes of his day had given up devouring widows’ houses, the calamitous war with Rome wouldn’t have happened, and the Temple would be standing on Mount Moriah today. But Jesus didn’t persuade them. He went to the cross instead.
He transformed that failure into the possibility of new life.
Don’t give us your last two coins, people. We need the money, but more than that we need to be faithful to our obligation to care for one another. Don’t help us devour your house. Do help us maintain this house as best you can, but no more.
As you do, watch and see where the other devourers approach. Watch, see, name, protest, and act.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the prepared text you have just read will not exactly match the video you (may) have just watched.
The image shows the widow depositing the coins with Jesus watching. One of the 5th or 6th century mosaics in the Church of Saint Appolinaire in Ravenna, Italy. Photo by Sailko – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28214920.
