Scribe’s Bite – Widow’s Mite

Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

Well, I've got good news and bad news today. The good news is I don't have a single sermon for you. The bad news is I've got two. It's kind of the way the week has been. I had one thing that I had planned to do this week and in case you haven't noticed, there have been a few things happening around the country this week of interest. And it seems to me, we as people of faith need to reflect a little bit on what's happening. So there are two sermons today. One about this week in the U.S. of A. and one about traditional things.

First, is this a great country or what? This has been a most interesting week, hasn't it? I did a little research this week in the Bible and I have the stunning insight to share with you that nowhere in the Bible does it tell us whether the popular vote or the electoral college vote ought to elect presidents. Couldn't find a thing about either one! In fact, interestingly enough, the Bible is largely silent about the specifics of what we would call "secular government" because the Bible never envisioned a secular government. The Bible basically envisions some form of theodicy where God is the government, not where human beings are the government. And so a way of governing ourselves like the one we have in this country is an invention that came along long after biblical times and we're not likely to find much instruction of a specific sort to help us with the kind of issues that we're dealing with now in our country. But the Bible does give us some fundamental human values. Those fundamental human values, we think in our national heritage, are ones that underpin our form of government. So in some interesting ways, while our biblical tradition does not giveus anything to say about the specifics of particular mechanisms of running democratic institutions, the Bible has much to say about the kind of values and respect for individuals, the passion for justice and fairness—those kinds of values that underpin democratic institutions.

I've been waiting all week for Mr. Gore or Mr. Bush to call me for advice! So far, neither one of them has called, but the things that I would say to them are also the things that I want to say to you this morning about the situation in which we find ourselves.

First thing I would like to say about this situation is "stay calm.". There's much said, particularly on the radio and television news shows that tends to make us more anxious than we need to be. Last time I checked, there were no troops circling the White House. Last time I checked, no one had taken the streets to have a coup in the government. Things are working out just fine, so we can stay calm and take some time. Seems to me that's the sensible thing for us all to do right now. Not let those who want to talk about a grave constitutional crisis and all that sort of thing to panic us. My advice is let them count the votes. Let Florida take care of what Florida needs to do according to Florida's laws. And they'll figure it out and they'll have a count. And if New Mexico or Wisconsin or Iowa or somebody else needs to be counted carefully, that's fine, too. Whatever it takes to get it right, because you see the fundamental values of valuing each individual, which are indeed deeply rooted Christian values, are playing themselves out here and so there’s no need to be in a hurry. There's a long time before now and the 20^th of January. Be calm. Give it time. It'll probably be fine. It'll all shake out in the end.

Second thing that I think is useful for us is to dial down our partisanship. That's hard to do. I voted this week. That means I had a preference in the presidential contest. But I've come to a point right now where I am convinced in my own mind that the process of the way we govern ourselves is more important now than which candidate wins. I have a choice. I have a preference. I cast my ballot. But what we must avoid right now is the kind of rank partisanship that is sure that any other outcome other than our preferred one is so important that it runs roughshod over careful process. You know, American democracy is more important than who wins the presidential election. It is! And even though all of us who voted and even those of you who didn't vote, probably have a preference. Our personal preference now must be subjugated to the care of the institutions and processes of government. Then when the votes are counted, let's move on. We've got work to do and lives to live and we will and we can.

Which leads me to the other thing that I want to say about the situation in which we live and I think maybe is the more important thing. It seems there may be a couple of lessons to be learned out of this presidential contest. One of those lessons is we're probably smart enough to figure out some more efficient and effective way of counting the votes. This is one more example of that proverbial saying "we can put somebody on the moon," surely we can figure out a ballot everyone can understand and that is quick and accurate and complete to count. I don't know what the answer is. I don't have any recommendations to make. But American democracy, like everything else in life, is messy around the edges. Our workplaces are messy around the edges. Our homes are messy around the edges sometimes. Everything that we do in life is influenced by the fact that we're human and things don't quite work right always and we make mistakes and other people make mistakes. Life will never be perfect, but there must be a better way to tabulate our votes. We ought to look at that. We ought to figure out if there's a better way so that some of the controversy that we're slogging our way through at this moment will at least be diminished. So let's recognize that it's never going to go away completely. It's the nature of human competitive situations that people are going to question the outcome. But maybe one of the lessons is that perhaps there is a more efficient, effective, reliable, trustworthy, honest way of doing the ballot.

The other lesson I think we have here is the most important of all. Any way you cut it, whoever becomes President on January 20^th is going to become president of a sharply divided country. The kinds of issues that people voted on in the presidential and other elections, if their vote was motivated more by stances on issues rather than just slavish party voting one way or the other, the kinds of issues that were debated in this presidential race are ones that we as a country are not even remotely close to a common national view. Now we're never all going to think alike, I don't mean that. I don't mean we should all think alike, but we have issues around health care for the elderly and we're sharply divided on how best to provide and pay for that care. We have issues around paying down the debt, tax relief for people and if so, which people. We have a whole list of issues on things like that and we are sharply divided as a country on which way to approach these difficult and challenging and important issues. Whoever ends up winning the presidential election is still going to be the president of a country that doesn't see eye-to-eye on prescription drugs for the elderly and tax relief for whom and what kind of judges ought to be on the Supreme Court and that whole list. We have no consensus. There is no mandate. We're never all going to see it the same. That's not my wish. But I think the election has taught us that you and I, we have a lot of homework to do. I don't think we as a country have studied the questions nearly enough. We haven't thought and prayed and researched and debated and dialogued about what kind of values drive decisions about prescription drugs or tax cuts or Supreme Court justices. And in our land we, you and I, the ordinary citizen, I think we are in a time where all of us owe ourselves and each other and our civic union a lot more care. a lot more study, a lot more prayer, a lot more research, a lot more effort to learn, so that we might two or four or six or eight years from now, come to a more broadly held view on what our national will is on these many issues. This election ought to teach all of us that our homework as a people has only begun. That's Sermon One.

The second sermon was the one I had planned for this week. I want us also today to think about the gospel lesson. It's a little vignette out of the life of Jesus as he was in Jerusalem and in the temple during the last days of his life. This is a hard text to preach, like many are, for one very simple reason. We don't really expect to see ourselves in the scriptures and we should, I think.

We had presented for us in this lesson two people that are in some ways representative of us. Remember the two? Remember Jesus says first about the scribes, “Beware of the scribe who likes to take positions of honor at banquets and say long prayers and be accorded leadership in the community because they devour widow's houses. They will get the greatest condemnation." We're presented the scribes and we're presented the poor widow. And we are offered the opportunity to look at these two folks and see if we don't see ourselves.

Painfully, I often see myself. Who are these scribes anyway? Well, they were the religious leaders of that time which makes me nervous. They sound too much like me and my job. But we must not see them exclusively as professional religious leaders. We should see them and all those who are in positions of involvement in the formal religious community. They were the leading citizens of their time. In those days, there was no separation between religious leadership and governmental leadership. The scribes were the leading people of the society. They were the people who had done well, had risen to positions of leadership, and made a good living for themselves and for their families. In all of those respects they werelike us all of us.

Jesus saw through their posturing of piety to the way they actually lived their lives and he said they "devour widow's houses." Jesus condemned them and that makes me uncomfortable and maybe it ought to make all of us uncomfortable and uneasy. For it seems to me that the fundamental problem of the scribes was that they believed that God somehow could be segregated into some sort of ghetto that was called religion and then they could live their real life largely forgetful of God's law, God's values, God's desires for the world and its people. Those scribes and Jesus' condemnation of them ought to say to every one of us "Be careful."

How seriously do we take God's values? God's agenda? God's ways? God's commandments? How seriously do we take them when we apply them to the so-called "real world" of work, economics, polities, for heaven's sake, and for all the rest? The scribes liked to keep real life and God separate. They liked to bow down to the Ten Commandments and all of God's laws and then they went about using their power to increase their own affluence at the expense of the weak and the poor. What about us? What about us? What is there in their lives that shines a light in some of the dark comers of our own?

And then there is that other character, the poor widow woman with her two pennies that she puts in the offering plate. This text always scares parishioners during stewardship season, but this story and the heroism and example this woman is not really so much about money as it is about a person who puts all of her trust, confidence, hope and devotion into serving God. That's where we get the contrast with the scribes. The scribe knows all the right words and all the right rituals and can recite all the commandments by heart and then goes out and says, "It's a dog eat dog world and I better get mine.' The old widow who has been a victim of that kind of attitude all of her life chooses to live her life in trust, in devotion, in a kind of consistency that says. "My faith and my actions will be congruent" She judges me. And maybe you.

The scribe, too, often I find myself looking like him, maybe you do, too. It is this self examination that this text and this Christ invite us to make. Jesus is always saying, "Look hard, look deep." Is your life the life of the scribe or the widow? Take a look. Amen.

Carl L. Schenck

Manchester United Methodist Church

Manchester, MO