Pentecost 23

Sermon for Hope Episcopal Church
By The Rev. Martha Frances
For The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost Proper 27
12 November 2006

What are we doing here today? Why did we gather? I’m sure there are many answers to this question, some more laudable than others, but I know I need to be here for my own spiritual nourishment. I need to come together with you, my church family, at least a couple of times a week to praise God, to sing and hear scripture and pray and fellowship with a group of people who also love God and want to serve Jesus Christ in our daily lives.

I’ll confess to you that I instituted the Wednesday night Healing Eucharist here at Hope as much because I need to be fed with Christ’s body & blood in the middle of the week as for your sakes. Or perhaps I need to be fed regularly for your sakes as well as for mine. We need each other, & we promised in our Baptismal vows as recently as last week to “continue in the apostles’ teaching & fellowship, in the breaking of bread, & in the prayers” which includes corporate worship, one of the Holy Habits we are emphasizing this year in our stewardship drive.

I wish we were able to have Morning or Evening Prayer regularly during the week here at Hope as well. At this time, that would be more of a strain on our liturgical ministers like our lay readers than we can manage, but the more often we pray & praise God together, the stronger a parish Hope will be. Our community fellowship like we will have with our pot luck Thanksgiving feast next Sunday after church is important for our family health also. Please plan to bring a dish and participate next Sunday also.

In this morning’s gospel, Jesus talks about the quality of worship as he contrasts those ostentatious scribes who are all about garnering honor & wealth to the widow who gives all she has to the glory of God’s house & work. Notice that Jesus doesn’t condemn all scribes—a chapter or so back he affirms the one who rightly recognized that love of God & love of neighbor sum up all the other Jewish laws, but here, he lays bare the motives of those who are all about putting themselves & their positions first.

Neither does he support the system which makes the widow the most defenseless person in society. In Jesus’ day, widows couldn’t inherit from their husband’s estate, so those with no family to take care of them were totally dependent upon the generosity of the community. Fortunately, giving alms to the poor was an honor-bound practice of the Jewish community. The widow’s generosity is not about giving money, at least not primarily, but rather about the widow’s giving all that she has, giving her whole self. In this last story before the telling of Jesus’ passion begins in full, Jesus uses the widow as a pre-cursor of himself—she gives her livelihood to others just as Jesus gives his life for others.

What is the result of her selfless giving? We’re not told, but we have a couple of hints. First, she becomes more connected to the community in giving her all to it. But also, we are given the story of Elijah & the widow at Zarephath as a model of selfless giving to encourage us. This widow whom Elijah asks to feed him is willing to give everything she has for her & her son to live on, yet the oil & meal are always just enough for them to survive, perhaps even to prosper. Elijah did as God bade him do, & likewise, the widow did the same. Both of them—as well as her son— were provided for.

These stories aren’t just designed by the Biblical writers to be told during pledge drives once a year in churches down through the ages, but they are witnesses to the power of our generosity in giving of our whole lives to God, giving fully & joyfully, so that we truly can celebrate as we did in the psalm this morning as we say Hallelujah! Let us give of ourselves as did these poor widows generations apart, that we & our community may flourish in Jesus’ name. Alleluia!