Sermon:A Tale of Two Widows

A Tale of Two Widows

The title of Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities refers to the Cities of London England and Paris France. This book focuses on the city of Paris, but in doing so it often shines a revealing light upon London. In some ways, Paris becomes a sort of fun house mirror that Dicken’s uses to look at his own country—England. When Dickens points out how Paris is similar to London that changes how the reader looks at London, because she first looked at Paris. When Dickens points to examples of how Frenchmen act differently than Englishmen his English readers are forced to stop and think about that part of themselves.
Today I hope to shed light on our two stories about widows by looking at the similarities and differences we find between our lesson found in Mark and our lesson found in first Kings. So today I wish to tell a Tale of Two Widows. A Tale of Two Widows.

It was the best of times and it was the worse of times, it was the age of powerful prophets, it was the age of smug scribes. It was the book of Kings it was the Gospel of Mark. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we were in Sidon, we were in Jerusalem, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us—in short, the period was so much like today that you could make direct comparisons between this story and your everyday life.

There was a man of God from Gilead named Elijah. His king and queen had committed apostasy, they worshipped other gods, including a god of rain. So Elijah opposing the royal family as well as this rain god stopped the rain, causing a drought in the name of the one true God.
After this he was commanded by God to go into hiding. So he went and hid in a ravine in his home turf. There he was fed by ravens. Now, I know ravens are rather impressive creatures—as long at they’re not trying to kick field goals—but this was an uncomfortable way for Elijah to live. This was especially the case after the drought became so severe that the runnels of water in his ravine dried up and he had nothing to drink.
It was at this point that Elijah left that ravine and left his homeland, for God had given him a new command. He was to go to the hometown of his queen—yes the queen who he had opposed, the queen who was persecuting him. Once there he became a stranger in a strange and dangerous land and he was told to throw himself upon the mercy of a widow there.

In Jerusalem there was another religious figure, a scribe. He was one of those scribes that are always found in the company of the chief priests in Mark’s gospel. He was a high up official connected to the temple. In fact, because of this connection to the temple he didn’t have to pay taxes to Rome. He had, to put it into modern parlance, a tax-exempt status. Elijah may have had to travel from place to place for the sake of his religion, but the scribe had found a permanent fixture next to the seat of power in Jerusalem.
Sometimes scribes such as he were described as a collector of pious opinions instead of dispensers of religious reasoning. On a good day they were theologians captured by the academic ivory tower, on bad days they were pundits—glenn becks, lou dobbs, michael moores, and rush limbaughs.
Despite such characterizations of his profession he was pleased with himself—and enjoyed others acting pleased with him too. Oh how they liked his fine clothing that marked him off as a religious bigshot, oh how they enjoyed tipping their hat to him in the marketplace, and saving him a particular seat in the synagogue. Oh, and his prayers—they were so fine.
Of course, between his tax exempt status, his putting himself above others, and his occasional dabbling in secular law—sometimes making profits off of contracts, deeds, and wills—someone had to pay a little more, someone had to pay for his lifestyle.
Recently an itinerant religious teacher from Galilee, you know the kind, some rabble rouser from the sticks by the name of Jesus, had looked at this lifestyle and called it, “devouring the widow’s house.”
And this kind of accusation was one of those things that strikes at the heart. Even a heart long covered by finery and riches…status and excess. It was this accusation that kept the scribe up some nights. You know those cold and lonely nights when the wind howls against the gates of Jerusalem and your toes just can’t get warm underneath the covers and you get to thinking about where you fit into the wider world.
On those nights he would find himself unwrapped of religious robes, and filled with the sneaking suspicion that he was no different than those widows his life style devoured. Though he had hid it well, despite all that he had brought around him—all he had strived to build up around him—the piety and economic power, the moral clout, and the perceived popularity, despite all of that he was just another beggar before God.

And accusations such as, “you devour widow’s houses,” rightly shakes a person up.
After all being a widow is hard. You have lost the one you love—the person whose life has been so intertwined with your own that you sometimes don’t know where your life ends and theirs begins.
In Genesis we read about two becoming one flesh—well, a widow’s lot is to find wholeness again after loosing a part of themselves.
And in the ancient world, more so than our own, being a widow involved a total loss of access to power and the benefits of patronage. The ancient world was a world in which men unequivocally ruled—and in a society where men rule loosing access to your man means total dependency upon the kindness of strangers.
So, an accusation of hurting someone who is both emotionally vulnerable and socially stigmatized—the lowest on the totem pole, can shake a man, even one such as the scribe.
And then there was also the religious background to this accusation. For the scribe’s God, as well as our own, is a God of creation, the psalmist affirms this, yes. But ours is not some creator who crafted creation and then walked away from it.
Ours is not a creator only, ours is a Sustainer, a lover of His creation. Our God is a God who executes Justice for the oppressed. Our God is a God who gives food to the hungry. Our Lord is a Lord who sets the prisoner free. Our Lord opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, loves the righteous, watches over the stranger and orphan, and Yes! Yes, ours is a God who upholds the widow while ruining the ways of the wicked. And so that’s the kind of accusation that keeps the Scribe up at night.

In both Sidon and Jerusalem these faithful women give out of their poverty. At Jerusalem the widow “gives her whole life.” She had something like 94 cents to live on, and she threw it in the collection plate!
And at Sidon the widow is literally preparing her last meal. She is wandering about to find sticks to create a fire to cook her last meal, a meal of a cake of oil mixed with rough grain.
Now anyone who has tried to replicate this recipe knows you end up with a melted spatula and some dry tasting goop. Hardly a wealthy feast or a decent last meal.
Then this stranger, this Tishobite man comes upon her, a Sidonese woman, and asks her for all she has, for her last handful of dry tasting goop. And she gives it to him!
These two women give their all. The rich young man that Jesus told to give away everything he has couldn’t do this, but these widows—like Nike—just do it! The disciples are willing to do this, but then get caught up on reward and greatness and glory, but these widows just do it! Jesus talks about giving to caesar what is caesar’s and God what is God’s—that is give your whole self! And all these religious folk just stand there scratching their heads befuddled, but these widows just do it!
As Jesus says, “this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury, because she gave out of her poverty.”
Both these widows gave out of their poverty. In that we find similarity between the two. But listen as well to the differences.

The widow in Jerusalem likely would have heard the teachings of this new holy man who recently showed up. She may have heard that this Jesus is a man who supped with strangers and sinners, filled the hungry with good things, healed the sick, hung out with the destitute.
She may have heard that he loved people more that piety. That he said, “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” That he put healing above rules about holiness. And that he quoted liberally from the book of Hosea, “God demands mercy, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.”
And perhaps she knew that he smashed up the temple saying, “my house should be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” She probably heard him denouncing the temple scribe for devouring widow’s houses.
And yet she gave.
And this holy man Jesus pointed this widow’s actions out to his disciples. And I believe that he lauded the widow. I believe that commended her. I believe he, like his father in heaven, is a lover of widows in general and this widow in particular. At the same time he also lamented a religious system that destroys widows. A system in which those that practice false piety get tax breaks and faithful devotion ends in poverty.

In Sidon, on the other hand, we see Elijah coming to the widow with a word different than that of the temple scribe. He brings a word of promise and a word of comfort.
“Do not be afraid,” he said.
“The jar of meal will not empty and the jug of oil will not fail,” he said.
And it is said that the widow’s jug and jar did not fail. In fact, it fed her and her household, and Elijah too.
The clear difference between the Scribe and the Widow in Jerusalem and Elijah and the Widow in Sidon is that the Widow and Elijah are in the same boat. They are two hungry people kneeling at the same city gate. Elijah is a persecuted foreigner looking for a bite to eat and the widow is on her last legs preparing her last meal. Both are sustained only by the never-ending bounty of the Lord’s unfailing cup and all sustaining meal. In a real sense both are widows.

And when we look at London in light of Paris, Jerusalem in the light of Sidon, Park Heights in light of the Gospel, we see some interesting things.
In the tale of Two Widows we hear afresh a warning about practicing a piety that is only as long as our robes. I was recently at Sinai hospital—I was wearing my collar of course—and was about to get onto the elevator when a woman asked me to stop and pray for her mother. I have to admit I was in a hurry and my first inclination was to get on that elevator and back to my office to prepare this sermon. But when you’re dressed up like a Christian you should expect to be called on to pray, otherwise you’re just wearing long robes.
In the tale of Two Widows we are reminded afresh of the focus of our faith, for ours is a God of the Widow and our Messiah is the one who observes and takes note of the widow’s situation! The Park Heights Community-wide meeting was this last week Thursday, and there was a general sentiment amongst the local politicians that budgets are tight and some of their promises to lift our community out of her Widowhood are going to be once again postponed. And that’s why St. John’s is here—it’s the third line of our mission statement—to serve our community—for ours is a God of the Widow.
In the tale of Two Widows we are reminded that we are all beggars. No matter how much time, talent, or possessions we present to God—be we pastors or council presidents, on internship here or people planting their butt in a pew for the first time—we are all beggars.
In the tale of Two Widows we hear the prophetic words of Elijah even as we make them our own, “Be not afraid.” The economy improves, but jobs don’t seem to be coming back, the gun violence so common here in Baltimore has popped up on an army bases and in an Orlando office building. “Be not afraid!”
In the tale of Two Widows we are reminded that it is God who sustains us with our daily bread. In fact today the confirmation class will be learning about God’s love present to us in the sacrament of the altar—holy communion, that all sustaining meal and unfailing cup that we shall partake of shortly. God sustains us with our daily bread.
And so ends my tale of two widows.
A+A

An accurate depiction of living with a cat

Quote of the Day

"This division of the whole of reality into sacred and profane... creates the possibility of existence in only one of these sectors: for instance a spiritual existence that takes no part in worldly existence, and a woldly existence that can make good its claim to authority over against the sacred sector. The monk and the cultural Protestant... represent these two possibilities... We try to stand in the two realms at the same time, thereby becoming people in eternal confict, shaped by the post-Reformation era, who ever and again present ourselves as the only form of Christian existence that is in accord with reality."--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics

Proof abandoned vehicles are bad

So, every day I drive Wabosh to Coldspring. For the last week there has been an abandoned car just smack dab there in the right lane. I've seen the cops messing with it, but no one has taken the initiative to move the darn thing.
Today there was a smashed van abandoned behind the abandoned car.
I guess that proves entropy is alive and well in city maintenance.

One man's cultural holiday is another man's child abuse

"Tehran, 1979: As Kamen wrote in 2005, "On Nov. 4, 1979, just a few days after Halloween, militant Islamic students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Various parts of the embassy were still decorated with ghosts and goblins and other scary stuff. So when the hostages were taken to a room with decorations, the Iranians asked what this was all about. One hostage explained, apparently closing the culture gap. "You do this to your children?" a confused militant asked."

If your faith kills widows it probably isn't faith

As I think about my sermon for next week I would draw my reader's attention to an article entitled "Widow's Mite, praise or lament," in Catholic Bible Quarterly issue 44 from 1982 on pages 256-265.
The author looked at all exegetical works he could find and noted that almost all of them assumed Jesus was praising the Widow and then went on to talk about tithing.
Then the author goes on and points out that isn't anywhere in the text. Jesus points out the poor widow has given more-- in fact she is giving her whole life to the temple. A little earlier he scourged the temple, right before this he said it was bad that scribes devour the houses of widows. Then the very next thing that happens is Jesus points out that the temple is about the be destroyed.
I'm just sayin', if your faith kills widows is ain't faith.

Bonhoeffer objectifies a fool

"One feels in fact, when talking to him (the fool), that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him."--Dieti B.

"fashion" is absurd

While I'm stating the obvious am I the last person to find out Brett Favre is now a Viking?

Palin is Goldwater and Huckabee is Reagan

First off, no aspersion cast toward Barry Goldwater in this post.
I think that the cultural conservative movement that has built up around Sarah Palin will fail. It might energize the Republican base enough in 2010 to gain some seats, but if Palin runs for President, she's going to loose to a much better organized and competent incumbent, if she would even make it out of the primary.
That said a more eloquent and sophisticated (yes, I'm describing Huckabee in those terms... I know... I know) purveyor and popularizer of Palin-ism could make it in 2016.
Its like the dynamic between Goldwater and Reagan. Goldwater re-oriented his party greatly--into the party of small government, states rights (and all the horror that can entail), and militant anti-communism, and he got creamed in the general election.
From the eviscerated bones of Goldwater's platform and party Reagan communicated these same ideas in a more popularized form.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan

"If you want to switch churches, prejudice seems a pretty poor reason for doing so."--Andrew Sullivan.

A music video by my dad's cousin.

A canonical reading of Psalms

So, as some folk know reading things in light of where they are in the canon is sometimes seen as a repudiation of textual criticism and part of a slippery slope toward literalism, fundamentalism, and ultimately primordial nihilistic chaos. Others simply think we've got these darn things in the order we do for a reason--because someone thought they made sense there.
Well, as I read the psalms in the morning and the evening I was recently struck by the placement of Psalm 88 and 89. Psalm 88 is kinda a downer, ending "My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion."
Then, the very next words we have, in Psalm 89 are, "Your love, O LORD, forever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness."
I guess, I like how these two psalms are placed one next to the other--the tension of abandonment and the promise that God will never abandon the house of David is kind of beautiful.

Gloria Luster--a member of St. John's in the news!

http://turn2channel.com/garden_of_hope/video.html

My first sermon at St. John's: A Child Called It

A Child Called It

Today we find Jesus back on his home turf, Galilee, and in his home city, Capernaum. There he teaches the same message that he did last week in Caesarea Philippi. Last week we heard of Peter rebuking him for his description of the coming hardship, betrayal, death, and ultimate vindication of the Son of Man.
This week, it seems that the disciples get it. It seems like the disciples accept his message. It seems like they’ve learned their lesson.
But, it only seems this way. If we go on the way with them to
Capernaum, if we go down that road, we run into an argument. The
argument we find on the way was, “who is the greatest?”
Now, this phrase, “on the way” could be descriptive. In which case it is locating the disciples argument in space and time—they were on a road while arguing. Which is fair enough.
But when I look at this event on the page I note the location of this phrase, twice used, in quick succession. The first “on the way” and the second “on the way” practically rub up against one another like cricket legs. Their close quarters cause my mind to ruminate on this phrase’s significance.
And as I ruminate on this I find a similar phrase found in other
in Luke and Acts. “The Way” is used by other writers as a name for the followers of Jesus—“The Way” in fact was one of the earliest names used for Christians.
So, if we hadn’t noticed that those arguing about greatness were
disciples of Jesus that point is subtly re-enforced.
Simply put Christ’s calling to the cross and Calvary puts fear into the parts of the church that yearn for greatness. Luther once wrote, the cross,
“cures our desire for glory and power not by satisfying it, but by extinguishing it.” The disciples are afraid of their want and need for glory being extinguished!
Just as Jesus did not foretell his death on but one occasion, neither does he make this point but once.
So we move from cross and glory stood next to one another in order for cross to critique and extinguish greatness, to Christ’s words to all twelve of his disciples,
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
And what would this look like?--what does this look like?—when we people of the way reject vying for greatness, reject firsting the first and lasting the last, reject being served. When instead we first the last and serve all?
Do we perhaps become more inclusive? Do we become more ecumenical—no longer being swayed by the glory of denomination?
Do we look past the divisions within the body of the ELCA created at churchwide? Do we look the divisiveness of churchwide straight in the eye?
Do we look outside our walls and quietly, yet with confidence born of our own struggle take our faith to the streets? Do we engage more deeply with those already inside our walls?
As most of you know I’m new here, so I don’t know what firsting the last will and does look like here at St. John’s.
But I do know Jesus goes on and gives us and the rest of his disciples a concrete example of the last—a small child.

Reading this example plainly our imaginations conjure up images of gentle Jesus welcoming a child.
Oh yes, a child—unfettered by fear, lopping through the Swiss Alps, blond hair tossed by a gentle wind, maybe a yak bleating in the background—a distant yodeler calling to say all is well, all is okay.
That ain’t what Jesus is talking about. This idealistic and idealized “Sound of Music” expression of youth that has permeated much of western culture—is a very new image of children—an image foisted upon modern minds by the Philosopher Jean Jaque Rouseau when, in 1762, he published his book Emile. In this book he recommended that everyone should move to a farm, unswaddle their children, and let them run around naked.
Yet Rouseau himself could not live up to his own ideal standards. Instead of raising his five children he had them all committed to an insane asylum so that he could get back to philosophizing.
I’m sure this insane asylum was a brutal playground for Rouseau’s children. I also feel that the image of a child in an insane asylum more accurately portrays the life of the child who Christ embraced.
Look with me at verse 36 in todays gospel. You will notice the child is not referred to as he or she. Instead the child is an it. An object, not a person but a child called it.
In the ancient world infant mortality was a constant—kids died all the time. So there was no sense in assigning name or gender to a child until you were sure it would live.
Further, within Roman culture the first year of a child’s life was… sort of a trial run. The child lived at the whim of the family patriarch—the pater familias.
It is for this reason that there are so many ancient stories about “foundlings”—children taken from their home by their father… or more often by their father’s servant, and left out in the wilderness to starve or succumb to the elements. Oedipus—that famous man who killed his father and married his mother did so because he had been left out in the wild, but survived, and therefore knew neither his mother nor his father. The founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were said to have survived their abandonment by being taken in by a she-wolf.
And I think anyone who has gone through high school PE knows that even today there is still as much “insane asylum” involved in being a child as there is Rouseau’s nude yodeling in the alps.
I know that growing up with a heart condition childhood wasn’t a bed of roses. I felt like I was the doctor’s personal pincushion. When the doctors would rattle off statistics about my likelihood of survival I often felt like Han Solo from the movie Star Wars—stuck in some impossible situation as C-3P0 announced, “The odds of survival are 725 to 1.”
I don’t think this anxious, existential, insane asylum aspect of childhood is unique to me.
I think about my first walk around the neighborhood. Mother Glenna, Deaconess Jane, and I were hanging out with the men who throw horseshoes after work and a young man darted by us all. Then a police helicopter appeared in the sky. Then police cars and a paddy wagon zoomed up Pimlico Road.
By the time the three of us got to where the commotion was the cops had one of the young men Mother Glenna knows well subdued on the sidewalk—because he had been fiddling with the motorcycle abandoned by the shooter. I imagine being on the receiving end of the cops like that makes you feel like an it.
Even today there is an essential itness to childhood.
And Jesus embraces the its of the ancient world on many occasions. Jesus is really serious about interacting with and helping children. In Mark’s gospel alone Jesus—Told Jairus’ little girl, thought dead, to “get up.” Jesus threw the Syrophonician woman a crumb by ridding her child of a demon. And in the verses just previous to today’s exchange about welcoming “one such child” Jesus, to a father’s cry of “I believe, help my unbelief” makes a son to stop seizuring, to speak, and to stand up!
And this is something his disciples continued. We were known in the ancient world for our ethic toward the least of these—the orphan, the widow, the sick, the lame, and the child. We were known for our stand against infanticide. In fact, this Christian tendency to be tender toward children, was noted by of all people Karl Marx, who analyzed religion in general and concluded it was simply poor people responding to their oppression, once wrote, “We can forgive Christians much, for they taught us to love our children.”
And even today this ethic of service to the least of these is still alive in Christ’s body, the church. It is manifest in the Roman Catholic position on abortion and the Unitarian’s OWL program. It is found in Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries. The ELCA’s Malaria initiative and the hunger appeal.
And even here in this church, here at St. John’s, we follow Jesus. Between the programs run across the street at the Pimlico Road Arts and Community Center and the Pimlico Road Youth Program down the street next to Holy Nativity over 200 children from the community are being cared for—are being embraced by this Christian community.
For that matter I’d imagine being hungry, and being addicted, both can carry a certain stigma—and can lead to a certain amount of it-ness. And we are ministering to that reality too, with our food pantry and the NA meetings that go on in our basement daily.
Isn’t this a wonderful expression of the ELCA’s motto, “God’s work, our hands.”
--
In serving the “its” the stigmatized and disempowered, “a child such at this,” we are doing a great thing. But let us press a little deeper, maybe connecting Jesus’ words about how in doing this type of welcome we are in fact welcoming him, and in welcoming him welcoming God—connecting them to his words about his own death.
Jesus is saying we find God in the it! This is the very definition of “Theology of the Cross.” Finding God in the last place we would look! The eternal subject, the creator of all objects, is found as, and in, an it!
God is found in the tentative, weak, fleshy, person of a child—a child called it, it the son of Mary. It, this son who points to his coming death. It this man dead on a cross!
Oh yes, the itness of Christ, “cures the desire for glory” extinguishing it that he may “exult us in his mercy, giving us a home.”
In the cross we are stripped of any pretention and this image of God as it, as child, is flipped as it is revealed to us. At the foot of the cross we are moved from despair about our own itness into confidence in God’s mercy and solidarity with us.
Not only am I entertaining God by welcoming a child called it—I also become that child—taken in by God, held in the weakness of his mighty grace, embraced not because I earned it, not because of any merit of my own, but because that is the thrust of God’s heart!
And because of this I can not help but sing:
He’s done so much for me, I can not tell it all.
He washed my sin away, I can not tell it all.
He walks and talks with me, I can not tell it all
He gave me victory, I can not tell it all
I can not tell it all, I can not tell it all
Amen and Alleluia.

All the King’s Men 1949—All the King’s Men 2006

Well, I’ve watched both versions of one of my favorite books, All the King’s Men. The newer one is of course prettier and more stylized, but I would say the 1949 version is more faithful to the book.
Further what is at stake for the characters is more clearly apparent in the 1949 version. You can see how goodie-two-shoes Willie Stark became the corrupt and philandering man he became. Further, the pain caused by his philandering, both to his wife, Lucy, and to his personal assistant, Sadie, who he first cheated with, is much more apparent. True, we don’t get to see Stark’s dalliance with the stripper on skates as we do in the 2006 version, but we do get to see Sadie’s grief over being rejected and replaced by Willie on account of her looks.
Overall I would say the 1949 version gets the story right. It does not just focus on Willie and Jack’s relationship (the point of view character and Willie’s muckraker), but on the myriad of emotions and drives of all the characters.
The only superiorities of the 2006 edition are the foreshadowing of violence by “sugar boy,” Willie’s hired gun, the inclusion of Jack’s question about Willie winking at him when they first meet, and highlighting the Judge’s affinity for model catapults and other ancient projectile weapons.