Childlike Maturity: Generosity - Mark 12:41-44
How often ate we challenged by the gifts of
another? We often think of children as being selfish, of being self-focused,
our self-absorbed, and there may be a few spoiled children out there who are
like that. However, given the chance, I
think that many children would surprise and challenge us.
I remember back in 2009, Davey had been saving
up his money to buy his own iPod Touch.
Many off his friends had one, and he really wanted one. He had saved
birthday money and Christmas money, and was slowly but surely making progress
towards his goal. I don't remember
exactly what the call went out for but I remember that we were responding to
something that had happened. I am figuring that Davey heard my appeals in
church for giving in response to the disaster.
After worship one of those Sundays where an appeal was made for UMCOR,
Davey asked me how much money he had saved up.
" Why," I asked him. His response was not that he wanted to go
to the store that day and buy the iPod if i would loan him enough money to
finish paying for it. He told me that he
want to help the people that we were collecting for. I told him how much he
had, figuring he would give a token amount. I asked him how much of it he
wanted to give. He said, "all of it." I am now ashamed of my response,
in fact, i was immediately shamed by my response. It was not, "that's
great Davey, I hope more people will be as generous as you." It was,
"you know you don't have to give that much, you've been saving that money
for a while to get your iPod. Why not give just five our ten dollars?"
Davey's response? It was not
"thanks dad that's a good idea" or even "good point dad."
It was, "they need help more than I need an iPod." Talk about feeling
condemned right whet you stand...
There are other kids like that as well. One of
my friends sons, rather than accept birthday presents at his party, instead
asks folk s to bring cat and dog food for the animal shelter. Another friend,
and I think I remember telling y'all a little about this, in response to the
earthquake in Haiti, set up a roadside kid’s lemonade stand and spent hours
making and selling lemonade to raise money to give away, not spend on himself.
Too often we think our kids are all hung up on
themselves, but sometimes their generosity, reminiscent of the widow's mite,
shows us how self focused we are.
My friends, last week we began to talk about
Jesus' call to have childlike faith.
We talked initially about how just the
characteristics of a child lead us in growing in faith. Children are growing, physically, mentally,
morally, intellectually--rebuilding it's that to have a childlike faith it's to
have one in which we are committed to lifelong growth spiritually. Why? Because
the moment we decide to stop growing, we start dying.
We also considered the fact that children are
dependent on others got their well-being. They may asset their independence
from time to time but deep down they know they need others to survive. As
Christians we are reminded by this that we are not self-made men and women, we
are dependent upon Good for everything...not only our salvation that could and
can only be had through Christ, but we are dependent on Good for all that we
are and all that we have--even the breath we breathe. If we doubt it, we need
to heed the words of the Psalmist who said, "when you take away their
breathe, they door and return to dust."[i]
Today we are considering how the generosity
can bring us to childlike maturity. The Scripture we read this morning didn't
highlight a child though, but a poor widow. Now we often think of the widow as
a little old woman, she may have been, we don't know. She very easily could
have still been a teenager (as they married often in their early teenage
years), whose husband had died early in their marriage-we don't know and it really
doesn't matter. What matters is the example she set. She had two mites, two coins, or the
equivalent of two quarters in today’s world[ii] (however you want to
put it), to her name. She came to the
temple to make pay her tithe...her offering.
Jesus had watched as the rich and middle class had come through the
Temple. He watched as as they pulled out
all of this wealth and placed it in the treasury--they were giving the
equivalent of hundreds and thousands of dollars, maybe more. Then Jesus watched as this widow came through
the temple and placed her two quarters in the offering. Jesus then turned to the disciples and told
them, “This widow has given more to the treasury today than anyone else.” You can probably imagine the look on those
disciples faces...did Jesus miss seeing all those other folks. Sure there were some who had come by the
temple and probably given nothing...there were probably tons of folks who had
not shown up at the temple and therefore had not contributed anything, maybe
Jesus was comparing her to those folks.
Surely he saw everyone else.
Jesus continues on and leaves no doubt that he saw everyone else giving
to the treasury, he said, “Everyone else has given to God today out of their
plenty, they gave a portion of what they had left over after taking care of
themselves...this widow gave no thought to herself, but only to God and others,
and gave everything she had.” Ouch!
The problem is, that often we look at the
examples of those children and the widow and we would count them as immature
and foolish. What person in their right mind would give it all away. I mean if
we have been saving up for a new iPod, a car, a house, a vacation, or even
retirement, and we see a need how do we usually respond. If we have some spare
change or a few singles in our wallet, we might throw them in--but the idea of
giving it all, everything we have saved, everything we have. If we are having a birthday party, we might
have some cake or something that we want to share with those who bring us
something, it is about a celebration of
us, it is not about some stray dogs or cats and making sure they have food--we
want the gifts, and if we get any money, we might give a little of it to help
someone, but not the shelter, we pay taxes to keep that place running. If we have worked all week, whether in the
office, in the yard, or at school, then we are surely going to take time for
ourselves on the weekend--we might, I mean might, go to church for an hour or
two on Sunday (if we didn’t work or even have too much fun on Saturday), but
that’s our time. The idea of giving up
all our time, giving up our celebration, giving up all our money--that’s not a
grown up thing to do, we have to take care of ourselves, no one else will. To give all our time and money away, well,
some might call it stupid or even childlike...ooohhh, wait...what did Jesus
say, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the
kingdom of God.”[iii]
Mark doesn’t just offer us the account of the
widow’s mite. He also tells the story of
Jesus and the wealthy young man:” As he
was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him,
‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good?
No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder;
You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false
witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all
these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one
thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’
When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had
many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard
it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’”[iv]
If we put these two together, is Jesus really
telling us that we need to get rid of everything and take on an absolute vow of
poverty in order to truly follow him and get into Heaven. No!
Jesus knew that the wealth that man had stood between him and God! Jesus is telling him and telling us that
whatever we have that takes a more important role in our lives than God and
more important that doing the work of God, we need to get rid of it. It may be our money...it may be our time...it
may be our egos. Jesus says, get rid of
it first, and then follow me...like the widow, empty ourselves of all that we
have, and trust in God.
The widow didn’t give all her money away to
curl up into the corner of an alley to die...she gave it all away, trusting in
God--that he would be her provider.
Perhaps she had heard the words of Jesus: “Truly I tell you, there is no
one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children
or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive
a hundred folks now in this age...and in the age to come eternal life.”[v]
How does childlike maturity come into all of
this...into the areas of generosity? It
comes because children are willing to give it all away because they trust that
someone else is in charge of their well-being.
They know that their parents, grandparents, guardians, or whomever is
watching over them is going to make sure that their needs are met, even if they
give all their money away. They know
that their parents will make sure they have a time and opportunity to rest, if
they give all their time away. They know
that their value is not laid up in what presents or gifts someone brings to
celebrate their birthday, it lies within them and how their parents love and
care for them.
We grow into childlike maturity when we learn
to understand our relationship with God the same way: knowing that if our
hearts are moved to respond to an crisis by giving away what we have saved for
ourselves, we can give it away--trusting that if it is something we truly need,
God will provide another way for it to come into our lives; knowing that if we
give up what recognition we think we deserve, that our true value lies in the
fact that we are created in God’s image, He has designed all our days, and that
He loved us enough to give His only Son for our salvation; and knowing that if
we give up our time to Him, in service or in worship, that He will lead us to
green pastures and still waters, he will restore our souls...and he will renew
our strength.
Childlike maturity understands God’s
providential care for us...
Will we be like children...preparing to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven...
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit...Amen.
[i] Psalm 104:29
[ii] www.coinlink.com/News/ancients/the-widows-mite-coin/
[iii]
Matthew 18:3
[iv]
Mark 10:17-23
[v]
Mark 10:29-30
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