Godly Attitudes: The Widow – Sacrificial Generosity Luke 21:1-4

Over the last month, we have been considering the importance of attitude adjustments and the people who need them…most importantly, as we have acknowledged, the person on our driver’s license, the person we see when we look into a mirror. We have confessed that too often our lives have taken on ungodly attitudes that reflect the attitudes of many in the world. 

In Joseph, we heard the call to let God transform our pessimistic worldview into one that is positive…

In Ruth, we discovered the need to move from faithless to faithful…

With Mary, we learned that we need to leave fear behind and become courageous…

While far from being the last attitude adjustment we need, we come to the last attitude adjustment in this short series.  For this we consider a nameless, but well known figure within God’s Word, the widow in the Temple.

Jesus and His disciples had entered Jerusalem as many gathered for the week of Passover.  As Jesus came into town, He made His way to the Temple.  There he discovered the money changers and livestock sellers abusing their needed positions and drove them from the temple.  They were there so that the people could make their offerings in accordance with the Law, exchanging Roman coins for Hebrew coinage that did not bear the graven image of Caesar; offering livestock for sacrifice that were not blemished.  However, what Jesus found were not folks helping others be able to worship and draw closer to God, but folks that were using religion to line their pockets as they took advantage of the people.  Jesus proceeded, then, to drive those folks out of the Temple.

Each day after, Jesus would come to the temple to teach.  He faced questions and accusations by the religious authorities.  The told parables.  He denounced the hypocrisy of the scribes.  Then one day Jesus invited the disciples to sit with Him before He began teaching.

They sat and watched as person after person came forward to bring their tithes and/or gifts.  They watched as the wealthy filed by placing large gifts, large bags of gold and silver, precious stones, or some other sizable offering there to be used by the leader of the Temple to meet whatever needs arose.  They watched as a woman shuffled along, with her head down low.  She was dressed in clothes that looked worn thin and were covered in the dust from the road—she stood in stark contrast to the others in their fine clothes and robes that had already been through the line.  They watched to see what she would do.  What could she possibly have to offer?  Maybe she was going to try and sneak something from the treasury to support herself.  If she did, how would Jesus respond…would He ridicule her about stealing from God?  Would he comfort her, knowing that as a widow, she had nothing to claim as her own?  So they watched.  They watched as she took two small coins from the pocket of her cloak and place them in the treasury.  She actually gave, it was two small coins, but she gave…it was nothing compared to the others, but she put those two coins in the collection box.

They waited to see who would be next.  Jesus, though, interrupted their watching.  “This poor widow,” he said, “has given more than anyone else today.”  Then, probably knowing the mental objections of Judas Iscariot and Peter, and maybe the others, Jesus continued, “All of those other folks, you see gave out of their abundance, they won’t miss the first talent of all that they have put in.  This woman, though, with her two little coins has put in all that she had to live on.”

That, my brothers and sisters, is an attitude of sacrificial generosity.  Jesus, here raises the bar, shifts the focus, with regard to the gifts we bring before God.  Jesus, a devout Hebrew man, would have been well aware of the mandate of bringing a tithe, a tenth of a person’s resources, and offering them to God to be used in caring for the needs of the Temple, including the livelihood of the priests.  Many of those wealthy probably brought their tithe, yet Jesus did not commend any one of them.  His words of praise were reserved for a woman whose offering would be lost in the midst of the wealth of the others.  Here is one of the marginalized, the forgotten of the community…seen by some as a burden on a society…that Jesus lifts up and honors as giving the most…because she truly did.  Her gift was not limited to ten percent of what she had, she gave everything she had to live on. 

Interestingly it is not the first time in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus highlights one of the forgotten of society.  When he began His ministry in Nazareth, Jesus highlighted another widow…not just a widow, but a widow who was a foreigner.  When Jesus was pointing to the way that God reaches out and touches the lives of those in need, He chose to highlight the widow of Zarephath.  God sent Elijah to the widow in the midst of a drought.  The widow had nothing left but enough water, meal, and oil to prepare one final meal for her and her son.  Elijah asked her for a drink and something to eat…he told her to trust in God…she did, taking the last of what she and her son had to live on and give it to the one God had sent.  That was sacrificial generosity, sacrificial hospitality.

Elsewhere in the Jesus’ ministry, we have the story of the feeding of the five thousand.  Here we see from yet another unnamed member of the marginalized of society, a child, a grand gesture of sacrificial generosity.  The only one in what was probably fifteen thousand (we’ve calculated that math out of the 5,000 men in a different sermon) who was willing to make an act of sacrificial generosity was a young boy who stepped up and offered his bread and fish to the disciples to help feed all of those gathered there. 

Without this young boy’s generosity, many may have gone hungry on that mountainside with Jesus.  Without the generosity of the foreign widow, Elijah may have never confronted the priest of Baal at Mount Carmel.  We have no idea what amazing thing that God did with the sacrificial generosity of the widow at the Temple…but we know that God took notice, for we know that Jesus took notice, and we know that because of it, God would definitely do something amazing, for God has a proven track record of doing amazing things when folks step up with sacrificial generosity.

Am I suggesting that God expects us all to go and empty our bank accounts into the collection plate next Sunday, or empty our cabinets, freezers, and refrigerators into the food pantry this week?  No.

No, but what I am asking us to question is our attitude.  Are we operating out of a sense of scarcity, out of a sense of greed, or out of a sense of trust and sacrificial generosity?  Do we give the least we can give just to be able to say we gave?  Do we give only what we have left at the end of the day? Or are we willing to sacrifice a meal out, a day at the spa, the newest piece of tech, or an addition to our memorabilia collection and instead offer it for God to use in the ministry of this congregation?

And yet, while the focus today may be on our finances here on Stewardship Sunday, that is not the only way we need consider whether we are sacrificially generous.

Are we willing to be sacrificially generous with our time?  Are we willing to set aside, at times, things we would be doing for ourselves in order to offer that time up to God?  Are we willing to give up sleeping in so that we come and work on Mission Project Monday?  Are we willing to be generous with our evenings and give away a night at home in order to be part of a Bible Study or join the choir?  Are we willing to sacrifice a relaxing Saturday or even a vacation day in order to serve in the disaster response warehouse or help muck out a home?

Are we willing to be sacrificially generous with our pride?  Are we willing to humble ourselves in order to serve Christ however and whenever we are needed?  Are we willing to submit to a background check in order to work with our children and youth or serve at Allied Churches?  Are we willing to do whatever tasks are needed, regardless of how menial the task might be, such as holding a door or rolling silverware? 

Are we willing to be sacrificially generous with our attitudes toward others?  Are we willing to forgive without demanding an apology?  Are we willing to embrace those who disagree with us, realizing that they are just as passionate about their beliefs as we are about ours?  Are we willing to accept that we are not special because of the color of our skin, our educational level, the amount of money in our bank account, the jobs we have, our party affiliation, or the language we speak?

Are we willing to be sacrificially generous with our very lives?  Are we willing to put our lives on the line for the sake of others?  Are we willing to stand up for those who have been cast off by society the marginalized—among them the children, the women, and the aliens of our day? Are we willing, even, to step up and protect those whose religion or lifestyles we don’t agree with and make sure they aren’t bullied or hurt or even killed?

Are we willing, my brothers and sisters, to follow the attitude of the widow and be sacrificially generous with all that we are and all that we have? Are we willing to follow the One who at the end of that week in Jerusalem revealed to us the ultimate act of sacrificial generosity as He offered His very life for each of us? 

If we will but trust in God, that He will sustain us even in the midst of our sacrifice.  If we will, we can trust that God will do something amazing with it—feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, care for the sick, free the prisoner.  If we are truly sacrificially generous in all these ways, we might even be privileged enough to see God take the turmoil—the bitterness, the hatred, the fear, and the sorrow that seems to fill our world today and replace it with a world in which there is no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, and no more pain…

May we develop Joseph’ positive attitude that God will act and we will get there…

May we develop Ruth’s faithful attitude remaining committed, even when it gets hard…

May we develop Mary’s courage and be willing to surrender ourselves for God to use in whatever way He needs us…

And through it all…may the widow’s sacrificially generosity lead us to offer ourselves and all that we have to God, that he might use us in some amazing way.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.