Sermon Archive

In the first class of our Sunday morning series, “Getting More Out of Worship,” one of the things we shared was where we preferred to sit in church: the front, the middle, the back, the narthex. The Daniel Russell Room next to the coffee maker. Most people said they liked to sit towards the front. “I find it easier to focus there,” said someone. “I listen more closely to the sermon,” said another. “When I’m at the back” – said someone else – “I watch all the people in front of me and get distracted.” Well, by the time it was my turn I was kind of embarrassed to admit I preferred the back because I could watch all the other people, and be distracted.

Our scripture today tells me – and any other people-watchers out there – that we’re not alone. Jesus is speaking to a favorite pastime of folks in religious congregations everyone: Jewish and Christian, ancient, modern and postmodern. And that’s to look at the person in the next pew, or across the aisle, or up front, and wonder: what’s their relationship with God like? Do they really believe in Jesus? That one up there with the seminary degree and Rev. in front of his or her name: does she feel closer to God? Does he know something I don’t? And that person next to me: I wonder how much she’s putting in the offering plate. Could she possibly be tithing her gross income? We’ve learned not to look at the plate as it’s being passed, but we wonder.

We wonder. Often, when we speculate, we compare ourselves unfavorably to others. Those other people look more faithful. Surely they know their Bible better. I’ll bet they pray more. People in Jesus’s time seem to have thought that way about scribes. The scribes were learned. They knew the law and assisted the priests; some were officials in Jerusalem. So naturally they were greeted with respect in the marketplace, they had places of honor at banquets, they were asked to lead prayers and had the best seats in the synagogue. (My Bible notes say that those seats would have been the seats in the front of the synagogue, facing the congregation. Kind of like those seats over there.) But Jesus says, beware! They devour the houses of widows. Those long prayers are only for appearances. They will receive the greater condemnation.

So we wonder. Sometimes, when we speculate, we compare ourselves favorably to others. Many of us do that with poor people. We believe that God cares about poor people – if we read liberation theology we may have even learned to say that God has a preferential option for the poor. We may believe that we’ll be judged on how we treat the poor. So we pray for them. We cook meals and volunteer in the shelter, and write letters for Bread for the World – all very good and important things. But do we think of them as religious people in their own right? Peers in our congregation, or peers in the larger church? When a person who looks “poor” to us puts a dollar in the offering plate, what do we do? Do we avert our eyes like we do with everyone else, or do we think: “Oh, isn’t it wonderful – and surprising – that he put something in the plate?” You may have noticed that I’ve been condescending like that in this sermon. I’m speaking of the poor as the “other” – as though there couldn’t be a poor person, sitting at the front of the church, to better listen to the sermon and to focus on what’s going on.

The people in Jerusalem probably thought that way about poor widows. So Jesus does something very interesting. He sits himself in front of the temple treasury. It was probably just as rude then as now to stare at the offering plate. But that doesn’t stop him. The day before he had walked into the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers. Two days earlier he had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey. In a few more days he will be killed. So Jesus sits in front of the temple treasury and watches. He sees many rich people putting in large sums, and he sees a poor widow put in two coins. He makes an observation: the widow has put in more. He doesn’t explicitly praise her – some commentators even say he’s lamenting the fact she put in all she had. Nor does he berate the rich people for not putting in enough. He simply notes that the poor widow, the poor widow who may have lost her house to a scribe, the poor widow who’s doubtless an object of compassion and pity – that poor widow has put in more.

This passage is actually from last week’s lectionary, and when I decided to preach on it today, the day we were celebrating the 70th anniversary of Scott Morton's ordination, I felt a little nervous. After all, Scott’s going to be sitting in the place of honor at our banquet this afternoon. He’s wearing a long robe. But that’s where the resemblance ends. Scott doesn’t devour the houses of widows. Scott builds those houses, and I mean that almost literally – I’ve sat next to Scott in forums on affordable housing, in the 70th year of his ordination.

But we aren’t honoring Scott because he’s ordained, a Reverend, a minister, or because he has lots of degrees. We aren’t honoring Scott because we think he’s especially holy. We are celebrating, with Scott, the work that God has done through him in his 70 plus years of devoted service to the church. We are celebrating, with Scott, the grace of God. The grace of God that Scott has made known to us through his prayers, his teaching and preaching, his writing, his witness for justice, his wisdom, his humor, his loving-kindness.

One more thing about scribes. In our passage, Jesus is calling them hypocrites, headed for condemnation. But earlier that day, in the temple when Jesus was teaching, a scribe came to him and asked, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that God is one, and besides him there is no other; and ‘to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that the scribe answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”