The Widow Deborah

Proper 27<= /span>

Mark 12:38-44

I wa= nt to tell you the story of Deborah. Her= s is a typical one for girls who lived in Israel during the time of Jesus. Deborah was an only child who was = loved by her mother and father. Her family raised goats and Deborah would help them tend the goats; well tending them is probably the wrong word – she liked to play with them and of course she named each one. Ra= ising goats was a meager living, just enough for the family of three to live on a= nd pay the temple taxes. She was a happy child and she grew to be a beautiful young woman. Because he= loved her, Deborah’s father worked very hard to find a good husband for Deborah. You see marriage is = the only way for a woman in first century Israel to have any security and a home. That or live at home. So when Deborah became of age, she= was married to Benjamin from the near-by town of Nazareth. She left her father and her mother= and moved into his home.

Debo= rah was lucky because Benjamin was a good man and he promised to take good care of her. The main job for a wife = in those days was to produce an heir to carry on the family name and keep the family land or business. Seve= ral years passed and Deborah had not yet conceived a child. She was sad and fea= red that God did not look with favor upon her because she was barren. Year after year there was no baby.= No little one to love; no child to take to visit her parents and watch them pl= ay with the goats just like she did while growing up. Finally she realized she would nev= er have a child; she would never give her husband an heir, and she felt like a failure. Deborah was more for= tunate than the other barren women because Benjamin loved her and did not divorce = her to find a new wife that could bear him a son. He tried hard to remove the sadnes= s from her heart. But nothing worked= .

For = Deborah each day was like the previous one: cook, clean, gather water, go to the market and wait for Benjamin to come home in the evening. Hers was a lonely life. It was worse when she went out in public. At the market her fri= ends would have their children with them and when they saw Deborah, all they cou= ld do was look down and avoid her eyes. Pretty soon they ignored her altogether because it was obvious: God was punishing Deborah for some previous sin; why else would she be barren? There was no way they could = risk putting their families in danger by associating with such a sinful person.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>

Year= s came and went. During this time her beloved parents both died and the goats that she loved so much went to a distant male relative because by law women cannot inherit property or even goats. Benjamin’s paren= ts also eventually died, so it was just the two of them now.

Many more years passed and Deborah = and Benjamin were growing older – both lived to be over sixty (although Deborah did not consider that a blessing).= Then finally one day Benjamin did not come home for the evening meal= at his customary time. She was w= orried and after awhile went to his small shop and there she found him. He had died earlier that day. “How could this happen?̶= 1; she thought. “He was so healthy.” This was the = day Deborah was dreading. He husb= and, her support, the only one left who loved her was gone. As was custom Benjamin was buried quickly and Deborah mourned deeply. As a widow she had no legal status to manage the property and money her husband left behind. She was an object of pity, a recip= ient of favors. It was custo= mary that after a man’s death the Scribes would appoint a “pious” man to look over Deborah’s financial affairs. She was at the mercy= of this stranger and this man gave her very little to live on, all she had was= two little coins. It was time to = go to the temple to pay her tax……….

Could Deborah be the poor widow that Jesus praised for her sacrificial gift to the temple treasury? May - be. Jesus commended her. But was that his point?=

You&= #8217;ve recently received two stewardship letters so you probably aren’t surprised to hear this bible text at this time of the year. Chances are good that you have hea= rd any number of stewardship sermons extolling the widow as an example of Christian giving. Many commentaries note the meagerness of what the widow gave and conclude that Jesus is teaching that, when one gives, what matters is not t= he amount one gives, but the spirit in which one offers the gift. Still others have used this story = to impress people with the need to give, not according to one’s means, b= ut well beyond one’s means. Maybe it was the widow's mite that gave birt= h to the common pronouncement that Christians should "Give until it hurts." Many a sermon has been drawn from the widow's example exhorting the congregation to give sacrificially, until we feel the pain of it.

I= 217;m sure we have all heard of stories where people have been robbed of their me= ager savings by over-zealous religious leaders.= There was a case where a well-known televangelist wrote a letter to a widow in a nursing home asking for $200.&n= bsp; His letter stated that if she did not have the $200 she should borrow it. Somehow the letter got in= to the hands of a newspaper reporter who printed it. When confronted the televange= list said that God told him to write the letter. Turns out the lady had died three = months before the letter was sent. A= gain, a widow is shedding light on a corrupt religious establishment.<= /span>

This is such a misrepresentation of the grace of God! Because of the= se and similar tactics the church of Jesus Christ has become known as money grubbing. And unbelievers have found another excuse to ignore God: "All they want is my money.” Sadly, all too often their complaint is accur= ate. .

Now,= there is a place for sacrificial giving in the Christian life. Certainly we could draw on a variety of teachings about money in the New Testament to conclude that Christians should give generously and without counting the cost. Yet is sacrificial giving the point of story about the poor widow? Maybe/maybe not. Notice that the widow's inner attitude is never mentioned, or even alluded to. In fact, nothing is said about what motivates her. For all we know from Mark's account, she could have acted ou= t of despair, out of guilt, out of a desire to be seen contributing. After listening to the story of Deborah, I would imagine = she was desperately reaching out to God at the temple, it was all she knew and = it was her last hope.

Jesu= s. He took notice of the widow but while he commends her at = no time does he invite his disciples to imitate her. There's no command to go = and do likewise. No remark that the widow is not far from the kingdom. No well done, good and faithful servant. Jesus only observes that, out of her poverty, she has given more than the others = - all that she had. You may believe that Jesus' approval of her gift and the comm= and to imitate the widow are implied, but we may just as reasonably doubt that Jesus intended any such implication.

This= story of the Widow’s Mite stands in the midst of a teaching Jesus is giving= to a large crowd and he begins to criticize the scribes who prance around in l= ong robes trying to be seen, vying for the best seats in the synagogues and pla= ces of honor at banquets! Jesus e= ven points out that the scribes devour the widows' houses. So when Jesus notices the wid= ow putting in her last two coins into the treasury could it be that he is shin= ing a light on the corrupt religious practices of the scribes for whom religion= has become a business and a tool for personal gain? This poor widow is an exampl= e of those who are so exploited by religion that they give to the Temple what they truly need for their own survival. What does this poor= widow know of God? Only what the religious institution has shown her – which from her perspective is n= ot much.

Jesus wasn’t just teaching the large crowds in the temple, it was a teaching moment for his disciples as well – don’t let religion replace t= he care for others. Jesus shed a= light on what the institution was doing wrong and the disciples remembered that lesson when they were in charge of the new movement and preaching the gospel. There were many widow= s that needed help and they could not do all the work, so they established the ord= er of Deacons to care for the wi= dows and orphans and to make sure their needs were being met. I’d like to think that the widow who came to the temple when Jesus was there was one of those.

So w= hy did I tell you the story of Deborah? When we hear the gospel stories over and over we often forget what it was really like for those who lived along with Jesus.= When we take the time to look at their contexts, their situation we = can see something new. Jesus poin= ted out the widow’s plight. By doing that he shed a light on a corrupt religious situation. He knew he was going to leave the Kingdom of God in the Disciples hands and he wanted to be sure they got the message to take care of the needy. <= /span>

The = two stewardship letters you received shed the light on our life here at St. Stephen’s. It is a heal= thy light because the source of our light is Jesus. The foundation of our Stewardship = comes from what we have learned about being a disciple of Jesus. Mark is very good at showing us ho= w to be that disciple. Jesus comes= into our life and asks us to follow Him. It requires an action on our part. Sometimes we put it off – b= ut he is always calling. When we accept we start to listen to his teachings. Somewhere along the way we get sen= t out to do the work he has given us to do. It is good to know we aren’t expected to get it right every ti= me – the disciples didn’t. Thank God for Peter! H= e was impetuous and often confused. It’s also good to know we aren’t alone, that we have the Holy Spirit to help us. In be= tween our work as a disciple we come back for more teaching. Always coming back to learn more a= bout Jesus, to build a closer relationship with Jesus. The more we learn about Jesus, the= more we have a heart like His heart, the more our light will shine. St. Stephen’s is an excellent place to build that foundational relationsh= ip with Jesus.

What= we corporately and individually do with our money is a reflection of the light= of Jesus that is within us. We a= re the light of the world. As = fellow disciples of Jesus we need to let our light shine, and it needs to shine ve= ry brightly indeed.