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Sermon for Sunday, November 15, 2009

“Focusing”

Mark 12:41-44

So many passages of scripture will bring back Sunday school images from ages ago when a teacher would hold up a picture and tell the Bible story.  Such is the story from Mark’s gospel this morning.  And most of the time what would amount to the “moral of the story” was “be like ___, but don’t be like ____.”  We find Jesus in the temple. He had been in the temple doing some teaching. We can go back to Mark 11:27 and he is entering the temple.  They have talked about paying taxes; who should get them, then came the question about resurrection and who knows who in heaven, then one of the scribes asked him a question about which commandment is the first of all? Those scribes and Pharisees always seem to show up and ask him questions hoping to trap him so they could arrest him. He just always seems to be in the center of a swirling controversy with the prominent religious people. Most of his critics are leaders in the religious establishment. It is in the closing verses of chapter 12 that we find Jesus sitting in the temple opposite the treasury and he was watching what the crowd put in what was the equivalent of their offering plate. And it is here we see the rich folks putting in money and then the poor widow showed up. The Sunday school lesson would inevitably say, “...be like the widow and give sacrificially and not like the rich folks who gave out of their abundance.” Jesus notes that in the two small coins that she gave, she has given all that she has. She really did cast her future upon the arms of God.  Her gift was the smallest monetary coin of her day.

How would you feel if someone could get that close a look at your giving?  Cecil Sherman tells the story of when he was serving FBC Asheville. The church was not doing as well as they could in their stewardship.  Leadership was concerned and started doing some research on giving patterns. Like most churches the giving was super, top secret. Those who saw who gave what were practically sworn to secrecy. And of course, what that meant was that no one knew. 

The leadership brought to Cecil a copy of the church’s ledger and told him he needed to look at it. He looked at the closed ledger for days and finally looked at it and it changed the way he looked at stewardship in the church.  He does write that he never backed off from asking for money again.  And FBC Asheville became accustomed to pledging 100% of their budget.  He looked.

Please know that I am not going to look. It can make a difference in how one feels about another. I just expect the Body of Christ to share their financial resources. I expect our staff to give financial tithes and offerings. I have to trust that we are being good financial stewards. In fact, I am not sure we as ministerial staff need to be serving if we are not giving. But, Cecil Sherman looked.

Jesus looked. It was a close enough look to see what folks gave.  Now it is easy to put together a stewardship sermon and challenge us to think about how we’ve invested in the community of faith.

But as I have studied this passage I want to suggest to you that there is another dimension to it. What is it? The other dimension is that Jesus looked at this woman and he really saw her.  One pastor made the comment that in his ministry that he tries to discipline himself to see people as Jesus sees them.  That is not a bad definition of what it means to be Christian. A Christian is one who talks like Jesus talks, who does what Jesus does and thinks like Jesus thinks and is someone who looks at people like Jesus looks at people.

Jesus was forever noticing people that the rest of his world did not see.

Like the widow who is in this morning’s gospel. She demonstrates the marked difference. What we saw was all the affluent, prominent people and their large gifts being dropped into the plate.  One of them probably had something in the temple named for him. And he had more to give. And then there was the widow who gave ten percent of entire income every week.

It happened more than once to Jesus. In a crowd of admirers, Jesus noted one afflicted woman who quietly tried to touch the hem of his garment.

Jesus began his ministry by calling people to be his disciples, to work with him, to do the same things he was doing in the world. And whom did he call?  He saw some people fishing. They were the ones he noticed and some of the ones he called.

In a leadership seminar the lecturer was speaking on the qualities of good leaders, the characteristics of people who at the top who contribute value to an organization. He said something quite significant: “Good managers notice what everyone else has stopped seeing. You know how it is,” he continued, “when you work in a company you gradually stop noticing things. You therefore become part of the problems rather than somebody who sees the problems and does something about them. So it takes a leader who is able to stand up in the balcony, look over the whole company, see the little incongruities and nonproductive practices, notice them, point to them and call attention to the them. Most organizations will know how to address the problems, once the problems get noticed. We stop noticing problems because we don’t believe that we have the resources to fix the problems. The first step to addressing a problem is to notice the problem. That’s what good leaders do.”

Jesus was at table one night, a guest of a Pharisee, a good Bible believing, scripture following believer. During the course of the meal, a “woman of the city” enters, a notorious sinner.  She throws herself at the feet of Jesus, makes a scene as she pours sweet smelling perfume all over his feet. That is too much for the Pharisee.  He says that if Jesus was really a prophet he would be able to see this woman for who she really is. (Luke 7:40ff)  It is then Jesus responded, “Do you see this woman?”  I’m struck by that question, “Do you see this woman?” Maybe that is the gracious gift that Jesus wants to give to us, the ability to see people whom we would never see without him. There are people who sit on the pews of our church in worship that a lot of us look through and do not see. There are those who enter the doors during the week that have more needs and struggles than most of us can imagine and we don’t see them. There are those who stand on the corner of Parham and Brook Road with signs looking for work and food and I don’t want to look at them.  Can you even begin to imagine the face of a little child who will receive your shoebox?  Can you look a man in the face who will be here for CARITAS who cannot find a job and is separated from his family because he is homeless? Teresa of Avila reminds us, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours…yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ looks out on a hurting world, yours are the feet with which he goes about doing good, yours are the handswith which he is to bless now.” Take a good look at those the world does not notice because you are a Jesus believer, take a good look. And then maybe our stewardship, your stewardship, my stewardship would really come alive and we can help change the world.

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Address
First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005

Phone
(804) 798-9014

Fax
(804) 798-9043

E-mail
fbcashland@verizon.net

Sunday Worship

  8:30 a.m. -  Worship Service
  9:45 a.m. -  Sunday School
11:00 a.m. -  Worship Service