Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
With talk of federal income‑tax changes both before and after the presidential election this past week, I was reminded of a funny “Clinton’s Simplified 10‑40 Form” that one of my coworkers had sent to me by way of our T‑V station’s early in-house email, not even two weeks after Bill Clinton was elected president the first time. I printed the document out on one of the newsroom’s dot-matrix printers then, and I have saved the hardcopy in my income tax folder for nearly 32 years now. Line one of the form asks, “How much money did you make last year”, and line two directs, “Send it in”. Not compulsory complete taxes sent to the federal government, but a voluntary complete offering given to the church is part of the focus of today’s Gospel Reading. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus criticizes one of the groups of Jewish leaders, the scribes, for such things as deceitfully devouring widows’ wealth, and Jesus essentially praises a poor widow who knowingly donated everything she had. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “All we have to live on”.
The events of today’s Gospel Reading came during what we call Holy Week, after Jesus effectively silenced the Jewish leaders following a series of confrontations that they had initiated with Him. The Divinely‑inspired St. Mark does not tell us the widow’s age or the ages of her children, if she even had any. But, we do know from elsewhere that the treasury into which she put her offering was supposed to be used for both the service of the temple and the care of the poor, and, while the temple complex was being improved with “wonderful stones and wonderful buildings”, as we will hear next week (Mark 13:1), she somehow was left in her poverty.
President‑elect Trump in the past has infamously not released his tax returns, so we do not know about him, but President and Jill Biden’s and Vice‑President Harris and Doug Emhoff’s 20‑23 tax returns showed both adjusted gross‑income of nearly 620‑thousand dollars and more than 450‑thousand dollars, respectively, and, of that income, the tax returns showed, charitable contributions that represented only three‑percent and five‑percent, respectively, apparently not much of which, if any charitable contributions, went to their respective churches (ABC). As we might do with the President and Vice‑President, in today’s Gospel Reading, people saw and judged how other people gave. We heard that many rich people, contributing out of their abundance, put large sums into the treasury, but Jesus said that the poor widow, contributing out of her poverty, truly put in more than all the others—Jesus clearly meant not the total amount but the proportion: she put in everything, all she had to live on. If Jesus does not command us to go and do likewise, or even hold her up as an example for us to follow, His essentially praising her certainly can and perhaps should lead us to examine our own giving in light of her giving.
This past Thursday at the Plano Study Group, I presented a paper on the Large Catechism’s teaching about the Fourth Commandment, that Commandment to honor our parents and other authorities, such as fathers of the nation and spiritual fathers (LC I:158). We were providentially reminded of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s words about spiritual fathers’ seldom receiving honor but being harried out of the country and begrudged a piece of bread (LC I:160), possibly a reference to today’s Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 17:8-16). Luther writes thus:
… they who would bear the name of Christians owe it to God to show ‘double honor’ to those who watch over their souls and to treat them well and make provision for them. God will adequately recompense those who do so and will not let them suffer want. But here everybody resists and rebels; all are afraid that their bellies will suffer … For this we deserve to have God deprive us of his Word and his blessings and once again allow preachers of lies to arise and lead us to the devil—and wring sweat and blood out of us besides. (LC I:161-163, Tappert, 387, with reference to 1 Timothy 5:17.)
While my salary arguably is below the Texas District’s scale, I am generously paid, and, with fewer expenses than other people, I voluntarily give to Pilgrim at a high percentage of my gross income, sacrificing much if not all of my shorter and longer‑term savings. Yet, Pilgrim still consistently lacks sufficient offerings to make even the minimal expenses for which we budget, and so some of those budgeted expenses are not made—such as fixing the back Sanctuary window, the front slab, and the ceiling and wall in the hallway from the Office Area into the Parish Hall. Today the Voters’ Assembly will consider the proposed budget for 20‑25 with another projected deficit of nearly 25‑thousand dollars, which deficit certainly would disappear if all of us giving to Pilgrim gave “All we have to live on”, or even if we just increased our offerings some 16‑percent. What does your sacrificial proportionate giving to Pilgrim cost you? What do we readily spend on that is far less important? Are we afraid to give more? If so, why are we afraid to give more? Do we doubt that God will provide for us, if not here in time, then there in eternity? Like the scribes and rich people in today’s Gospel Reading, behind our generally good and believing appearances we are by nature evil and unbelieving (confer Marcus, ad loc Mark 12:38-40, p.857). Our sinful nature and actual sin mean that we deserve the condemnation of death here in time and torment in hell for eternity, apart from the Holy Spirit’s leading us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake.
Out of God’s great love for us, Jesus gave all of Himself in order to save us. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 9:24-28), Jesus, bearing the sins of all, sacrificed Himself once and for all. As St. Mark goes on to narrate, confrontations like that we heard in today’s Gospel Reading led the Jewish leaders to plot to kill Jesus (for example, Mark 14:1-2), and, soon enough, the Jewish leaders at the hands of the Romans did kill Jesus. On the cross, Jesus died in our place, the death that we deserved. As true man, Jesus was able to die, and, as true God, His death was a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole word, including your sins and my sins. When we repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and our actual sins. God forgives our actual sin of doubting His provision and of not supporting His Church as we should, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin, as we faithfully receive His forgiveness through His Word and Sacraments.
In today’s Gospel Reading, as we hear about the scribes hypocritically wearing long robes, their being greeted, and their having the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, we are at least reminded of our Divine Services. In the Divine Service, God’s called and ordained servants truly are set apart by their vestments, by the liturgical greeting that reminds them of the gift of the Holy Spirit in their ordinations, by their seats in the chancel, and by their serving at this feast. God forgives sins both through those servants’ reading and preaching God’s Word to groups such as this group and through their applying the Gospel to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine in the Holy Supper. Received in faith, baptismal water, the pastor’s touch, and Christ’s Body and Blood give the forgiveness of sins and so also give life and salvation. Where Jesus, in a passage parallel to today’s Gospel Reading, in reference to the Jewish leaders told His followers to call no man “father” on earth (Matthew 23:9), Luther in the Large Catechism referred to the Roman Catholic leaders who applied the title “spiritual father” to themselves but performed no fatherly office, and, following the example of St. Paul (for example, 1 Corinthians 4:15) Luther said that the name spiritual father “belongs only to those who govern and guide us by the Word of God” (LC I:158-159). So, I neither refuse the name “spiritual father” nor require anyone to use it.
As important as the “spare change” is that we give to LWML Mites, named after the woman’s coins in the King James Version of today’s Gospel Reading, more important are our regular sacrificial proportionate offerings to Pilgrim. God knows best of all both our true desire to give and what we can give (confer 2 Corinthians 8:12-13). The widow in today’s Gospel Reading likely knew about the widow of Zarephath in today’s Old Testament Reading, how the Lord for many days miraculously provided for her, her son, and the prophet Elijah. The widow in today’s Gospel Reading also may have known today’s Psalm that says that the Lord upholds the widow and the fatherless (Psalm 146:1-10; antiphon: v.9a). Yet, one commentator on today’s Gospel Reading said that “The woman did not give because she knew [that] she would have a next meal; she gave in faith that God would take care of her even if she starved to death” (Fickenscher, CPR 22:4 [n.p.]). God grant us such faith! And, God grant us also such good works.
Ultimately, “All we have to live on” is not our possessions at all, but “All we have to live on” is God’s free gift of the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’s sake that we receive through faith, in which gift of forgiveness of sins we live both now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +