Nothing to Lose

The Rev. Sandy Selby – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron Ohio

Proper 27, Year B – November 12, 2006

Texts: 1 Kings 17:8-16 and Mark 12:38-44

Last weekend the Rev. Ted Haggard was removed from his position as Senior Pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs for what his Board of Overseers called “sexually immoral conduct.” Earlier in the week he had resigned from his position as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. On Sunday, the congregation listened as someone read them a letter in which Pastor Haggard admitted to many of the charges that he had denied earlier in the week. “Because of pride,” he said, “I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint them.”

Haggard admitted that he had struggled for years with the issues that ultimately led to his downfall, but concluded that he couldn't tell the truth because he had too much to lose.

On Tuesday the Beacon Journal quoted an individual who had shot footage for a film at Haggard’s church a year ago and was “struck by how enraptured his followers looked.” “’They all really adored him…and hung on every word he said—I can’t imagine what those people must be feeling.’”

The betrayal of trust. We see it everywhere in public life—in churches, in government, in business, even in sports. Most of us have known it in our private lives--betrayed by people who were not faithful to the trust placed in them—often because they felt they had too much to lose.

The betrayal of trust is virtually always about power. And let’s face it: we all struggle with issues of power. Whether it has to do with money, or how we handle authority, or our relationships with others—power is at the heart of many of the issues we face in our public and private lives.

In the readings from 1^st Kings and Mark, we hear stories about two widows, people who were among the most powerless people in a society that offered them no real protection. This is why the prophets constantly reminded the people to care for widows. The powerlessness of the two widows in today’s stories is evidenced by the fact that we never learn their names.

We know the first woman as the “widow of Zarephath.” At God’s command, Elijah traveled to that city and asked her to give him food and drink. She replied that she only had enough meal and oil to cook one more meal for herself and her son before they died of starvation. Nevertheless, she obeyed God by making a cake for Elijah with the last of her food. Miraculously, she found that there was meal and oil left over, and God continued to provide for her household for days to come.

The second nameless woman is known today by the name of her story, “The Widow’s Mite”—so named for the two small coins worth less than a penny that she put into the temple treasury.

Jesus, who has been teaching in the courts of the temple, pauses to watch as people make their offerings. As they walk up to the receptacles they toss in their offerings and say aloud the amount and purpose of their gift in order to be heard by the priest overseeing the collections.

It would have been an impressive sight to see people in fine clothing tossing in large sums, calling out to all present how much they gave. In such a group, who would notice the widow tossing the two smallest coins in the realm into the offering? Jesus would.

Jesus calls his disciples together and says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” The Greek says that the widow literally put her “life” into the temple treasury that day.

It would be nice if Mark filled in more details for us. Was Jesus’ arm around the woman as he said, “This poor widow has put in all she had,” or was the woman blending back into the crowd, never to be seen again? Was Jesus really using the woman as an example of how his followers should live, or was he chastising the temple authorities as if to say, “How dare you manipulate this woman into giving everything she has?”

The Gospel never answers these questions. The nameless widow who gave two small coins fades into the background—with no churches, schools or hospitals named in her honor.

But perhaps namelessness is appropriate for this living parable. And maybe it is best, too, that we don’t find out how her story ends. The mystery surrounding her name and her fate make her an even better exemplar, for her situation was indeed precarious. She went to the temple that day not knowing if she would ever have two little coins to call her own again—not knowing whether her gift put her on a path to starvation or salvation. She bet on salvation, trusting that in giving everything she had to God, even the little she gave would be honored.

What is so striking about the women in these two stories is that they seemingly had everything to lose—their last bit of food, and their last two coins. But in fact they had nothing to lose. Therein was the source of their power. The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister says this: “In the end power does not lie in wealth and authority; it lies in having nothing to lose. When we have nothing to lose or to gain in a situation, we are finally free” (Joan Chittister, Called to Question).

The family in Zarephath could have eaten their bread and starved to death a few days later. The widow at the temple might have hung on to her copper coins that day. But sooner or later, they would be spent and she would be broke. If they relied on themselves, both widows knew they would surely die. Their only chance was to rely on God’s grace. They had nothing to lose, and by giving in to their seeming powerlessness they claimed the only power that really matters. Jesus says, “…those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life” (Mark 8:35-36)?

The widows show us what the Benedictine’s call “sufficiency”—living with a sense that a life grounded in God is enough. One of the tragic ironies of life is that the more we “have” by the world’s standards, the more it seems that nothing will ever be enough. That is the bondage in which so many of us live. Augustine said somewhere, “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.”

We call it the story of “The Widow’s Mite,” spelled M-I-T-E for the small coin she put in the treasury. I wonder if we should rather spell it M-I-G-H-T for the lesson she teaches us about power: that in the end, power lies in putting our whole trust in God’s providence, and living as if we have nothing to lose.