What is Truth?

Sermon November 24, 2024

            What is truth?  This is the response that Pilate had to Jesus’ statement that He was born and came into the world to testify to the truth.  Pilate actually had a good question.  In today’s story there are three participants, the Jewish authorities, Jesus, and the Roman government, represented by Pilate.  And each of these three participants had their own idea about what was truth.

            The Jewish authorities were committed to following the Law.  For them, truth was to be found in the studying and interpretation of the Torah and it’s not fair for us to think of them as being unfaithful.  The lives of these Jewish authorities revolved around the practicing of their faith, and they were thoroughly committed to their cause.  And yet, the Messiah that they longed for, the Messiah in whom they believed they were putting their hope and trust stood right before them, and not only did they not recognize Him, they outright rejected Him.  Why?

            The Jewish authorities had a pretty well-defined idea about who they thought the Messiah was supposed to be.  The contemporary website, Judaism 101 provides a classic description of the Messiah, as viewed through the lens of the Jewish faith.  “The messiah will be a great political leader descended from King David.  –  He will be well-versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments. He will be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example. He will be a great military leader, who will win battles for Israel. He will be a great judge, who makes righteous decisions. But above all, he will be a human being, not a god, demi-god or other supernatural being.” [1]  This Jewish view of messiah probably hasn’t changed much in the last 3,000 years. 

When we look at Jewish history, discussion of the messiah has always been at its peak during times of trial for the Jews.  The first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the resulting forced relocation of the Jewish people, scattering them throughout the Babylonian empire, inspired the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Ezekiel.  At that time, the nation of Israel expected the messiah to come as a military leader who would subdue the Babylonians, return the Jews to the Promised Land, rebuild the temple, and reinstitute temple worship.  But God had other plans.  It was the Persians under the relatively progressive king Cyrus who facilitated the return of the exiles to the land of Israel.  The Jewish people themselves rebuilt the walls and gates of Jerusalem, built the 2^nd temple, ordained priests, and reinstituted temple worship. 

The Maccabean revolt freed the Jews from Seleucid rule in the 160’s BCE and they purified and rededicated the temple.  Again, messianic talk abounded in the intertestamental books of the Maccabees; and the heroic efforts of the Maccabees in re-establishing Jewish independence, a relatively short time before the birth of Jesus, undoubtedly affected Jewish expectations of who messiah would be in the subsequent Roman occupation of Israel.  And so, truth for the Jews, at least as it related to the Messiah, was the expectation that the messiah would be a great but human military leader who would put an end to Roman rule and establish Isreal as the head of a dominant world government. 

But as we look at this critically, we can’t lose sight of the fact that the Jewish authorities also had a deeply vested interest in maintaining the status quo.  For the most part, the Jewish authorities were very well-to-do.  They were among the Jewish upper class and benefited greatly from their temple income or from donations and stipends if they were scribes.  They maintained their position of power and influence by setting themselves apart as the holy ones, contrasting themselves with the “unclean” and the “sinners” who became “the other”; the enemy from within whose influence supposedly threatened the lifestyles and salvation of the common people.  When Jesus came along, He threw an enormous monkey wrench into this clean vs. unclean narrative.  His radical inclusivity and His emphasis on love and forgiveness presented a genuine threat to the neat little apple cart of the Jewish authorities, and I have no doubt that those authorities felt entirely justified in their rejection of, and ultimate execution of, this threat to their lifestyles and faith as they understood it.

Modern psychological studies have stated that people would rather change the truth… than change their views.  Due to the prevalence of this phenomenon, psychologists have even given it a name.  They call it Cognitive Dissonance.  This is what happens when new information conflicts with existing beliefs.  Those beliefs, when deeply held, can cause an individual to reject overwhelming facts in favor of preserving their deeply held beliefs.  For the most part, the Jewish authorities were either unwilling or unable to reconcile their beliefs with this new teaching of Jesus, in spite of the fact that Jesus consistently tied His teaching to the Torah, and in spite of the fact that His teachings were accompanied by signs and wonders that Jesus performed that defied logical explanation.

For the Romans, truth was all about empire, and the preservation of order by any means necessary.  Nations subjugated by the Romans were required to comply with Roman rules and regulations or face potentially dire consequences.  Pilate was deeply concerned about the claim of the Pharisees that Jesus had declared Himself to be king.  If Jesus had indeed declared Himself king, that would have been interpreted by the Romans as insurrection.  And so, Pilate’s first question to Jesus was “Are you the king of the Jews”?  Clearly this was the most important thing on Pilate’s mind.  Because if Jesus presented a threat to Roman rule, that threat would need to be eliminated.  But Jesus brilliantly counters Pilate’s question by asking him if his question about kingship was his own idea, or something he had heard from someone else.  If Pilate’s question about Jesus’ kingship had come from the Jewish authorities, then it was hearsay, and therefore inadmissible as evidence in a Roman trial. 

The Jewish authorities had not really given Pilate a lot to go on.  When Pilate asked them for what offense Jesus had been convicted by the Sanhedrin, their initial response was intentionally vague.  “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you” they said.  The real issues for the Jewish authorities were first, that they believed that Jesus was a false messiah and second, that Jesus had threatened to destroy the temple.  But Pilate could not have cared less about these charges, which he deemed to be an entirely Jewish issue.  According to Marcus Dods the Pharisees wanted “not to have their judgment revised, but to have their decision confirmed and the punishment executed”. [2]  But Pilate, ever the diligent administrator, was not willing to try Jesus’ case without having a charge on which to try Him, so we read in Mark that the Jewish authorities told Pilate that Jesus was stirring up the people in preparation for an insurrection.  For Pilate, the best approach was whichever one which did the most to maintain order and so, Pilate, though he declared before the Jewish authorities that he found no basis for a charge against Jesus, nevertheless gave the order to have Him crucified.  Pilate, I am sure, justified his actions as doing what was best for the empire.

Did the Jewish authorities and leaders believe in what they were doing?  Of course they did.  Were their actions born of what they believed to be the truth?  Again, of course they were.  But was their truth really truth?  No, it wasn’t.  In fact, did anyone happen to notice the irony of the Jewish authorities not entering the Praetorium in order to maintain their ceremonial cleanliness?  R. C. Sproul said, “As they delivered the Lamb of God to the slaughter, they made sure their hands were ceremonially clean”.  [3]

Did the Roman authorities believe in what they were doing?  Of course they did.  Were their actions born of what they believed to be the truth?  Again, of course they were.  But was their truth really truth?  Again, no, it wasn’t.

For Jesus, truth was something entirely different.  For Jesus, truth wasn’t a what, it was a who.  For Jesus, the entirety of truth was to be found in the person of God.  And because Jesus is the exact living representation of God, the entirety of truth is to be found in Him as well.  “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, Jesus once said. 

My dear friends, Jesus IS truth.  The red letters in the Bible represent the words of the One who is truth personified.  His very life is a testimony to who God is and to what God is doing in our lives.  God created all of us and as such, He has a claim on all of us, but His claim is not manifested in demanding fealty as if He was some sort of human ruler.  Rather His claim results in a joyous reunion of parent and child.  The parent abandoning all dignity, running to meet Their prodigal child and preparing a feast because They are overwhelmed with delight at Their beloved child’s return.  THIS is the nature of the God who created us.  And yet this is the God who humanity has collectively thumbed their nose at.  It is a peculiar human desire to want to be left alone, to control our own destiny, and to make our own decisions, no matter how bad those decisions may be.  But God’s desire is to change our hearts.  To help us to see the world the way He sees it, and to understand how having loving hearts helps us to be a people who exemplify God’s truth and reflect that truth to the world.

I had a friend once who was a Buddhist priest.  He was thoroughly familiar with Christian theology and in a conversation that we once had, he boiled down the entire Gospel into the single statement; that Jesus teaches things that work.  When we live lives of compassion, empathy, grace, and love we begin the work of building a society of peace and justice and fairness.  According to my Buddhist friend, Jesus taught things that promote harmonious living.  And while I have some serious theological issues with my friend’s beliefs, I can’t say that he is wrong about the end result of kingdom living.  Ultimately, heaven will be populated by a people who, though they will be entirely themselves, will follow exactly Jesus’ example of loving God and loving others.  And it is that love that will make heaven, to be heaven.

Theologians like to say that the kingdom of heaven is eschatologically here.  What that means is that heaven is actually in two places at once.  It is, of course, our blessed hope for the future.  It is the place that Jesus has prepared for us, filled with many mansions and abounding with the love of God.  A place of joy and peace and a place where God Himself will wipe away every tear.  But heaven is also in the here and now and is manifested every time one of God’s beloved children is fed when they are hungry, clothed when they are naked, housed when they are homeless, defended when they are persecuted, uplifted when they are marginalized, and taken in when they are rejected.

When we, as believers carry the truth of the Gospel in our hearts and live that truth in our day to day lives, we show the world the vision that God has for our future.  A future of joy and peace, of justice and fairness.  A future devoid of pain and suffering.  And a future where love for God and love for others permeates everything that is said and done.  This, my friends, is what truth is.  Let us be the people who show the world that truth.

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[1] Tracey R. Rich, https://www.jewfaq.org/mashiach, The Messianic Idea in Judaism

[2] Marcus Dods, The Gospel of St. John

[3] R. C. Sproul, John: An Expositional Commentary, Pg. 324

I Am He – No You’re Not

Sermon November 17, 2024

            The year is 66.  Discontent with the Roman occupation of Isreal has been festering for decades.  After 129 years of Ruman rule the people of Israel are tired of the oppression, tired of the oppressive taxes, tired of the brutal methods of the Roman army who have been empowered to keep the peace, tired of the lack of personal freedoms imposed by the Roman puppet kings, tired of the paganism of the Romans and the insolent opposition to their worship of the one true God  And so, this discontent, brewing for so long, is finally reaching a boiling point.

            Within the population of Israel are a couple of different groups with different ideas about what the future of Isreal should look like.  The Herodians are what today we might call the oligarchy.  They are the wealthy and the influential, supporting Rome because they have profited from their Roman connections.  The Pax Romana, the peace afforded by Roman rule, creates a very conducive environment for their businesses and their lifestyles and they are perfectly happy with Roman rule so long as it continues to support their agenda. 

            The Zealots are the malcontents.  They are exasperated with the excesses of the Roman occupation and declare themselves to be freedom fighters.  For years the Zealots have bred insurrection.  A group within the Zealots called the Sicarii carry daggers around in public places just seeking opportunities to murder Roman officials and Roman sympathizers.  The Zealots believed that war with the Romans was not only inevitable but that when it happened, it would be a holy war, ridding Israel of the pagan influences of Rome.  But there was more.  The Zealots believed that instituting a war with Rome would bring about the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the defeat of all of the world’s pagan governments, and the exalting of Israel as the Nation that would head an everlasting government that would rule the entire world. 

            The Essenes were a group of separatists who eschewed cosmopolitan life in favor of monastic living within a community of people who were dedicated to ritual purity and separation.  The Essenes were also deeply fascinated with the study of the end times and would very possibly have been sympathetic to the cause of the Zealots.  As an aside, the Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to be the library of the Essene community.

            The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the religious ruling elite, who for the most part tried to work with the Romans in order to maintain the political power that accompanied their position as Temple officials.  This arrangement appears to have been mostly pragmatic, as the focus of the Pharisees and Sadducees tended to be more about protecting Temple worship and the following of the Jewish Law than it was about governing.

            Caught in the middle are the common folk, who are just trying to maintain their day-to-day life, keep up with the obligations of supporting themselves and their families, and keeping up with the Roman taxes to avoid having their homes taken away.  For the most part, the common folk didn’t want war with Rome, but if you were to have taken a poll, the majority of them would have more closely aligned with the rebels than with the Roman loyalists.

            In the year 66, the discontent came to a head, and the Zealots led an open rebellion against Rome.  A Zealot leader named Eleazar was able to put an end to the daily sacrifices to Ceasar, which were a requirement of the agreement that the Israelites had with Rome.  Then, a group of Zealots attacked the Roman auxiliary garrison, murdering every Roman soldier that was stationed there, and of course stealing all of their weapons and armor.  This attack left Rome with no alternative but to respond… and respond they did.  They sent the General and future emperor Vespasian to put down the uprising.

            This war with Rome lasted for four years, culminating in a seven-month Roman siege of Jerusalem.  Those living in Jerusalem during the siege ran out of food and, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, 1.1 million inhabitants of Jerusalem died during the siege.  Many of them died from hunger, and those who tried to escape were captured by the Romans and crucified just outside the city walls in full view of the inhabitants of the city.  By the year 70 the emperor Nero had died, and Vespasian had returned to Rome to succeed him as emperor.  Vespasian’s son Titus, also a future emperor, assumed command of the Roman forces in Judea and finally breached the walls of Jerusalem and put an end to the uprising.  As the Roman army was about to enter Jerusalem for the first time, Titus issued an order to destroy the city and not to leave one stone standing on top of another.

            The siege of Jerusalem was horrific.  And a part of today’s lesson predicts this destruction.  Our reading this morning is the beginning of what has come to be known as the Olivet Discourse, because this teaching of Jesus, that predates the fall of Jerusalem by about 35 years, was given while He and the disciples were sitting on the Mount of Olives.  This part of our story is so important that all three Synoptic Gospels relate this teaching in detail.  The word “apocalypse” is derived from a Greek word that means to uncover or to reveal, and here in apocalyptic language, Jesus reveals to the disciples the startling information that the Temple will soon be destroyed.  For centuries, theologians and scholars have debated the text of the Olivet Discourse, trying to determine whether Jesus was simply addressing the future destruction of Jerusalem, or was speaking to the larger issue of His second coming.  While there doesn’t appear to be general agreement among scholars, the consensus, and the thing that seems to make the most sense, is that the discourse speaks to a combination of both events.

            Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple was almost certainly about the events of the year 70.  And does anyone find it interesting that somewhere in the early 30’s Jesus prophesied that not one stone would be left standing on another and that 30 some years later when the walls of Jerusalem were finally breached, a Roman general would give his troops the order not to leave one stone standing on top of another? 

            As Jesus makes this prediction the disciples asked Him to tell them when these things will happen and what will be the signs that they are about to be fulfilled.  The disciples wanted Jesus to tell them about the future, but Jesus’ answer didn’t address the future.  Rather He replied with what I believe is the most important teaching relating to our approach to the end times, and that is to BE ALERT.  The NIV tells us that Jesus said, “Watch out that no one deceives you”.  In the Greek, “watch out” is βλέπετε (blepete) which is a word that means to look carefully or to examine something in order to understand it.  This warning from Jesus is a call to be able to identify what is true.

            “Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many,” Jesus said.  In not choosing to answer directly the question that the disciples asked, Jesus is basically teaching us here that our focus should not be on the why or the when or the where, but rather on the who; to focus on the person of Jesus.

            A few years back, in a sermon that I preached, I told you a story about a gentleman who had become a Secret Service Agent.  He was hired to work in a division that investigated counterfeit money and so he was sent to school to learn about counterfeit money.  In the story, the agent said that he expected that, in the class, he would see all kinds of different counterfeit money, but to his complete surprise, the class consisted entirely of studying REAL money, and learning everything about it, from how it is printed to the materials that are used, to the minutiae of the design of the bills.  You see, the instructors knew that when you are thoroughly familiar with the real thing, the counterfeit becomes easy to identify.

            And so, the task presented to us in today’s passage is for us to become thoroughly familiar with the real thing.  When we have a thorough and intimate knowledge of who Jesus is and when we truly know the things that He teaches, then a counterfeit Jesus becomes easy for us to identify.  But if we lack this intimate familiarity with Jesus, we do run the risk of being deceived.  Because someone is going to come along who kind of sounds kind of right and who maybe kind of acts in a way that seems kind of right, and they are charismatic and a great speaker, and they say what we want to hear.  And the next thing you know, maybe we’ve turned and started to follow the wrong person; the wrong belief, the wrong theology, and now, our life is headed in the completely wrong direction.

            And so, you see, there is a very real and very critical purpose to our study of the Bible, and specifically to the study of the life, example, and teaching of Jesus.  Like the agent who diligently studied real currency in order to be able to identify that which was counterfeit, so it is that our study of the Bible leads us to an understanding of the genuine that makes the imposter easy to identify.

Next Jesus tells us that there will be wars and famine and earthquakes but that these are a part of what He called birth pains.  We can study the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Ezekiel and Revelation and we can try to make sense of the teachings and we can try to extrapolate information from the text in order to try to learn more about what is to come.  But please tell me this:  What do the years 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, 1984, 1988, 1994, 2011, and 2012 have in common?  Every one of these years are years that some prominent theologian somewhere predicted would be either the year of the rapture or the year of the 2^nd coming of Jesus.  To the best of my knowledge, none of them were. 

But, we have to realize that these predictions were made by intelligent and dedicated scholars and theologians who believed in the accuracy of their predictions.  In some of the years that I mentioned, followers of these theologians sold all that they had, gave all their money away, and impoverished themselves for what turned out to be a lie.  All because they didn’t recognize the counterfeit.  The last three of the years I mentioned were years where the predictions were made by a pastor and theologian who I used to listen to every day on my commute to work.  I thought, and still think, that his analysis of the scriptures was brilliant and inspired.  But for whatever reason his focus shifted from teaching the truth about Jesus to trying to predict the future.  He was wrong, three times, and it ended his ministry. 

Dr. Alyce McKenzie tells us that, “The message to [Mark’s] persecuted community is that they need to prepare to participate in Jesus’ suffering and eventual victory by maintaining their witness to the truth in difficult times. The text intends to give them hope and encourage steadfastness in the faith – in the face of challenges to come. To seek in this text a detailed schedule of the events of the end-time is to misunderstand its purpose, which is to encourage persistence in the present, not to peer into the future.” [1]

Did anyone happen to notice what Jesus said to the disciples as He was telling them about future wars and earthquakes and famines?  He said, “Do not be alarmed”!  In the face of coming disasters, Jesus desires to comfort us.  And He tries to do that by pointing us all in the right direction.  Pastor Jo Anne Taylor explains, “Christ calls us, first of all, to prepare our own hearts by paying attention to the presence of God and living in that presence every day.  Then, Christ calls us to encourage each other to be prepared, by meeting together as the Body of Christ.  And Christ calls us to walk with other believers in the kind of close fellowship that provides encouragement and accountability.  As we band together with a few trusted friends in Christ, we meet Jesus and keep each other faithful to stay prepared for His coming.  Finally, Christ calls us to share the gospel in meaningful and authentic ways. This is why we feed the hungry and clothe the naked and care for the sick and welcome the stranger and visit those in prison.” [2]

And so, if our ultimate purpose is to be witnesses to the truth.  What does that look like?  How do we make familiarity with Jesus the cornerstone of a faith that rejects the counterfeit and speaks truth to ourselves, to our community of believers, and to those who surround us?  The answer is, as Pastor Tailor said, that our truth is spoken through our actions.  When we love others, when we embrace the outcast and the refugee and the marginalized, when we become a strident voice for justice and fairness, when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless, when we emulate Christ we show the world what Christianity is truly supposed to look like.  And when we do that faithfully, not only are we teaching the world how to differentiate between the authentic and the counterfeit, but we are showing the world, and ourselves, the way to living the life that God has called us all to live.

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[1] Dr. Alyce Mckenzie, The Pony Under the Pile – Reflections on Mark 13:1-8, Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence blog

[2] Jo Anne Taylor, A Pastor Sings, Birth Pangs – Sermon on Mark 13:1-8

It’s Not Just About Money

November 10, 2024

            I know it’s stewardship Sunday, but you can relax.  I’m not going to preach the sermon on the amount. 

            Mark begins today’s story telling us that Jesus issued this warning about the Scribes “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!”.  Yes, many of the Scribes were prideful, and Jesus wanted us to know that that was not a plus, but there is more going on here than meets the eye.  The Jerusalem Talmud, a written collection of the Jewish oral law, stated “A person must greet one who is greater than he in knowledge of Torah”.  And so, the Scribes coveted these greetings in the marketplace because they were an acknowledgement of one’s intellectual superiority. 

Many of the scribes were engrossed in this aggressive pursuit of the approval of people.  These Jewish authorities wanted to be important and wanted to be recognized as being important.  The Apostle Paul often used the phrase “Puffed up” to describe a self-important person.  And this is a fitting description of these Scribes.  But it wasn’t just the arrogance and pride of the Scribes against which Jesus spoke.  Jesus also said that the Scribes were “Shamelessly cheating widows out of their property”.  Dr. William Lane teaches us that, “The Scribes lived primarily on subsidies, since it was forbidden that they should be paid for exercising their profession.  The extension of hospitality to them was strongly encouraged as an act of piety; it was considered to be particularly meritorious to relieve a Scribe of concern for his livelihood.  Many well-to-do persons placed their financial resources at the disposal of Scribes, and it was inevitable that there should be abuses”.  [1]

In ancient times, widows and orphans were society’s most vulnerable members, and God’s concern for, and the command for us to care for the most vulnerable, is one of the primary themes of the Bible – both Old Testament and New.  In fact, the Bible directly addresses God’s care for widows at least 80 times, with orphans and foreigners usually being included in those passages as well.  An apocryphal first century CE document called “The Testament of Moses” says of the Pharisees and Scribes that “They consume the goods of the poor, saying their acts are according to justice, while in fact they are simply exterminators”. [2]  The Rev. Chelsea Harmon spoke of the mistreatment of widows when she said, “Historical evidence suggests a number of ways scribes interacted with (and could take financial advantage of) widows:  Though it was forbidden, many took payment from widows for providing legal assistance.  While serving as lawyers, some cheated on the wills or mismanaged the widows’ estates.  Some scribes were known to take advantage of, and freeload upon, the hospitality offered to them by widows.  Certain scribes were in the habit of taking payment and promising to make intercessory prayer for widows (i.e., making it a business transaction).  And if a widow could not pay, there were known cases where scribes literally took the widow’s home as payment for services rendered.  [3]

By all outward appearances, these Scribes were devout and pious men.  There is no question that, by and large, they were meticulous in following the Jewish Law.  But for those who were self-aggrandizing, for the cheaters and the swindlers, and the heartless among them, they were the whitewashed tombs about which Jesus spoke; beautiful and well maintained on the outside but filled with impurity and filth on the inside.

            Mark continues his story, providing us with a contrast to the story of the Scribes in the story of the widow making her offering in the temple.  Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem was set up in concentric rectangles.  The outside rectangle was the Court of the Gentiles, and all were welcome there.  Within the Court of the Gentiles, separated by a wall with large gates was the Court of the Women, and all Jews were welcomed in the Court of the Women, both male and female.  But it was forbidden under penalty of death for a Gentile to enter the Court of the Women.  Within the Court of the Women were three other courts, but in today’s story we are going to focus on the Court of the Women, because that is where our story unfolds. 

In the Court of the Women, there were twelve Shofarot or collection boxes.  They were shaped like a Shofar, or a ram’s horn, hence the name.  The small, or mouthpiece, end of the Shofarot was at the top, and that is where you dropped in your coins (remembering that there was no paper money in the first century).  The wide, or bell, part of the Shofarot was at the bottom and was where the coins were collected.  The opening of the Shafarot at the top was small to prevent people from being able to reach in and take coins out of the box.  Picture the coin slot on a piggy bank and you get the idea.  And so, when making your offering, because the opening was so small, you could only drop in a few coins at a time.

            With this in mind, Mark is telling us a story about Jesus watching the different givers in the temple.  And as Mark describes the wealthy making large donations, we can draw a mental picture of a person standing at one of those Shofarot for a really long time, dropping coin after coin after coin into that slot.  Jesus had just finished talking about how the Scribes loved to make ostentatious displays to gain attention and approval, but it wasn’t just they who were in the people pleasing business.  These large donors would have attracted a lot of attention, as everyone would hear the clink, clink, clink of the coins as they were dropped one, after another, after another, into the collection box.

            In the midst of all of these folks making donations, a widow approached one of the Shofarot and dropped in two One Lepta coins.  In first century Palestine a denarius was a day’s wage for a common worker.  The Lepta was worth 1/128^th of a day’s wage, or what a common laborer would earn in about 3 minutes and 45 seconds of work.  In today’s economy, 2 Lepta would be about 97 cents.  Jesus commented to His disciples that “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.”

            As we stop to think about today being Stewardship Sunday, we recognize this passage as one well suited to a discussion about giving generously.  But today I would really like to go beyond the platitudes about faithful giving and really focus on what is going on here, because we do no justice to this story if we don’t look beyond the obvious.  The first thing I would like to do is call attention to a slightly misleading translation.  The NIV tells us that the widow, “Put in everything—all she had to live on.”  But the original Greek says that she gave “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς  (Holon ton bion autes),  and this translates as literally “her whole life”.  She gave her whole life.

            There is a picture of some Greek coins in the bulletin insert.  The Lepton is the one at the bottom right and is listed as being 3 mm wide.  For comparison’s sake, a modern US dime is about 18mm wide.  And so, I suppose it is possible that, when the widow dropped these two coins, they barely made any noise at all.  And yet Jesus recognized her gift as the greatest of all because her gift was the gift of her entire self.

            Ordinarily, when we think about this passage, we tend to identify similarities between ourselves and the Scribes and ourselves and the widow.  We probably don’t find much in common between us and the Scribes, whose focus is on status and prestige yet who violate God’s law by mistreating the most vulnerable among us.  Pretty low bar, right?  Maybe we find the widow a somewhat better match, but when we look at the story in this way, we run the risk of feeling guilty if we don’t feel like we measure up to the faithfulness of the widow, and we might run the risk of feeling a bit self-righteous if we feel like we surpass the righteousness of the Scribes.  So instead, I would like for us not to focus on comparing ourselves to either the Scribes or the Widow, but to think of ourselves as being the gift itself.  What would we look like if we were the entirety of the gift?

            I have spoken often about how our faith is a matter of the condition of our hearts.  When we ourselves are the gift, our hearts will dictate to us what that means.  To begin with, the heart that belongs to God is sensitive to the needs of the community.    The heart that belongs to God recognizes a need and acts to fill that need as their circumstances permit.  And I have to say that over the years, this church… this congregation has been positively awesome at recognizing and filling needs.  Through difficult times of building issues and income deficiencies and declining membership, this congregation has been amazingly faithful to step up and provide as needs arise, and I thank God for that faithfulness, and consider myself privileged to be a part of a congregation whose faith runs so deep. 

But we all know that discipleship is not just about our resources.  Discipleship is truly about “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς, the giving of the whole self. It’s about the giving of our time and our efforts, it’s about the contributing of our ideas and our voices, it’s about taking on the tasks that keep the church functioning.  And it’s about reaching beyond these walls to be the hands and feet and voice of Jesus as we seek to do our part to bring the Good News of the Gospel to the world. 

We had a birthday party for my son, Joe, when he turned three.  There were a dozen or so kids in my back yard, and one of the children decided that he wanted to play with one of the toys that my son had received as a gift.  When my son tried to retrieve the toy, the other child clutched it to his chest and responded “No!  It’s MINE!”  I guess in the mind of a three-year-old, possession is 9/10^ths of the law, but clearly the toy wasn’t his.  We live in a world where people often tend to cling tightly to their possessions, and not without reason, but sometimes forgetting the fact that our whole world belongs to God.  Have you ever had a time when you had trouble letting go of something that was not yours?  I know I have.  So, maybe it’s not just three-year-olds who believe in that “9/10^ths of the law” thing!  Psalm 24 tells us, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein”.  As Christians, we all know intellectually that we are merely stewards of God’s possessions, but to know that at a transformative level, to know that at a level that affects not only our thinking but our actions, that is very, very, hard. 

I seriously did not want to talk about money today. What I want to talk about, and what I have been talking about for months now, is the giving of ourselves to God.  God knows us better than we know ourselves.  The Bible tells us in Hebrews that we do not serve a God who is unable to empathize with us, because Jesus experienced life in every way, just as we do.  God is not unaware of our struggles.  He fully understands our finances and our time constraints and our strengths and weaknesses, and please believe me when I tell you that God will never ask from us what He knows that we are unable to give.  But The Message translation of 1 Peter 4:1 says, “Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way.”

If we ourselves are going to be the gift, and of course God Himself is the recipient of our gift, then the question is not “how much are we going to give?” But rather “how are we going to give much?”  How can we present the gift of ourselves in such a way that we honor the personal commitments with which God has blessed us, covering the costs of family and domicile and food and heat and lights, while at the same time honoring God and the community of faith with which God has blessed us also?  Believe it or not, there is actually a simple solution.  If we ask, God will be faithful to answer.

As faithful children of God, let us each seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and ask God to tell our hearts to dictate what it means for US to be the gift.

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[1] William Lane, The Gospel of Mark, Pg. 441

[2] The Testament of Moses 7:6-7

[3] Rev. Chelsea Harmon, Mark 12:38-44 Commentary, CEPreaching.org website

The Greatest Commandment

Sermon November 3, 2024

            Do we have any Bible geeks here?  Does anyone know how many commandments rabbinic tradition recognized in the first five books of the Bible?  There were 613!  Of these, 365 were negative, or “don’t do that”, and 248 were positive, or “do this”.  Some of these commandments were considered by the rabbis to be “light”, the violation of which was thought to have minimal impact, and some were considered “heavy” and violating these “heavy” laws could carry some significant consequences.  In light of all this, it isn’t too hard to understand how some of the teachers of the law might have wondered which was the most important commandment, and indeed discussions of the relative importance of various commandments abound in the rabbinic literature of the second Temple era.  And so, it’s not surprising in the least that the Teacher of the Law in our reading today would have approached Jesus with the question that he asked. 

            This Scribe, or teacher of the law (And these descriptions can be used interchangeably) heard a discussion between Jesus and the Sadducees discussing the resurrection.  This discussion happened just before our reading today, and in those verses, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, asked Jesus a hypothetical resurrection question which Jesus answered, and which our Teacher of the Law friend believed that Jesus had answered wisely.  And so, this Scribe, having recognized the wisdom of Jesus’ answer decided to ask Jesus a question himself, but unlike a lot of the questions asked by the Jewish religious authorities, this question did not appear to be intended to trap Jesus or to set Him up for something.  It appeared to be a question posed of genuine interest.  And the question that he asked was “what is the greatest commandment”?  Since this was a hotly debated topic among his peers, and given the fact that Jesus had 613 commandments from which to choose, the Scribe was probably deeply curious as to what the wisdom of Jesus’ answer might be.

            Verses 29 through 31 in today’s reading tells us that “Jesus answered him “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.   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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these”.  What Jesus said here, He paraphrased from two different verses from the Hebrew Bible.  The first half, the part about loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, is taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and is actually a prayer called the Shema.  A Jew will recite this prayer twice a day, once upon waking up in the morning and again before going to bed.  The second part of what Jesus said, the part about loving your neighbor, is paraphrased from Leviticus 19:17-18. 

            After Jesus said these things, something truly remarkable happened.  We are so accustomed to the animosity that the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law exhibited towards Jesus, that when this Scribe answers in a complimentary way, it is almost shocking.  The Scribe said to Jesus, “Well said, teacher.  You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.  To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  Not only did the Scribe agree with Jesus and commend Him for His answer, but the Scribe also shows a remarkable understanding of the fact that loving God and loving others takes precedence over the Jewish sacrificial system. 

            We’ve spent a few months in Mark now, and the tension between the Jewish authorities and Jesus has been one of Mark’s primary themes.  Mark’s purpose has been to explain to his readers that the Pharisees have basically lost the plot.  They have become so focused on behavior; the ACT of obeying the Law, that they have lost sight of the fact that it iss not about what they do, but about who they are that matters to God. 

They seem to have misplaced a few Bible verses, like Jeremiah 7:22-23 that says, “When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, I said nothing to them about burnt offerings and sacrifices.  I gave them only this command: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Walk entirely in the way I commanded you to walk, so that it may go well with you.’” Or perhaps they have forgotten verses similar to this that can be found in Isaiah or Malachi or Psalms, or Ezekiel.  Or maybe, somehow they missed out on the passage in 1^st Samuel that says “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.”  The Pharisees and Teachers of the Law have failed to see how the Law is really about the condition of their hearts, but our Scribe friend today seems to have it figured out.  And Jesus is appreciative of the Scribe’s answer.  “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Jesus tells him. 

            There is enormous depth in what has just happened here.  In pairing these two different passages from two different places in the Hebrew Bible, Jesus has revealed the connection between loving God and loving others.  Our response to the first command to love God is exhibited in our love for our neighbors, and when we love our neighbor, we are actually exhibiting our love for God because we are showing our faithfulness by obeying His commandments.  The apostle John echoed this thought in his first letter when he said, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar. For whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?  We have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  Dr. Mark L. Strauss further explains, “Those who truly love God will also love those who are created in His image.  Furthermore, those who love God are reckoned as His children and so reflect His divine nature, which is pure love”.  [1]

            And now returning to our story, Jesus goes even further.  In declaring these commandments to be greater than all the others (All 613 of them), Jesus helps us to understand the fact that a heart that is filled with God’s love seeks to follow all of God’s commandments, not out of a desire for reward, or out of a fear of reprisal, but simply because the inclination to follow God’s commands in an integral part of who they are. 

The heart that loves God is generous, because the heart that loves God is unwilling to accept others being hungry or homeless, and so seeks to fill those needs as circumstances permit.  The heart that loves God is compassionate because the heart that loves God is unwilling to accept others being hurt or mistreated, or marginalized, and so, we love and care for those who the world disdains.  The heart that loves God is gracious because the heart that loves God is unwilling to ignore the fact that every single person bears the image of the Living God, and so, we forgive and restore those who have fallen or have lost their way. 

You’ve heard me say before that the Law is not a list of rules and regulations to be followed.  The Law is a description of what the human heart is supposed to look like.  Timothy Keller said, “When Jesus said that all the laws boil down to ‘love God and neighbor’, He is saying we have not fulfilled a law by simply avoiding what the law prohibits, but we must all do and be what the Law is really after – namely, love.” [2]  And the Jewish philosopher, Philo, spoke about this also when he said, “[These two are the most important laws].”  [The] regulating of one’s conduct towards God by the rules of piety and holiness, and [the] regulating one’s conduct towards [others] by the rules of humanity and justice.” [3]

            This is one of the primary lessons that Jesus came to teach.  Being a disciple of Jesus means having a heart that looks like His heart.  To follow Jesus means to imitate Him; to love as He did, to care for others as He did, to passionately pursue justice, fairness, and righteousness as He did, and to give our selves in service to others, just as He did.  Paul tells us in Romans 13:8-10, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, ‘’You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘’Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law”.  Warren Wiersbe says, “If we love God we will experience His love within and will express that love to others.  We do not live by rules, but by relationships, a loving relationship to God that enables us to have a loving relationship with others.” [4]  This is what it means when I say that when we truly have God’s love within us, we will follow God’s commandments without even trying, because not to follow those commandments would be foreign to our new nature in Christ.           

            And along these same lines, there is another truth buried in today’s lesson.  One of the interesting things that we find in studying today’s verses and comparing them to parallels in Deuteronomy and Matthew is the fact that the things with which we are called to love God are named differently.  Our Mark reading tells us to love God with ‘‘Heart, soul, mind, and strength’‘, but when we look back at the original Deuteronomy passage we find that we are to love God with ‘‘Heart, soul, and might’‘, and when our Scribe friend quotes the Deuteronomy passage he replaces ‘‘mind’‘ with ‘‘understanding’‘ and omits ‘‘soul’‘ entirely.  And in Matthew, we are told to love God with heart, soul, and mind.  These words don’t only vary in the English translations, the differences are present in the original languages also. 

            And so, there are two observations that I would like to make about these discrepancies.  First is the interpretations of the words.  While we, in the twenty first century, interpret matters of the heart as being emotional issues, in the first century, the heart was the center of the will.  Where we interpret soul as the inner being, in the first century the soul was the seat of affection.  The mind was understood pretty much the same then as now, being the center of intellect and strength, and while our meaning of power is shared by the first century readers, for them it also carried a component of aptitude or ability.  And so, taking all of these passages together, we might choose to translate this as ‘‘Love the Lord your God with all of your will, all of your affection, all of your intellect, and all of your abilities.  Or, as Pastor Daniel L. Akin said, ‘‘The heart speaks to the emotions, the real me on the inside.  The soul speaks to the spirit, the self-conscious life.  The mind speaks to our intelligence and thought life.  And strength speaks to our bodily powers, perhaps even the will.” [5]

And all of this ties in to the second observation, which is, no matter which body parts we assign to this passage, its true meaning, and the reason that different words having been used in different passages are inconsequential, is that what we are really being taught here is to love God with everything we are and everything we have.  The simple truth is, God deserves no less than all of us.  And if we circle back to Jesus’ naming of the two most important commandments, we find that we are also called to have the same all encompassing love that we have for God, for others as well.

I know, I make this sound like it is easy.  But we all know that it is not.  However, it’s important to remember that Christ-likeness is not a destination, but a journey.  It is something that we will never fully receive until the day that our faith becomes sight.  But while we are on this journey, we have the extraordinary opportunity to touch the lives and the hearts of others by loving as Jesus did.  WE can be the person who makes a difference in someone else’s life by showing them God’s love and by teaching them the incredible good news of the Gospel.  Let us seek to be the people who do that.

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[1] Dr. Mark L. Strauss, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Mark, Pg. 542

[2] Dr. Timothy Keller, Mark, Pg. 163

[3] Philo, The Special Laws, II, 15:63

[4] Warren Wiersbe, Be Diligent, Pg. 142

[5] Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in Mark, Pg. 288