Our Whole Lives

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio during both worship services yesterday morning.]

Mark 12:38-44

“All she had to live on.”

That’s what Jesus told His disciples that the poor widow put into the temple offering a few days before Jesus was crucified. 

And, this is no exaggeration on Jesus’ part. When you read the Greek in which Mark originally quotes Jesus, Jesus says of the woman’s offering: “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς,” literally she placed all her life or her whole life in that offering box.

Now, let’s be clear. In the Old Testament God only called His people to give a tithe, the first ten percent of their income, to the temple. Sometimes, additional tithes were called for in God's Law. But that same Old Testament law would have exempted a poor widow from giving anything. 

Yet here is this woman giving God everything she has to live on. Was she crazy? Was she imprudent? Was she trying to make deals with God?

Jesus doesn’t seem to think that there's anything wrong with her.  In fact, He commends the woman as an example of faithfulness for His disciples, for you and me. 

But let me be clear: Our Gospel lesson for this morning is about a lot more than money. It’s about our whole lives and how we spend them.

Our lesson, Mark 12:38-44, takes place in the temple during Holy Week. Just before where our lesson picks up, Jesus has had another confrontation with the scribes, the experts in Biblical and Jewish law. They’ve said, as Old Testament prophecy says, that the Messiah Whose coming they anticipated would be a “son of (or a descendant of”) David," Israel’s greatest king, who lived about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus. Their claim is true, but they seem to think that the Messiah will be inferior to David.

Jesus teaches them differently though. He quotes Psalm 110, written by David, where it says: “‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’” Here, Jesus is saying that the great King David called the Messiah--Jesus Himself--Lord. Jesus is no inferior to David. Jesus is superior to every king, prophet, priest, and preacher who preceded Him and of any and all born in subsequent centuries. Hebrews 1:1-2 echoes Jesus' teaching: "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe."

As our lesson picks up Mark’s gospel narrative from there, Jesus talks about the scribes to His disciples: “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Jesus is warning us against people and warning us against being people who like to appear like believers, but are really, like the rest of the world, looking out for themselves. Today, such people are the ones who crave titles, to have people bow and scrape to them and honor them. They’re hung up on status and hierarchy and having places of honor.

Some of you may know that years ago, Ann and I were invited--along with about 500 people, so don’t be impressed--to a dinner with a prominent man. It was Billy Graham. Just before dinner started, a local pastor was invited to offer the prayer. It went on forever, certainly what Jesus would call a “long prayer.” And, I hope I wasn't judging unfairly, but it certainly seemed that the man was praying less to God than to Billy Graham. Jesus warns against long public prayers meant to wow people with the praying person’s faith.

Jesus also warns us against people and warning us against being people who crave money and the status it can confer on us. He said that the scribes found ways to look pious while extorting money from widows because of their love of position.

They’re like pastors and church people who focus on the performance of liturgy with elaborate exactness but don't believe that Jesus was God. Or that He was born of a virgin. Or that He rose from the dead. Or that He was (and is) “the way and the truth and the life,” the only Lord by Whom we can be saved from sin and death. Or that the Bible is the Word of God. 

Like the scribes’ friends, the Pharisees, who Jesus once described as “whitewashed tombs,” the scribes were spiritually empty suits. Jesus is telling us that in the halls of heaven where God hears prayers offered in Jesus’ name, people like the scribes remain unheard by the Almighty, their long public prayers no more than noise!  

Then, we’re told this, starting in verse 41: “[Jesus]  sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’”

The widow wasn’t trying to be seen by anyone. She didn’t make a show of her appearance at the temple. She simply gave everything she had. She believed that the God Who gave her life would sustain her in this life and give her new life beyond the grave. She didn’t worry about sacrificing herself in this way because she knew that the God Who gives life has plenty more to give away. Jesus says that this gift of her whole-self exceeded the value of all the fat offerings made by the “look at me” crowd.

It’s instructive to consider when this incident took place: Just a few days later, Jesus Himself would give His whole life on the cross. Repeatedly, Satan and the world tried to tempt Jesus away from the cross, to divert Him from His mission of dying as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who believe in Him can live with God and share in His resurrection life. But Jesus was intent on giving His whole life to God for us so that He could give new life to us. Luke tells us that "Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem (Luke 9:51)," and referring to His suffering and death as His baptism, Jesus said, "I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed (Luke 12:50)."

The only way you and I can share in the life that God gives exclusively through Jesus Christ is to for us to yield our lives to Jesus and His saving grace. That’s what it means to believe in Jesus: To trust Him with our whole lives. And, although it’s been four decades since I came to faith in Christ, I realize that I am only now beginning to understand that truth, to understand how complete God's grace in Christ is, how serious my sin is, and how I can do nothing toward my own salvation but give up on being God. 

I repent daily for my sinful desire to hold back parts of my life from Jesus’ lordship and each day, the grace of God given in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, works to keep making me over in Jesus’ image.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:25: “...whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 

This isn’t legalism, folks. God doesn’t require our lives in a legal transaction to claim the salvation He gives in Jesus. Rather, it’s a simple fact that only as we daily empty ourselves of being the lords of our own lives, are we free to take Christ’s outstretched hand of forgiveness, life, and love. 

All the scribes, obsessed with earthly comfort and status, were slaves to this world, weighed down with concerns over what people thought of them, how others saw them, whether they were happy. (They sound like thoroughly modern people, don't they?)

The widow cared only about what God thought of her. And she already knew that God cared very deeply for all people, even poor, powerless widows. That’s why her offering was so valuable: It came from an authentically surrendered believer putting her surrender into practice.

In Germany a few days ago, at the behest of Ann who knew that it wasn't far away, our tour guide took us on a side trip to Ettal Abbey in the German Alps. It’s here that Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in increments of several months at a time, spent a total of several years in prayer and study and also wrote a portion of his book on being the Church, Life Together. (I recommend it.) As we stood by a plaque remembering Bonhoeffer, I thought of how, though he had traveled to and taught in America and Britain and been offered cushy assignments on theological faculties, decided to return to Germany after the racist nationalist movement of Adolf Hitler had taken hold. Bonhoeffer felt he had to be in Germany to continue to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the face of Hitler’s evils. Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazi government in the waning days of the war. As he went to the gallows, he said, “This is the end–for me, the beginning of life.”  

What are we willing to yield to the Lord? 

What shall we, as individuals, give in response to a grace that has done and is doing everything for me? 

Of course, every Christian will see it as an appropriate expression of our faith to worship regularly, to give to the mission of the Church, take up a ministry, pray in Jesus' name. But even more than your money or your works, God wants you. 

He wants to give you the new life on which Bonhoeffer staked his life as he went to be executed. 

God wants you because He loves you. 

God wants you so that He can redeem and make new every part of your life: your mind and emotions, your work, your friendships, and your marriage, your present and your eternity. 

God wants you because He’s given His all--even the Son’s life sacrificed on a cross--to make you His own. 

And He wants you for all eternity.

May we, like the widow, learn what it means to give our whole selves to the God Who has given us all in Jesus. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Clash of Kingdoms

[This was shared yesterday morning during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 2:1-12
Our gospel lesson for this Sunday of the Epiphany presents us with a clash of kingdoms.

At one level, the clash is between the baby Jesus and Herod the Great.

But, more accurately it’s a battle--the battle--between God, on the one hand, and all the demonic kingdoms of darkness, sin, and death of this world.

Jesus, King of the Jews, came into the world to die and rise for a human race in need of saving, then to share His resurrection victory with all who believe in Him. From the moment of Jesus’ birth, the mission of the kingdoms of this world was to prevent Jesus from successfully completing His mission.

The clash of kingdoms began on the first Epiphany.

Matthew tells us about it in today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 2:1-12. Take a look at the first verse, please: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”

When Jesus was born, most of His Judean homeland had no idea.

Think of that! The Messiah promised by God hundreds of years before showed up and the only ones to notice were a few shepherds and two old people in the temple--Simeon and Anna--eight days after Jesus’ birth.

Everyone else was oblivious.

But the Magi, these foreigners from the East, who held a superstitious belief in the power of stars had, back in their homeland, noted a strange astronomical phenomenon and, believing that such things indicated some important event on earth, then apparently rummaged through other people’s cultures and books to determine that this star was announcing the birth of the King of the Jews.

And then, they followed the star.

The Magi had more faith in the God first revealed to Israel than the people living in the holy land at that time!

They show us that just because you’re a member of the religious club--just because you’re a genetic descendant of Abraham or you take up a place on the membership rolls of a church--doesn’t mean you follow God or that you belong to God.

The key issue always is whether we trust God first revealed to Israel, now known definitively in Jesus. At some level, the Magi trusted in God.

And they cared about the birth of the King of the Jews because some of the prophecies of the King found in the Old Testament said that this Messiah would be more than a King to the Jewish people. He would bring God’s reign to the whole world. He would make God’s salvation available to all people.

For example, Isaiah 11, written about eight centuries before Jesus’ birth, says of this King: “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” (verses 4-5) And through Him, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (verse 9)

Back to our gospel lesson, verse 3: “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.”

Herod wasn’t a Judean. He was an Edomite, a thug appointed to be king by the murderous Roman Empire. He was a puppet.

The Romans helped Herod spread the fake news that he was a descendant of King David.

In exchange, Herod was submissive to the Romans.

And the Empire didn’t care when Herod murdered people he feared would overthrow or undermine him. It's why Herod would later murder the baby boys in Bethlehem. It's why he murdered his own sons. It's why he arrested John the Baptist.

The Magi may have been “wise men.” But they were naive about Herod and the Judea into which Jesus was born.

The Magi thought that, as the king of Judea, Herod would already know about the birth of Jesus.

They thought too, that Herod would be as excited as they were about Jesus.

But Herod was disturbed, though he evidently hid it behind a poker face. Verse 4: “When [Herod] had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.”

A Jewish king would have known the answer to that question. Herod has to be told.

Verse 5: “‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” The priests and teachers were quoting Micah 5.

Matthew already told us that both Herod and Jerusalem’s elite were “disturbed” at the thought that the King of the Jews had been born. They had built comfortable lives in the kingdom of darkness. So had many people who depended on Herod’s puppet regime and the Roman government--merchants, farmers, craftsmen--for their wealth.

And, of course, the lion’s share of the Judeans would have found Jesus disturbing too, having no interest in the Kingdom Jesus came to bring, a kingdom that doesn’t promise wealth or ease, but forgiveness of sin--even for the sins we don’t want to give up.

Three decades after the events in today’s lesson, the Judean crowds, disappointed that Jesus wasn’t going to throw out the Romans and give them the goods and privileges of this world that they wanted, turned on Him. Herod then was just the first of many to be disturbed by Jesus.

Truth be told, Jesus can disturb us.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness.

We don’t like to think that our being all-around wonderful people isn’t what makes us fit for God’s kingdom.

And when we hear Jesus say things like, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24), we look for ways to hold back some parts of our lives for ourselves.

We’re still born wanting to “be like God.”

We want to be our own kings.

And so, Jesus is disturbing even to us.

But it’s only in giving up on the little kingdoms each of us try to build that we can take the free gift of new and everlasting life with God that Jesus offers. It was an offer in which Herod had no interest. Are we interested?

Verse 7: “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.’”

Consider how evil Herod is. With murder in his heart, he claims he wants to worship Jesus. Lying comes naturally to people mired in the kingdoms of this world.

When life is all about yourself, anything you can do to promote the self, preserve the self, boost the self is fair game.

But Jesus tells us: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25).

Are we willing to lose our lives, including the dying comforts of this world, in order to gain life with God that never ends?

What are we willing to let go of in order to take hold of Jesus?

Verse 9: “After [the wise men] had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.”

They were ecstatic! They were in the presence of the King of the Jews, the object of their search, the hope of generations, the fulfillment of God’s great promise of grace!

When I considered these words this past week, I couldn't help recalling the words of the old spiritual: "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble." That's how the Magi must have felt on seeing Jesus!

And so what did they do? Verse 11: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”

Jerusalem didn’t worship the King of the Jews and on a Friday we now call Good, Jerusalem would, on behalf of the whole sinful human race, kill Jesus.

But these foreigners welcomed and worshiped Jesus!

Listen: God cares about you. But He doesn’t care who you are. 

He doesn’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. 

He doesn’t care what your parents did, good or bad. 

He doesn’t care where you’re from. 

If you will welcome Jesus and His reign over your life, if you will submissively trust in Him, you will be part of His eternal kingdom. 

Even Gentiles. 

Even Americans. 

Even Lutherans!

Verse 12: “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.”

One of the biggest takeaways from the first Epiphany for me is this: God will guide those who listen for His voice. (Even the naive!) 

The Magi heard God’s call in a far-off land. They heard Him now as He pierced their naivete, allowing them to be instruments for protecting the Child and in protecting the Child, ensuring that Jesus would fulfill His mission of dying and rising.

Just as He did with the Magi, God gives each of us a part in Jesus’ mission in the world.

We are to be and to make disciples.

And He both calls and empowers each of us to do our part.

Our mission is best filled not with flashy programs or glitzy concerts or multimedia presentations, but as we allow ourselves to be the humbled and humble instruments of God’s grace, letting people encounter Jesus in the simplicity and authenticity of our faith in Him.

The most vivid and influential witnesses for Christ in my life haven’t been preachers, but laypeople who followed Jesus:

• the house-painter who told me how good Jesus had been to him even as he grieved the wife he adored on the day we buried her; 
• the nurse who took my face in her hands after my first sermon and said, “Mark, honey, I see the Holy Spirit in you. Don't ever lose Him!”;
• the mentor in the faith who put up with my immaturity because she saw in me someone Jesus had died for. 

God usually builds faith within us in little moments of interpersonal encounter.

When you think about it, it was, ultimately, a simple personal encounter with the baby Jesus that caused the Magi to know that the needed to bow down and worship Him.

And because Jesus promises to be with us always (Matthew 28:20), He can also be present in our humble encounters with Him when we worship, pray, study His Word, and receive the Sacrament and in our humble encounters with others as we tell them, “We’ve met the King. He’s changed and is changing me forever. Come and see” (John 1:46).

Jesus is the winner in the clash of kingdoms. 

Let the whole world know! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

What God Wants

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Springboro, Ohio, this past Sunday, November 8.]

Mark 12:38-44
“All she had to live on.” 

That’s what Jesus and the disciples witnessed the poor widow put into the temple offering a few days before Jesus was crucified. 

And, this is no exaggeration on Jesus’ part, by the way. When you read the Greek in which Mark originally quotes Jesus, Jesus says of the woman’s offering: “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς,” literally all her life or her whole life, she placed in that offering box.

Now, let’s be clear. In the Old Testament God only called His people to give a tithe, the first ten percent of their income, to the temple. 

And that same Old Testament law would have exempted a poor widow from giving anything. 

But here is this woman giving all she has to live on. 

Was she crazy? 

Was she imprudent? 

Was she trying to make deals with God? 

Jesus doesn’t seem to think that there's anything wrong with this woman. 

In fact, he commends the woman as an example of faithfulness for His disciples, for you and me. 

But before you put your money over your wallets to protect them, let me just tell you that our Gospel lesson for this morning is about a lot more than money. 

It’s about our whole lives and how we will spend them.

Our lesson, Mark 12:38-44, takes place in the temple during Holy Week. Just before where our lesson picks up, Jesus has had another confrontation with the scribes, the experts in Biblical and Jewish law. They’ve said that the Messiah Whose coming they anticipated would be a “son of (or a descendant of”) David," Israel’s greatest king, who lived about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus. 

The claim is true enough, but they seem to think that the Messiah will be inferior to David. 

Jesus though, quotes Psalm 110, written by David, where it says: “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ Here, Jesus says, the great King David called the Messiah--Jesus Himself--Lord. 

As our lesson begins, Jesus talks about the scribes: “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Jesus is warning us against people and warning us against being people who like to look like super pious believers, but are really looking out for number one. 

Today, they’re people who like to have titles, to have people bow and scrape to them and honor them. They’re hung up on status and hierarchy. 

You find them still in the Church today. 

We were invited to a dinner with a prominent man and just before dinner started, a local pastor was invited to offer the prayer. It went on forever, certainly what Jesus would call a “long prayer.” And, I hope I wasn't judging unfairly, but it certainly seemed that the man was praying less to God than to the prominent man visiting our town.

Jesus says that our aim shouldn't be to pray impressive prayers, but to pray honest prayers, humble prayers.

Jesus is also warning us against people and warning us against being people who crave money and the status it can confer on us. He said that the scribes found ways to extort money from widows because of their love of position. 

Of course, the particularly slimy thing about the scribes as Jesus describes them here is that they want, with their elevated status, to look like pious servants of God, men who are close to God, holier than others. 

In fact, how they looked was of paramount importance to them. It was all about the show. 

They’re like pastors and church people who focus on the performance of liturgy with elaborate exactness, but don't believe that Jesus was God. Or that He was born of a virgin. Or that He rose from the dead. Or that He was (and is) “the way and the truth and the life,” the only Lord by Whom we can be saved from sin and death. Or that the Bible is the Word of God. 

Like the scribes’ friends, the Pharisees, who Jesus once described as “whitewashed tombs,” the scribes were spiritually empty suits. But for as long as they lived on this earth, they were, if I can mix my metaphors, the big dogs. Jesus says though that beyond the gates of death, people like them will be condemned by God.  

Then, we’re told this, starting in verse 41: “And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’”

The widow wasn’t trying to be seen by anyone. She didn’t make a show of her appearance at the temple. She simply--almost furtively, it seems--gave everything she had. 

She believed that the God Who gave her life would either sustain her in this life or give her new life beyond the grave. 

She didn’t worry about sacrificing herself in this way because she knew that the God Who gives life has plenty more to give away. 

Jesus says that this gift of her whole self exceeded the value of all the fat offerings by the “look at me” crowd.

To me, it’s instructive to consider when this incident took place. 

Just a few days later, Jesus Himself would give His whole life on the cross. 

Repeatedly, Satan and the world had striven to tempt Jesus, to divert Him from His mission of dying as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who believe in Him can live with God and share in His resurrection life. But He was intent on giving His whole life for us so that He could give new life to us.

And in fact, the only way you and I can share in the life that God gives exclusively through Jesus Christ is to for us give our whole lives to Jesus. That’s what it means to believe in Jesus: To trust Him with our whole lives. 

Thirty-nine years after coming to faith in Christ, I realize that I am only now beginning to understand that truth.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:25: “...whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” This isn’t legalism. God doesn’t require our lives in a legal transaction to claim the salvation He gives in Jesus. 

Rather, it’s a simple fact that until we empty ourselves of all thought of needing earthly power or comfort, we can’t be free to take Christ’s outstretched hand of forgiveness, life, and love. 

Again, after all these years of being a Christian, I feel that I am only now beginning to learn this.

All the scribes, obsessed with earthly comfort and status, were slaves to this world, weighed down with concerns over what people thought of them, how others saw them, whether they were happy. 

The widow cared only about what God thought of her. 

And she already knew that God cared very deeply for all people, even poor, powerless widows. 

That’s why her offering was so valuable: It came from an authentically surrendered believer putting her surrender into practice.

What are you willing to give to the Lord? 

Of course, every Christian will see it as an appropriate expression of our faith to give of our finances to the mission of Christ’s Church. 

But even more than your money, God wants you. 

He wants you because He loves you. 

He wants you so that He redeem and make new every part of your life: your mind and emotions, your work, your friendships, and your marriage, your present and your eternity. 

God wants you because He’s given His all--even death on a cross--to make you His own. 

And He wants you for all eternity. 

May we, like the widow, learn what it means to give our whole selves to the God we know in Jesus. Amen