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The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Four years after being ordained, I have learned to expect that at some point during a party where I am meeting new people, I am going to get asked the question. “So why did you become a priest?”

I dread it because it is often asked in a big group, or in passing conversation, and there is no short or easy answer to that question. It was a story that took place over many years, a journey that included a lot of side trips that represented me taking any opportunity to avoid becoming a priest. And that is probably why I struggle to tell the story at a party. I usually end up telling all the struggles I had with the church, which is a strange answer to how I came to be working for it, and an even worse answer when I would love to invite this person to come to church! So I try to express something about beauty and truth and meaning and hope, but usually feel like a blubbering mess.

This Tuesday I woke up to read in the New York Times about a conflict at my evangelical school that occurred when I was in high school, 16 years ago. I had almost forgotten about it, but suddenly I remembered one of the first times I saw Christians treating each other terribly, worse than I had seen outside the church. It was formative for me, and unfortunately, it was not the last time I would see such behavior.

I spent years coming to understand the idea that anyone was called to ordained ministry, then more time coming to peace with the fact that I was called. But just as I finally started to find that peace and even be happy about the call, I saw yet another church go through a nasty, polarizing conflict. I cared deeply about people on both sides, but a conflict in church brought out cruelty that was hard to believe was in them.

I had come to peace with a call to ministry, but now I was not sure I wanted anything to do with the church at all. Why on earth, how on earth, could I give my life for this? For a church that seems to always end up in bitter conflict, spending their energy hurting each other rather than caring for the world?

It was a real existential crisis for me, one of the hardest times I have faced. Could this life ever be worth it?

This week as I read and studied our Gospel passage, I began to wonder if that was just a tiny taste of what Jesus is experiencing in the Temple, just four short days before he will die. We’ve all probably heard this passage before, or at least the last few verses of it. Often, we focus there and laud the widow because Jesus says that she has given more than all the others. But when we hear it in context of the verses before, we realize that it might not be so simple.

The trouble is that we don’t know how Jesus says this. We could assume that Jesus is praising the widow for giving everything she has.

Or it could be that Jesus is lamenting that she must give everything she has. It could be a scream against the system that is taking the last coins she has. In the verses directly before, he has just spoken out against the scribes in long robes who look for honor and prestige, and he says “devour the homes of widows.” Now these scribes, the religious leaders, were supposed to take care of the most vulnerable of the society – in Scripture, usually referred to as widows, orphans, and aliens or immigrants. They were the people who had little protection or way to make a living in their society, and so the religious leaders were supposed to take care of them.

The religious leaders did not make a salary for their work – they lived off of offerings. But it seems that some of them took offerings so that they could have a good and luxurious life. And now this widow comes in and adds her offering – we are told it is all she has to live on. The words mean ‘her whole life’.  She offers her whole life.

This is not to say that all religious leaders, or the whole institution, are corrupt. Just a few verses earlier, a scribe comes to Jesus and has a wonderful conversation about the greatest commandment, and Jesus seems very pleased with him, telling him that he was close to the kingdom of God. But some of the scribes are taking advantage of their post, using it to attain luxurious lives and taking from those they should be taking care of.

While everyone pays attention to the scribes in long robes and the people who give large offerings that rattle loudly in the coffers, it is likely that no one even noticed the widow walk up and put in her two copper coins. No one except Jesus.

When he notices, he lets out a lament. Maybe even a scream. After the emotion of clearing the temple of all that he believes is opposed to what is supposed to be happening there, now he tiredly mourns those taking advantage and those being taken advantage of.

Why does he notice this woman? Why does he notice the one who is giving ‘her whole life’? I think most likely, he sees in her what he is called to do. In a few short days, he will give his whole life. And he will do it for her, and his disciples, and the scribe who was close to the kingdom of God, but he will also do it for the scribes in the long robes living off of those who they are supposed to care for. He will do it for the broken people living in broken systems of the world. And maybe at this moment, he is realizing once again the depth of that.

Is it worth it? Is it worth going through a painful death for people who keep disappointing him? For people who keep hurting one another? Is there meaning in giving his life away for this?

I wonder if Jesus is having an existential crisis. Seeing someone else give her life away for a broken system, can he really give his life away for a broken world? Ultimately, we know how he answered. Perhaps he even found inspiration from her.

How does Jesus say these words? The truth is I do not know, but my guess is that it is a mixture of admiration and lament, praise and mourning. And in Jesus and in the woman, we see what we are called to do.

Too often, we have turned this passage into a stewardship sermon and encouraged everyone to give more – using it to say that percentage of income is more important than amount. But that is not the message here. Would we really want someone struggling to eat to give 100% of what they had? No. I will say it now. We will not encourage you or anyone else to do that. If you barely have enough money to eat, please eat. And let us know, so we can help you.

But I do believe that all of us – from the richest to the poorest – I believe that we are all being called to give our whole life.

One of my favorite moments in liturgy only occurs in the Rite I version of the Eucharist, in words that have no equal in Rite II. It is the moment when I lay my hands on the altar and say “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

We make a big deal about the things we offer up in plates and baskets, but the real offering is our selves, our souls and bodies. We bring them here every week to offer to God, to be part of God’s work in our world. We gather around the broken body and shed blood of Christ, who gave his whole life, to make us whole, and we give our whole lives to join in his work of making the world whole, of healing the brokenness and making the world the way God created it to be.

And in those words, it sounds beautiful and good. But there will always be moments like Jesus when we ask “Is this worth it?”

Now I say this as a religious leader standing in front of you in long robes. No, I have not missed the irony in this – in fact, it made me struggle even more with this passage, but I think it is a reminder that there is no ‘us and them’ here. We are all broken, and I am a part of the brokenness. I will disappoint you. I believe this passage calls us all to examine deeply our own hearts and our church. Are we taking care of those whom we are called to care for? Does our church work against the incredible inequality in our society or does it perpetuate it? Do we show the world the peaceable kingdom that God longs to bring in our world, or do we encourage more conflict and vitriol?

We must constantly ask ourselves these questions, and we must strive to be the glimpse of the kingdom of God that we are called to be. But we will fail.

One of my favorite current preachers and writers is Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. I love what she says to people in the newcomers class at her church, House for All Sinners and Saints. She tells them that at some point she or the church will disappoint them. And she asks them to decide then, when they join the church, to stick around after that happens. She says, “ If you leave, you will miss the way that God’s grace comes in and fills in the cracks of our brokenness. And it’s too beautiful to miss. Don’t miss it.”

It’s true. If you stick around the church long enough, you will realize how broken we all are. You will be disappointed. And you will wonder why we do this, and if it is all worth it. But if you stick around, there is something else incredible to see and experience, something that is much harder to explain and hard to offer as a short, small-talk answer at a party.

But the answer has to do with what happens when we stick around after having our hearts broken. When we stay in relationship and let God continue to work on us all, there is something incredible to be found. The answer is that in the church I have found brokenness, but I have also found grace. I have found hurt, but I have also found healing. And I believe what is happening here is the greatest hope for our world. So I come back, day after day, sometimes sure but sometimes unsure, and I try to give my life to be part of bringing that grace, that healing, that hope to our world.

So I invite you to come here, and bring your broken selves and share the broken body and shed blood of Christ, because together, here, we are being made whole.

Here, may we present our selves, our souls and bodies, an offering of our whole lives, to be part of making our world whole.

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