The Heart of the Matter: Sermon Mark 12:38-44

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

A man came to the local Methodist Church and asked to see the pastor. “Pastor,” he said, “My dog died and I would like a Christian burial for him.”
The Pastor said, “I’m sorry to hear about your dog, but we Methodists don’t do funerals for dogs. You might try the Baptist church down the street. Baptists will do most anything.”
The man turned sadly and said, “I’m sorry you won’t do my dog’s funeral, but I understand. I’ll try the Baptist church. But would you mind telling me how much is appropriate to leave for a memorial to the church? I was thinking of giving a $10,000 memorial in honor of my dog.”
“Wait a minute,” the pastor said. “You didn’t tell me that your dog was Methodist…”

Money talks and… well you probably know the rest. We’ve talked about money a few times in the last month or two. Money is an important topic, Jesus talks about money and finances as much as any other topic in the gospels. Our story today is not different. This story is actually two stories that are almost always put together, the warning against the scribes and the widow’s offering. This reading as been used a lot to try and encourage better offerings and stewardship for the church and I am sure you have heard them before. I am sure you have heard about how the widow was so good because she gave all her money to God and we should follow suit, and the scribes, in all their wealth, act pious and holy on the outside but on the inside they are greedy and stingy towards God and what they do give they want everyone to see them give and that makes them evil. Well yes the widow is good and we should follow her example and the scribes in this story are evil and we should avoid such behavior, but I want to contend that the goodness or evil within them has nothing to do with the amount in the offering plate nor the fact they make any monetary gift to God, but there is something deeper in the heart of the matter. The two stories today combine to teach us a lesson by comparison, we see how to act and how not to act, and we see the selfish heart and the selfless heart.

Last week we talked about loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. I said that to love God with all our heart is not about the source of the love, the originating place the love comes from, but instead it is about what condition are hearts are in when it engages in love, selfishness or selflessness.

Jesus warns us against the scribes. He says that they like to walk around in their fancy robes and outfits, they like to be greeted in the marketplace, and they like to be treated like they think they are, holy and pious. On the outside they are holy and pious. They know and follow the laws of Moses front and back, down, literally, to the letter. They do everything that makes them seem good on the surface, but Jesus says to look a little deeper and you would see something altogether different. They devour widow’s houses. This is an interesting visual. This could mean that the scribes were in cahoots with the bankers at the time and were foreclosing on the widows or it could mean that the scribes were unfairly taking advantage of the widow’s hospitality. In whatever the situation they would, Jesus says, receive the greater condemnation. They were loving God with a selfish heart.

There are signs of a selfish heart. The selfish heart seeks continual praise for its actions. They might do something for the good of someone else, but believe me they are going to know about it. They might donate 20 million dollars for a school or library or hospital, but you better believe their name is going to be on the outside and their big portrait will be on the inside. They always tell you about all the good they do and expect us to fall over backwards in awe. Now, I am not saying that receiving praise is wrong, but if receiving praise is our main motivation for doing good then we must reevaluate our priorities. The scribes gave out of their abundance and did it for show. They wanted to show everyone how much they loved God by placing a big sack full of money on the table and then smile as they walk away, but their true love is only for themselves.

The selfish heart acts individually and not communally. The selfish heart looks out for number one firstly and primarily. The first concern in any decision is how that decision is going to affect itself. The selfish heart is willing to step on anyone at anytime if it is for its own benefit. The selfish heart asks God only for things that will be of benefit for itself. God is almost like Santa Claus of a genie in a bottle to the selfish heart. Their trust is not in God, but in its own abilities and treasures. We remember the story of the rich, young man who was almost a disciple but could not place his trust in God, but relied on his own treasures that he had built up. Their freedom is made by their own actions and activities instead of in God’s will, in independence from God and dependence in God. This is the worst aspect of the selfish heart. The true relationship with God cannot occur because the trust has not been established. This is the greater condemnation. The relationship that the selfish heart desires is not with God but only with itself.

Now let us turn to the selfless heart. The primary objective of the selfless heart is the obedience of the will of God and the furthering of God’s kingdom. The selfless heart does not because of any reward but simply because the need is there. The selfless heart will get up at 4 in the morning to help a neighbor fix a fence, the selfless heart will help a neighbor even at their own expense and never expect compensation. The selfless heart knows that the true reward is with God were thieves cannot steal and the moth cannot destroy. The widow did not put her two coins in the box because she wanted someone to take pity on her or praise her. She didn’t to it because Jesus was watching, but instead the deed was done because she knew that someone else out there was worse than she was and also long as someone else had it worse then she was going to help them. The need was there and she responded.

The selfless heart thinks and acts communally. The selfless heart understands the godly truth that we are not a collection of individuals living on a rock in space, but we are a community, a human family. The selfless heart understands that humans are relational beings, because we were made in the image of a relational God, a God not just of love, but who is love. We are all connected, we have talked about this as well, and when one person suffers we all suffer. We really los sight of that in America. We don’t think we are connected to the poor down the road or to the homeless man we pass on the street, but we are all linked not only with God but with one another. In Africa there is this notion of unbuntu or botho, the words do not translate into English well because their meanings are so foreign to our way of thinking. The idea is that if one person is oppressed then we are all oppressed. In fact Africans often speak in the third person, because they feel their connection with other humans. When you ask an African, “How are you doing today?” They might respond “We are doing fine, or we are not so well today.” The idea was formulated by Martin Luther King Jr, in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Darfur, Sudan is a long way from Prospect, Tennessee, but the selfless heart knows that as those people suffer, we suffer. The selfless heart knows that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not individual pursuits, but can only be truly achieved by a community, the entire community.

The selfless heart also understands trust. The selfless heart places its entire dependence and trust on God, not to provide whatever is desired, but to trust that God’s will is best and that God will not lead us astray. The widow placed her last two coins in the box, not in an act of hopeless desperation, but in hopeful trust in God that God would provide. We see all the time on TV these televangelists who tell us to make a donation of faith, send me $1,000 and God will reward you tenfold, but this misses the point. The widow did not place her coins in order to receive a reward from God that would be selfish. Instead, she placed them because she knew that this was for the common good and she place her dependence and her trust in God. The dependence in God is not down in the hopes of reward, but in the trust that God’s will and God’s love will provide all that is needed.

These two hearts are not completely separate from one another. We have a tendency to shift between the two hearts from the selfish to the selfless and back again. We want to be independent and dependent at the same time. We want to say God you take care of the whole spiritual/heaven/soul thing, and I will take care of things down here, but I’ll call you if I need you. It doesn’t work that way. We have to realize that all we are and all we hope to be comes from God and we are all connected as God’s beloved creation and because we are all connected if one suffers we all suffer and if one rejoices we all rejoice.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.