Worship
Service for November 10, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: On this new morning and in every moment of
our lives, gracious God,
P: From generation to generation, we praise
Your holy name.
L: Like our ancestors before us, we proclaim
Your greatness to our children,
P: For we have seen Your deeds of power and
witnessed Your goodness in our lives.
L: As You have opened Your hand to all,
satisfying the desire of every living thing,
P: Open our heart so that we might share the
gifts we have received from You.
L: Let us worship God in gratitude and joy!
Opening Hymn – His Eye is on the Sparrow Hymn
#624 Brown
Prayer of Confession
Faithful God, we come before
You with many concerns on our hearts. We
get frustrated and angry at the way things are going in the world. We want Your immediate intervention; and when
we don’t see things happening the way we think they should be, we are quick to
dismiss You and any thought of Your presence.
Help us stop our selfishness and our quick anger. Remind us that You will work with us and
through us for peace and hope. Release
us from the traps of quick tests of Your faithfulness and help us see the “big
picture” of Your awesome love that spans all of time. Forgive us for our pettiness and our
stubbornness. Bring us back to You, O
Lord. Help us shout Your praises and
live lives of joyful service. For we ask
these things in Jesus’ name. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Even though we get frustrated and angry,
God still loves us and seeks to heal us.
Open your hearts to receive God’s blessings and to feel God’s healing
power in your lives.
P: Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord; who was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius
Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day
He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right
hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick
and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
As we gather in prayer
this day as a community of your people, O God, we pray for thankful hearts for
the goodness of your creation, for the signs of your loving care of all things
we see around us daily, and for the calling into a community of the followers
of your son, Jesus Christ. We give you
thanks for his teachings, his compassionate words of care, his challenges to
all the ways we focus on self-centeredness and self-sufficiency, for his
healing presence and for his courageous witness against the powers of this
world that focus on destruction, hatred, and death.
Creator God, you draw
all people into one body so that we may learn the precious connectedness of
your universe. You invite us to nurture
each other, to trust each other, to empower each other, to unbind each other,
to encourage one another, so that together we will be a strong and healthy
body.
Holy Lord, empower us to be more faithful and diligent in
spreading your good news of peace, love, hope, and grace in our world. Give us boldness and courage to speak and act
against the principalities and powers of this age that fill the world with
injustice and acts of violence.
You also taught us, Lord, to pray for those who persecute
us. Though it is difficult to voice kind
words about those who perpetuate evil, we pray for those who find anger in
their hearts, for those who want to do violence against another human
being. We pray also for those who lost
their lives in events around the globe.
Cover your creation, Lord, with compassion and care. We especially pray this day for those living
in the Middle East, for Israel and Palestine, for those living in Gaza. We pray for those in the Ukraine and for Russia. We pray for a change of heart, for people to
find better ways to communicate their frustration, for increased understanding,
for Your holy sense of mercy to pervade minds and spirits.
We also pray for our own loved ones….
O Lord, hear the words of our mouths and now in silence hear
also the words of our hearts.
We pray all these things together saying…Our Father who art
in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – A
Mighty Fortress Hymn #260/151
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
42
Second Scripture Reading – Mark
12:38-44
Sermon – “The Widow’s Mite”
Stories about what we think about money, or what we
think God thinks about money, are profoundly important. Our money
narratives impact scripture and can shape how we hear and interpret
scripture. They can foster feelings of
guilt or shame, which then serve as a barrier to receiving the good news of the
liberating love of God.
The story of the widow’s mite from
the Gospel of Mark is frequently utilized this time of year in sermons across
denominations during their annual giving drives or campaigns. While it is often used to encourage members
of the church to faithfully consider their giving to the Church, listen
carefully to the story, because Jesus does not prescribe action or lift up the
widow as an example for others to follow.
I’m going to ask you to put aside everything you thought you knew and
understood about this passage and read it anew from its original cultural basis
and find a new lesson today.
“(38) Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in
long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. (39) and to have the best seats in the
synagogues and places of honor at banquets! (40) They devour widows’ houses and
for the sake of appearances say long prayers.
They will receive the greater condemnation. (41) He sat down opposite the treasury, and
watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in
large sums. (42) A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins,
which are worth a penny. (43) Then he called his disciples and said to
them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are
contributing to the treasury. (44) 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.”
(Mark:
12:38-44)
A close reading of this passage, stirs up important
questions about an often used stewardship approach that interprets this as an
object lesson from Jesus regarding individual, sacrificial giving: a person of
limited means asked to give generously beyond their livelihood or from a rich
person’s perspective who gives generously to the treasury for outward
appearances.
However, this passage should be read and especially
interpreted through the lens of the Law found in Deuteronomy 14 which says,
“(22) Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed
that is brought in yearly from the field… (27) As for the Levites resident in
your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance
with you. (28) Every third year you
shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it
within your towns, (29) the Levites, because they have no allotment or
inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the
widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may
bless you in all the work that you undertake.”
In light of these passages and understanding of the
purpose of tithing, Jesus is observing and commenting on predatory and
exploitative political and social practices within the Temple itself. Read in this refocused way, the story reveals
the negative impact those that misuse the Temple system had on
the marginalized, specifically this widow. Reinforcing this
interpretation is Jesus’ own words, often found throughout the gospels quoting
Deuteronomy, to highlight and condemn the predatory practices of the day.
From Deuteronomy, the widow shouldn’t have been at the Temple treasury to give
her only two bits away to begin with.
Jesus was concerned about how money and possessions were
used within larger systems, and utilizing this idea from Deuteronomy, frames
his observation as directed at the Temple treasury rather than the widow, and
draws a corollary between the unjust systems experienced both then and even
today. In other words, Jesus was more concerned with what was happening
at the treasury than holding either the scribes or the widow up as an
example.
When reading this selection of text from Mark, we might
ask the question:
“Where is Jesus pointing our attention? Where is the moral weight of this story? Is it with the widow, the rich, or the
treasury?”
How one answers these questions dramatically shapes how
we interpret the passage. Walter Brueggemann’s book on Money and
Possessions presses this question:
“It is astonishing that we in the west have been
schooled to read the Gospel narratives through a privatized, otherworldly lens
that has transposed the story into an individualized, spiritualized
account…Jesus was focused on issues related to money and possessions, the ways
they are deployed in a world governed by God, and the ways in which they define
and key social relationships.”
Brueggemann points to a Jesus who not only was deeply
concerned about the ethical use of money and possessions within systems, but in
keeping with Mark’s context, saw the necessity of fulfilling the Law found in
the Torah.
Before the destruction of the Temple the treasury
functioned as a vehicle to fulfill the demands of Torah for the collection of
economic aid for those regularly dispossessed, namely widows. By giving to the treasury, the rich and those
with means were fulfilling their responsibilities, so that the widow did not
have to. In fact, widows were not
required by Law to give to the Temple, at all.
Given that she was not under any obligation to give (and in light of the
fact that she contributed her two remaining coins), this parable, although
often used to show her motivation of generosity, in fact, her motives remain
unclear. What is important to note is that the wealthy are not taken to
task for contributing rightly to the system.
Rather, in the passages just before this text, it even describes those
who are wealthy as those who would “devour the houses of widows” (Mark 12:40)
that perpetuate an inequitable and unjust system.
This, of course, challenges many of our western
narratives about money. We do not see any passage within this text the
way it was meant. Rightly interpreted,
Jesus is asking others (not the widow) to give sacrificially or to reflect on
their own individual giving. His words
are almost intended to shame those who would receive a widow’s last
coins.
In the wake of this interpretation,
hopefully our eyes are opened more widely to see the dispossessed and
marginalized still fighting for rent relief, for justice from consumer
predatory practices, and the regular practice of philanthropic red-lining which
limits what additional services are provided.
Throughout the gospel of Mark, Jesus is
concerned about the use of money in larger systems. This preexisting concern provides a
consistent basis for the argument that Jesus’ attention was not focused on the
sacrifice of the widow, for whom we do not know of her actual motives for
giving, but for the predatory economic practices of the day. When viewed not in the interpretative lens of
an individual giver, but through a wider analysis of broader systems of
injustice, the Jesus in Mark’s gospel provides relevant spiritual insight to be
utilized by contemporary readers today and to ask ourselves some serious
questions.
·
How might shifting the focus away from
individual thoughts on giving to systems that do financial harm release
problematic narratives?
·
How might Jesus’ witness of predatory
practices invite us into the liberating love of God? And, living in that love, how might we
respond?
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Heavenly
Lord, we are indeed thankful for the blessings you have bestowed upon us. Grant that these offerings serve you in the
building up of your church and your witness to the world; that your heavenly
kingdom is near at hand within us now and always. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – O, Master Let Me Walk With Thee Hymn #357/665
Benediction –
God has called and chosen you to be witnesses to hope and
peace in God’s world. Go in peace and
this same healing, reconciling love and peace will be with you. Go and serve the Lord your God in all that you
do. AMEN.
Postlude
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