“The More Things Change…”

Mark 12:38-44

Exodus 20:16: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Amos 5:21-24 (The Message): I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I’ve had all I can stand of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice – oceans of it. I want fairness – rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all that I want.

Mark12:40, 44: They [the Scribes] devour widows houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers… For all of them [those who are rich] have contributed out of their abundance; but she [the widow] out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all that she had to live on.

[prayer]

The more things change, the more they stay the same; or as it is stated in Ecclesiastes, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Within the perspective of Reformed theology’s doctrine of total depravity, there hasn’t been an original sin since the first one. For all its technological progress, the human race hasn’t changed very much. We’re still as selfish, greedy, hostile, insecure, and deadly as our pride-riddled ancestors were the day they got booted out of Eden.

The Lord didn’t send Moses down off the mountain with the Ten Commandments just for the fun of it. When he invited his chosen people to enter into a covenant with him, he was well aware of their sinful limitations. He knew that they needed his law to live by, otherwise they would – individually and as a nation - destroy themselves. Only by obeying the covenant law could they survive their wilderness sojourn and fully enjoy life in the Promised Land.

Israel’s society was built on the twin pillars of justice and righteousness. In order to be in right relationship with the Lord their God they had to maintain right relationships with one another. They could not do so without treating one another in ways that were just, fair, and equitable.

A mainstay of Israelite justice was a thoroughly impartial court system. Judges had to be above reproach. Witnesses were bound by covenant law not to lie. If justice and righteousness were to be maintained, no one could bear false witness against his neighbor. This was just one of the ways in which the weakest of the weak in their society were protected.

By the time Amos, Isaiah, and Micah were speaking God’s prophetic Word to the children of Israel the covenant law was being broken at will. The entire justice system had broken down. Liars, thieves, and cheats were bold and brazen. Judges openly took bribes. Witnesses’ testimony was for sale to the highest bidder. And as for the weakest of the weak, well they were at the mercy of the unmerciful.

All this was going on within a context of an elaborate civic religiosity. Public pietism was of the highest quality. Meanwhile the daily lives of some of the most pietistic were lived out in the gutters of corruption, dishonesty, ethical rot, and immoral excess.

Their sins eventually caught up with them. Ignoring the Word of God spoken by the prophets, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was totally obliterated by Assyria; the Southern Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonian Empire.

In time the Lord returned the children of Israel to Judea. They were given a fresh start, but that total depravity business lingered on. As much as things had changed, human nature had stayed the same. By the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry the social and religious leaders of Judaism were at it again. The scribes, teachers of the Law of Moses, were going about praying loud, sanctimonious prayers and making a big public show of their religiosity.

They were also taking great pains to insure that no one confused them with the common people. By setting themselves apart from the crowd with their ostentatious clothing, expecting and demanding the public homage of the people, making sure that the best pews in church were reserved for themselves, and always having seats at the head tables they had become legends in their own minds.

And what did Jesus have to say about them? “Beware of them. Keep a close eye on them. And above all don’t imitate them. For all their flashy religiosity and showy pietism they are corrupt. Breaking the very covenant law about which they are the experts, they cheat helpless widows out of their homes. They maintain their ostentatious lifestyles by way of their dishonest, unjust, unrighteous, and unmerciful behavior.”

In direct juxtaposition with these arrogant, dishonest, unfaithful examples of high and mightiness there was the poor widow. Maybe she was one of the victims of some scribe’s greed. Whatever, as an act of total faith in God, she put everything she had into the offering. It wasn’t much. More than likely it consisted of the small change that was such a nuisance to the money counters. Compared to the gifts of others her small offering was a pitiful, maybe even laughable, sum.

Jesus, the One who had come to fulfill not abolish the law and prophets, used these two situations to teach his disciples a lesson in true piety. The scribes, who ignored the words of the prophets and brazenly broke the Law of Moses, were living symbols of injustice and unrighteousness. More than likely they had borne false witness in court more than once. That’s basically how they would have gone about the process of illegally obtaining a widow’s house. They made a big public show of their so-called religion. They put big offerings in the plate. They enjoyed all the perks given to the high and mighty of every generation. And in doing so brought the condemnation of God down upon their own heads.

We don’t really know much about that poor widow. Maybe she’d been taken advantage of; maybe she hadn’t. We can be fairly certain that she had no sons or other male relatives upon whom she could lean. She was all-alone in the world, trusting the legal system by which she was being victimized to protect her. Probably looking up to and respecting the very people who would rob her blind. She trusted the system because it was God’s system, and she trusted God. She respected the covenant law even as others were breaking it in order to rob people like her.

She was a person of true faith who took seriously the law and the prophets that Jesus had come to fulfill. She was a person of true faith who was more than willing to give everything she had to God, secure in the knowledge that he would take care of her. The scribes and others like them could do whatever they chose to do. They could lie, cheat, and steal. But whatever her lot in life, she could go to bed every night knowing that she had, within human limits, kept God’s law and obeyed God’s Word. Her conscience was clean.

On this day when we are dedicating our 2007, we can learn much from that widow. The first lesson is one of absolute faith. She didn’t tithe. She didn’t calculate what percentage of her financial resources belonged to God. She just gave all of it to him, every last penny. From God it had come to her. To God she gave it.

And she didn’t make a big deal out of doing it. This particular financial transaction was between God and her. It was nobody else’s business. She didn’t want it acknowledged. She didn’t ask that a plaque with her name on it be put on the wall to remind everybody of her great sacrifice. She didn’t blow any trumpets or otherwise draw attention to herself and her gift. She just gave it – quietly, matter of factly, and faithfully. Not because she had to, but because her gratitude to God had moved her to want to.

In planning today’s service I toyed with the notion of asking you to bring your pledges forward and very publicly place them on the Communion Table. I rather quickly disabused myself of that notion for two reasons, one pastoral the other biblical and theological. As a pastor I did not feel right about possibly embarrassing those who aren’t comfortable with pledging. As someone faithful to God’s Word and our Reformed theology, I did not want to turn this occasion into some grand and ostentatious show of public piety.

I want today to be more about the quiet, humble, matter of fact faith of that widow than it is about the prideful, showy religiosity of those scribes. I want what happens to be a faithful transaction between God and his people not an opportunity for any of us to say, “Hey, everybody, look at me. Watch me while I hand deliver my 2007 pledge to God.”

Finally I want us all to remember that as God’s people we have a covenant responsibility to take care of those in our society who cannot take care of themselves. We have a further responsibility to stand against those who would take advantage of such folks, those who would devour widows’ houses. Total depravity is alive and well in 2006. As it is in every generation, the more things change the more they stay the same. In the words of Fred Craddock, “… places of honor [still] tend to attract persons who are not honorable.” One of our tasks as Christians is to keep such people honest. Amen.