Meaningful Gifts

1 Kings 17:8-16; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

Our Old Testament lesson and our gospel lesson have something in common. Each of them tells about a widow, who while having very little to live on, gives everything she has for the work of the Lord. Some would call it suicide, others would call it foolishness, but the Bible calls it faith. And, indeed, there come those awesome moments in our lives when, in spite of the fact that we may seem to be on our last legs, our last efforts pay off if, rather than being dedicated to our own preservation, they are dedicated to the service of God.

But, this is really beside the point. For as we look at this scripture, I would like to point out that the woman who helped Elijah in our Old Testament lesson for today did not do it for her own physical survival. She and her son were almost completely out of food. They had no money and no way of replenishing their food supply. But, what is really important for us to remember is that she had no idea that in giving Elijah something to eat her own food supply would last through their time of need. The real lesson that is important to remember in this Old Testament passage is that the widow was motivated, not by selfishness, not by her struggle to survive, but by her love for God. After all, it certainly looked like she and her son were going to die of starvation sooner or later, even if she went home and guarded her supply of grain and oil as long as possible. She was, no doubt, aware of what the writer of our Epistle lesson knew: that all persons are destined to die once. But, what was important to this woman wasn't the idea of just living a few more days. What was really important to her was serving God. And, to her, it looked like Elijah had given her a choice: either hoard her food and live a few more days, or serve God and die a little sooner. And, you see, the beautiful thing is that the woman chose to serve the Lord, even if it meant that death would come a little bit sooner. To her serving the Lord her God was more important than survival, itself. She didn't want to have it on her record that she had survived for just a few more days at the expense of serving God.

I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it again: there are many persons involved in religion today who are motivated, not by their desire to serve the Lord, but, rather, by their desire to survive and even to have "Success In Life." Such a motivation is a heresy. It is wicked and wrong thinking. And, yet, there are some very popular religious leaders, today, who are literally raking in millions of dollars a year as they tell persons who send them money that they will have success in life, that they will be healed, that they will seed faith, that they will have some kind of a physical benefit when they, as Rev. Bob Tilden says, "make their vow to the Lord."

What is amazing to me is that this guy Tilden is on T.V. every morning, now, raking in the dough, in a repeatedly sickening appeal to persons who, rather than wanting to serve the Lord, simply want to serve themselves by trading their money for a blessing. This is not what the widow of our Old Testament lesson did. And this is not what the widow of our Gospel lesson did, either. In fact, in our Gospel lesson for today, after the widow gives her mite, we don't even hear about her again. We don't even know if she went home and died of starvation, since she had given everything she had, or whether something wonderful had happened to keep food on her table. Because that wasn't the point of either of those stories. For the point of the Old Testament lesson and the point of the Gospel lesson is this: that when given the choice between mere survival and serving God, it is up to us to serve the Lord.

Lately, upon greeting persons, when I ask them, "How are you, today?" they will respond with something more clever than just saying "fine." Have you noticed this, as well? I mean, I've even gotten some pretty creative answers from people. Now, when I ask, "How are you?" they answer by saying something like, "Oh, fair to middling!" or "If I felt any better I'd have to see a doctor!" or something like that. But, one of the more curious things people are saying when asked, "How are you?" is, "Well, I'm surviving!"

In this day and age, most of us think we're doing pretty good if we can answer the question this way. If we're just surviving, we figure that we're doing pretty good. But, yet, I wonder. So far I haven't heard very many people answer the question by saying, "Well, I'm serving the Lord!" For if the question is an swered this way, a whole set of intriguing possibilities is opened up to discussion. For if our goal is serving the Lord as opposed to simply surviving, we stand in the very company of the disciples of our Lord.

Jesus made a spectacle out of persons who choose to use religion for survival, rather than as a means for serving the Lord. He said quite a few things about the Scribes who chose "success in life" at the expense of devouring widow's houses while making a show of their righteousness. Such persons, Jesus said, would be punished most severely.

But, there is something else that we need to remember, especially about our gospel lesson. While all the rich folks were putting their large offerings into the treasury, and perhaps giving much less than even a tenth of their income to the Lord, the widow came, put in her dollar, and probably went away wondering how her offering could make any kind of a difference to God.

But, what was important to Jesus, wasn't the size of her gift, but, rather, the act of giving, itself. Jesus wanted to point out that there wasn't a gift too small, as long as it represented one's heartfelt desire to love the Lord with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I was reading a while back that if the widow's mite had been deposited at the "First National Bank, Jerusalem" to draw four percent interest semi-annually, the fund today would total (and now get this) four million eight-hundred thousand trillion dollars. That's a 48 with twenty zeros following it! So, even the widow's mite can add up to quite a bit! And if a bank on earth could multiply the widow's mite to such an astronomical figure, think what treasures this dedicated woman will have in heaven where "moth and dust doth not corrupt!"

In fact, there are many stories about seemingly small gifts packing a lot of power: For instance, there's the account of 13 year old Bobby Hill, son of a U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Italy, who read a book about Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize and medical missionary, and how he decided to do his bit to help the great man's cause.

Bobby sent a bottle aspirin to Lieutenant Gen. Richard C. Lindsay, Commander of Allied air forces in Southern Europe, asking if any of his airplanes could parachute it to Dr. Schweitzer's jungle hospital in Africa.

Hearing about the letter, an Italian radio station issued an appeal which brought in $400,000 worth of medical supplies and the French and Italian governments each supplied a plane to fly the medicines and the young boy to Dr. Schweitzer.

"I never thought a child could do so much for my hospital," remarked the grateful missionary.

Indeed, you never know when your gift of love, or a simple act of charity may turn out to be the one act that saves the day. For instance, there is the story of a man, who while on board a ship, sleeping in his cabin, one night, heard the cry -- so awful to hear at sea -- "Man overboard!" The man arose at once from his bunk and took his flashlight and shined it through the window in his cabin to see what was going on.

He couldn't see anything; but, the next morning, he was told that the flash of his light through the porthole showed to those on deck the missing man clinging to a rope. He could hardly have held on another minute. The light of the lamp shone just in time to save the man's life.

As we give our gifts to God, we should be aware of our motivations. Our gift shouldn't be thought of as a means of buying God's grace, or God's blessing, or success, or something we think God should give us, or even survival. Rather, it should be a reflection of our own desire to serve the Lord. Amen.