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As we all know, people sometimes make very strange requests in the church. When those requests are backed up by large sums of money, they unfortunately often get brought about.
I saw one such request in action many years ago in seminary. I was visiting a friend and classmate at their home parish with some other mutual friends. It was a beautiful church, certainly up there in the ones I have seen, except for one thing.
Over to the side, there was a mixed media sculpture with paintings and other objects. On closer inspection, it seemed to be trying to say something about the Sacraments, but the out-of-place nature of it and the frankly ugliness of some of the objects involved in the mixed media made it distracting instead.
After the service, one of my friends and I had a chance to speak with the rector, and we politely asked him what was going on with this work. He was quick to tell us it was commissioned by a person who left so much money he couldn’t really say “no” even though he himself hated it and, like us, felt it was a distraction instead of an addition.
There was a little part of mixed media that could be moved without damaging anything else, a little tiny sculpture. The rector begged us to take it, as if by losing one piece of the puzzle he might be able to get rid of this artistic and theological monstrosity once and for all.
We were seminarians, so of course we didn’t take it. It’s not that we weren’t sympathetic and didn’t want to help him, but when you’re in seminary, everything you do is under a microscope, and we didn’t want to do anything to risk our future ordinations.
Now I’d like to think this donor had good intentions. She wanted to maybe teach something about the Sacraments. But that isn’t her role, and because it wasn’t her role the message was lost and she created a distraction instead, in spite of whatever her intentions may have been.
Unfortunately we see situations like this too often. Someone has money, though not the proper knowledge, and thinks that this gives them the right to impose their will on the rest of us. We see this out in the world. Sometimes we see it in parishes too.
One of the things I’ve been so grateful to witness as well, especially in our Diocese, is smaller less-wealthy church standing up and reminding the rest of us that at the end of the day how much money we have doesn’t matter because it can be a distraction. What really matters is that we are doing the work of sharing the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. I’m so proud to see so many stand up to focus on the Gospel, and I’m proud to be in a Diocese where, as witnessed most recently at Diocesan Convention, so many others are willing to stand up and support that message.
At the end of the day, it’s not wealth that matters but our Faith. That is what we see in our Gospel reading today.
We see this in how and why people give. Jesus, as we see the Temple treasury, warns us of those who use their wealth to get what they want and have their say, whether that say is true or not. As He warns us, we get to witness people placing their donations in the treasury.
Now to understand what’s really going on here, we need a sense of how the treasury actually worked. Basically it was horn that you would toss your coins in. If you were a rich person, there would be a “clink clank clink clank clink clank” that would go on and on and be loud enough for people to turn and see and realize how great you were for tossing in so many coins.
The poor widow we see with her two measly coins would just have gotten a momentary “clunk”, with all eyes staring at her and at how little she gave.
Yet as Jesus points out, what she gives isn’t a little because for her it is everything.
The point here isn’t how much we give. It isn’t even to give up your rent money in order to be able to give to the church. We don’t want you to starve!
The point, instead, is not to focus on how much we give, but why we give.
Are we giving so we can have control over what goes on? Are we simply buying our say? Or do we trust God? Are we willing to give simply so the work of God can be done?
In other words, is our giving about us or is it about God’s work?
If you’ve been paying attention this past year then you know that the only reason any of us are here is because of Jesus. The only thing we are called to do is to make Jesus known to others so that all can experience His Love and Grace. The only way we can do anything of significance is if Christ Jesus is first and foremost for us and Christ Jesus alone.
This is not to say giving isn’t important. We cannot do the work of the church without your contribution. It is so important, that the Prayer Book even calls on us clergy to speak of it from time to time, just as I am doing now.
But that giving has to be done in the right spirit. It cannot be done with strings attached. It must be about furthering the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ in our area and the world.
If we can do that, if we can have the right spirit, if we can make Jesus our sole focus in this world, then we can do a powerfully great deal with just the tiniest morsel. Give in the spirit of our Faith. Make Jesus the sole focus of all that you do. Jesus is all that we have. Jesus is all that we need.