November 9, 2003

November 9, 2003 22. Pentecost

Mindekirken Anders Hildeng Næss

Let us pray: Lord, help us to be sensible stewards of your word and church. Amen.

I think this text about Jesus criticizing the Pharisees is one of the more difficult texts in the New Testament, and one of the reasons I guess is that it is really easy to identify to the Pharisees. And it doesn’t get any better when we hear about how this poor widow who gives a few coins is portrayed as an example of the way of living suitable for believers.

I work as a minister in a small congregation in Northern Norway called Gamvik. Not long before I came over here I had a service in one of the churches that I serve. Quite a lot of people were there and we were going to celebrate communion this day. In the first pew there was a guy from the congregation council and next to him was his son, Eskil, who is 5 years old.

Eskil really likes to come to church, though I suspect the reason for that is because up until this point he had only attended the special arrangements that I had had for his age group. Though on this Sunday he convinced his father to take him with him to church.

Eskil had decided he wanted to become a minister when he grew up, and of course it was important to really follow the minister around and see what else he needed to be prepared for.

It didn’t take long though before Eskil seemed to have changed his mind regarding his future choice of career. He is a well-behaved boy, and sat quietly during the service. His eyes though looked pretty empty – focusing on some distant invisible point in the air in front of him.

When ending the preliminary communion liturgy I said the words of invitation: "Come, everything is ready.." (Note: the word for ready in Norwegian also means "finished")

Then there was a little boy that suddenly became very lively. Eskil elevated himself from the seat almost hovering above it, turning in the air while his feet started running toward the entrance before they had hit the ground. Half way down the aisle his father got what was happening, leaning over the side of the pew out into the aisle shouting: "Eskil, where are you going"

Eskil turned and shouted back: But dad, didn’t you hear what he just said; everything is finished!!".

I met Eskil the day before I left to come over here two months ago. He is now going to be a plow driver.

What was it that made Eskil not thrive in that service?? Well, I don’t know what you are thinking, but I can think of several things:

First, Eskil was probably at a very different cognitive level of development than the rest of the people at the service. Second, he was much younger than the others who were there and there were few of his own age present. Third, Eskil is a young man of action, and it just doesn’t go very well with his nature to sit still for a long time with his mouth shut. And last, the language used in the church this day did not correlate with anything he was used to from the services he had attended previously. Suddenly he didn’t understand much of what the minister said.

So, we have at least 4 issues that needs to be taken into consideration to make a person thrive in the church; the language, the form, the age group and the level of maturity (both religious and cognitive).

To be a congregation and stewards of the Word of God is first and foremost about sharing the same faith - the faith that God surrounds us with his care and gives his love which we then can choose to pass on to others. The service might be the most direct expression of this faith, but the congregational life is so much more.

This day’s gospel is about Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees and it shifts to the story about the widow’s offering in the Temple. As a congregation our task is to translate and discover the message in this text so that we can live it.

The Pharisees had been skeptical for a long time toward the teachings of Jesus, and they saw how he continuously criticized the way in which many of them lived. Here in this text Jesus repeats much of the same critique we heard in Matthew chapter 6 verses 1 to 6. In many ways the Pharisees were the contemporary religious elite at that time, and they put great emphasis on the Law with all its regulations. Now, the problem that Jesus brings forth is not their faith per se, but the way they live their faith. Instead of practicing a continuously including and expanding belief environment – the Jews saw how many of the Pharisees stuck to themselves. When they turned to their fellow man, it was usually because there was some kind of second gain – could be admiration or the thing that Jesus mentions – that they had lent money to someone who had died and then took his house from the widow as payment. Jesus does not necessarily criticize that they had money; but the way the got it and the way they spent it. We hear about their nice robes and when Jesus talks about the rich people who give money to the temple – it is logical to draw a parallel to the previously mentioned Pharisees.

Most of us here in Mindekirken are wealthy and rich. We are rich – not only in regards to money – but also in so many ways. In the New Testament there is this parable about a man that goes abroad and gives his three servants some coins – denoted "talents". Their task is now to take care of these talents as stewards while the man is gone and to do this in their master’s best interest.

In the same way, our task is to take care of, and manage, all our talents in our creator’s best interest. Of course his interest is the interest.

What made the widow’s gift so special was not the size or amount. The money she gave couldn’t possibly produce the same as the money that the rich people gave. Even so, Jesus depicts her as the one who gave the most – because, as he says, she gave all that she had.

What does this tell us about this widow?

Usually this is interpreted as showing us how fantastic this widow was who just trusted God and that he somehow would take care of her.

But I believe there is another angle to this: The woman did not necessarily give this money to God, but she gave it to a community that imposed and convinced even the poorest ones to give monetary gifts and taxes to the temple.

Maybe the text today is criticizing a religious community where what is on the outside has become more important than what is on the inside. The text is critical toward people who are the religious leaders in a church where money and monetary gifts are the only talents being emphasized.

As a church we need to think locally and globally. We need to think in both temporal and eternal terms and we have to take into consideration the multitude of talents that we can draw upon in the proclamation of the gospel.

To support our congregational stewardship with money is one talent, preaching is a talent, quilting, being an usher, preparing church coffee, reading of scripture etc. – everything is serving congregational growth and the strengthening of our community.

God wants us to invest our talents so that they increase in value. To many Jews the synagogue became an institution that by adding pressure to people’s conscience forced a premature and exaggerated use of talents – especially the monetary ones. We have received our talents from God; our wealth, our skills and our time. As a congregation we must do what we can to utilize all the potential present in this room. Because there are so many talents here. We are called to be sensible stewards, so it is all about finding out and assessing how we can use our talents in a way beneficial to us and to others.

Eskil felt that he was an outsider in my service and I mentioned some reasons for that earlier.

Stewardship is to claim responsibility of our own talents and to create a diverse and inclusive congregation. Through diversity we will be able to reach out to people of different ages, cognition, cultural origin and the different ways to approach God.

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716