Sermon, July 19, 2009

Luke 21:1-4
The Widow’s Offering
21He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; 2he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3He said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; 4for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.’

It’s about going all in, like in Texas Hold ‘Em poker. Other people may have more than you, but you are going all in, staying alive in the final showdown. It makes for great televised poker, when the celebrities and the famous, who can afford to lose large amounts, are playing for charity or for the glory of the game. But the all in the Scripture is talking about is more. Imagine going ‘all in’ with the grocery money for the week, or the mortgage money for the month, or the year, putting up everything you have on one bet.
The woman Jesus singles out is going all in. There are others who have contributed much more than she has to the temple treasury, but she’s gone all in, putting everything into the collection plate. And Jesus praises her faith, “out of her poverty she has put in all she has to live on.”
The worldly wisdom about this story is that the woman was stupid. Two pennies were not going to change the balance of the temple budget and they would have allowed her to eat, to continue to live. Yes, she made a grand gesture in giving all to the temple, but you can’t eat gestures. Worldly wisdom would condemn Jesus. He was there to save the world, he should have gone over to that woman and told her to take the money back. God would have understood. God would have preferred she eat.
But no, she was praised highly for going ‘all in’ on the Lord’s work. And we should not think to condemn her for going all in, but learn from her.
She placed everything she had into the Lord’s hands, depending on the Lord to support her. Everything else in her life took a back seat to that most basic relationship. Maybe she had family to support, we don’t know. Maybe she had debts to pay, we don’t know. Maybe she was a homeless person, we just don’t know. All we know is that she went ‘all in’.
I am not going to talk this morning about going financially ‘all in’. That is a stewardship sermon, and that time is passed. I am talking about something more personal. I am talking about our willingness as a congregation to go ‘all in’ on our faith in Jesus Christ. I am talking about risking our personal comfort zones, risking our personal images, risking our personal preferences to go ‘all in’ with Jesus Christ.
It is a deliberate church growth strategy, and one that is guaranteed to work, because we can expect nothing less when we go ‘all in’.
It involves two steps.
The first is to change our faith patterns, is to change how we relate to our Lord Jesus Christ. It involves going from talking about our Lord Jesus Christ, answering ‘what’ questions, filling in information about Jesus, to answering ‘why’ questions, to sharing why Jesus is so fundamentally important to us. It is being able to say, “I love Jesus because . . .” or “My Lord has done this for me, and through me . . .”.
Then we must move to the second step. Taking those personal moments of testimony, those personal journeys we have in the Lord, and sharing them with our neighbors. It is going door to door, learning about our neighbors, desiring to pray for them, listening to their stories with love and faith in our hearts, and responding to them as loving sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ.
That’s going ‘all in’. It involves getting our relationship with Jesus straight in our own lives. We know what the bible says that relationship is supposed to be. Each Sunday, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is proclaimed, forgiveness is proclaimed, a new life and a new way of living is proclaimed for us to seize upon, and this Sunday is no different. But to go ‘all in’ with Jesus, we need to be straight with ourselves as to who we really think he is and where we really place him in our lives.
Only when we have embraced the love of Jesus and made it real in our lives can we dare to attempt to sow the seeds to make it real in lives of others.
So how do we get to that point? Two simple steps to start: By going ‘all in’ with prayer. By praying with the faith that it really changes the world. Get a journal, record your prayers, record the results, dare to get bigger in your requests from the almighty, get in groups to share collective prayers. Go ‘all in’ on Scripture. We issue a daily reading lectionary. Use it, or find your own method. Read and study and journal about what you find in the bible. If you have questions, ask someone, like me. And I can go on and on with a dozen other disciplines that are designed to bring us closer to our God.
But notice something from our Scripture passage today. It’s not about giving from our abundance. It is not about waiting for God to take care of all our other problems so that we can have time to do God’s work. That’s fine, but it isn’t all in. We are holding back, in case it doesn’t work out. We have some of our own treasures stored up down here, just in case there aren’t so many in heaven.
How uncomfortable does this sound? I have to be able to articulate why I love Jesus and how that love has changed my life. I need to talk about my feelings. Jesus loved me so much that he died a horrible death on my account. What does that really mean to me, in my gut, on that innermost level? He rose again and has lifted me from my sin filled life, full of the muck and refuse of the evils that we live, to forgiveness and healing and new life. How do I take that out of simple intellectual assent and dare to cry in joy over a miserable life replaced with one of glory?
And, God in heaven, how am I going to talk about those things to people I know, people in my neighborhood? Well, brothers and sisters, I am not sure how I am going to do that either, but I say we must do it together. We are God’s church, we are Jesus’ congregation.
Are we ready to go ‘all in’? Let us pray.

Falling Away

It happens to every Christian, falling away in some way or other. I don't mean necessarily from the whole church, but from some piece of our Christian life. It has been five months since I have posted, and that's because I've slipped away from the relevance of the faith on the web.

It doesn't mean faith hasn't been active, or that I haven't been active as a pastor in my church, far from it. But it means, for those months, the question of Why Bother has been fringing my blogging. Is anybody out there? If they are, do they care? Is this an exercise in personal aggrandizement (spelt right first time out!)?

That has been part of a deeper struggle, a deeper question of Why Bother in the faith itself. Important things are going on of which I am a part. The work of Jesus is going in new and interesting directions. But it was like it was outside of me. The question has been of Jesus and I, hand in hand, when it has felt like I've been back in the line, while Jesus was out in front.

But things are are back, and better, more fun. And there are a few places I can shamelessly plug this theological diatribe.

So here we go!