WEBVTT 00:00:00.823 --> 00:00:01.860 Let's pray On that note. 00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:03.626 Let's pray Well. 00:00:03.626 --> 00:00:04.389 Jesus, we give you thanks. 00:00:04.389 --> 00:00:06.347 We do give you thanks for all the young ones in our midst. 00:00:06.347 --> 00:00:10.310 What a blessing it is to have kids around, and we're grateful. 00:00:10.310 --> 00:00:14.768 They are not just the future, but they are the present church as well. 00:00:14.768 --> 00:00:27.228 And so, God, may we be a church and a people that notice little ones and others who are often overlooked, and may we be people who see them the way that you see them. 00:00:27.228 --> 00:00:29.786 Jesus softened our hearts this morning. 00:00:29.786 --> 00:00:40.624 Help us to be people of faith and of life and love and mercy, and would you bless our time this morning in Jesus' name, Amen, Amen, you can be seated. 00:00:40.624 --> 00:00:41.125 Good morning. 00:00:41.125 --> 00:00:41.881 My name is Ryan. 00:00:41.881 --> 00:00:42.664 I'm the pastor at Central. 00:00:42.759 --> 00:00:47.808 It's great to be with you guys this morning, and we are in the midst of our discipleship series. 00:00:47.808 --> 00:00:51.409 And this morning we're gonna talk about scribes and widows. 00:00:51.409 --> 00:00:55.725 And, as you heard, Casey in Easton read this morning this passage in Mark. 00:00:55.725 --> 00:00:57.683 You can open your Bibles if you want, it's Mark 12. 00:00:57.683 --> 00:01:02.063 And there's two stories that get joined together by the word widow. 00:01:02.063 --> 00:01:06.947 And so Mark is trying to tell you something about these two stories and we'll unpack them briefly this morning. 00:01:06.947 --> 00:01:19.106 And what does it mean that Jesus is sort of like kind of comparing, contrasting and at least sort of putting together these stories about scribes and how they live and operate in this widow and how she lives and operates. 00:01:19.106 --> 00:01:35.444 Now, many times the story of we call it the widow's might you might have heard the story growing up or in a number of other sermons, and it's sort of a widow who gives all she has, she sacrificially gives, and so many times the sermon is like well then, you all better give and as the globe gets passed around, you better give sacrificially. 00:01:35.444 --> 00:01:36.906 If you have no money, you better give anyway. 00:01:36.906 --> 00:01:37.942 Right, that's sort of the typical. 00:01:37.942 --> 00:01:42.686 You know, oh, fancy, Ryan doing this sermon on the same day we kick off our capital campaign. 00:01:42.686 --> 00:01:48.769 I see what you're doing, Ryan, but no, I wanna offer a different version of the story. 00:01:48.769 --> 00:01:50.826 I think a prior, truer interpretation of that. 00:01:51.340 --> 00:02:01.584 By the way, a side note, you know, if you're a part of central this is how I always talk about giving If you're, everything we do here is we only operate because of the giving from the people of central. 00:02:01.584 --> 00:02:09.626 So if you're a part of central in any way and you consider this your home church or you're like here regularly, we'd love to invite you to give, but it's low pressure, no big deal. 00:02:09.626 --> 00:02:16.983 I'm not back in there in Janet's office looking through who gave and who didn't give, but if you're here, we wanna ask you to support what we're doing if you like it and if you benefit from it. 00:02:16.983 --> 00:02:20.126 That's kind of it, and even with the capital campaign, same kind of deal. 00:02:20.126 --> 00:02:25.686 We're gonna build the future, you know, church for these kids, for young ones and those other generations. 00:02:25.686 --> 00:02:32.467 So if you can give and if you can't, I get it, Cause the thing behind the thing is what we'll kind of unpack this morning. 00:02:33.060 --> 00:02:35.361 But it's not a scripture just saying you better give. 00:02:35.361 --> 00:02:36.687 If you don't have money, you better give anyway. 00:02:36.687 --> 00:02:38.305 Dig it a little bit deeper in your pockets. 00:02:38.305 --> 00:02:40.243 It's actually about this. 00:02:40.243 --> 00:02:43.909 I'll give you again my thesis ahead of time, just so you can kind of have it. 00:02:43.979 --> 00:02:53.247 But this is a story, I believe, about pouring your own life out as a good gift for the benefit and the healing of the world. 00:02:53.247 --> 00:03:12.548 So my prayer and hope is that we can be people, we can be disciples who offer up our very lives in large and in tiny ways, and we can partner with God in his movement of restoring the world and healing the broken world, and that includes everybody, Even you who think you have nothing to offer. 00:03:12.548 --> 00:03:20.328 My prayers, you will find out today that God wants to use you in partnership, to pour out yourself as a gift for the world. 00:03:20.328 --> 00:03:21.090 Amen. 00:03:21.090 --> 00:03:22.643 Can you already see this? 00:03:22.643 --> 00:03:24.801 A much deeper interpretation than we? 00:03:24.801 --> 00:03:25.724 Better give a little bit more money. 00:03:25.724 --> 00:03:28.045 Even if you don't have any money, you better give Kind of thing. 00:03:28.045 --> 00:03:29.169 Well, hopefully that's what you'll see. 00:03:29.169 --> 00:03:36.268 Jesus is hanging out and he's teaching some people around him and he sees this group of scribes go by. 00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:51.006 Now, scribes are Old Testament law interpreters, so these are like ancient versions of lawyers and they're now, by the way, when he sees these scribes, because he actually pronounces a word of harsh warning against these scribes, and I'll tell you why in a moment. 00:03:51.006 --> 00:03:53.066 But he doesn't mean all of scribes. 00:03:53.066 --> 00:04:02.745 Scribes were people in the Jewish communities that really they love the law, they interpret the law, but they were not all, as you can imagine, they were not all morally upstanding. 00:04:02.745 --> 00:04:03.848 Same with Pharisees. 00:04:03.848 --> 00:04:15.664 Many times in our modern sort of readings of the scripture, we just we often use in conversation even the word Pharisee as a synonym for like, for charlatans or for legalistic people who are not really so we're like oh, what a Pharisee. 00:04:15.664 --> 00:04:18.730 Well, hang on, not all Pharisees were like bad people. 00:04:18.730 --> 00:04:23.829 There were some great Pharisees who loved the law, who loved God and who wanted to honor God and worship God. 00:04:23.829 --> 00:04:25.262 So just be careful. 00:04:25.262 --> 00:04:29.867 Not all Pharisees were these charlatan whitewash tombs. 00:04:29.867 --> 00:04:32.439 Not all scribes were what Jesus was talking about. 00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:36.786 But this group of scribes walks by and Jesus pronounces a harsh warning on them. 00:04:37.108 --> 00:04:41.009 And here's why these guys had these fancy long robes that they wore. 00:04:41.009 --> 00:04:43.646 You heard in the scripture they were these fancy long robes. 00:04:43.646 --> 00:04:47.331 Now, these were not just like prayer shawl kind of robes that the Jews wore. 00:04:47.331 --> 00:04:58.290 These were like garments made to sort of put on display their opulence and their power and their prestige and their social status and their place and their dignity. 00:04:58.290 --> 00:05:02.384 So it's like a public display of their wealth and who they were and their power. 00:05:02.384 --> 00:05:15.608 They also wanted to be greeted in a very certain way, publicly, in front of everybody else, because in this Roman system of patronage, if you were kind of higher up on the social ladder, those who are beneath you would have to greet you in public. 00:05:15.608 --> 00:05:20.706 And so these men, these scribes, wanted to be greeted in public by those who were lesser than them. 00:05:20.706 --> 00:05:22.266 So they were like hey, you better greet me. 00:05:22.266 --> 00:05:29.952 And so you read the scripture in Mark, since they wanted to be greeted in public in order to show everyone how important these men, how they truly really were. 00:05:30.821 --> 00:05:33.689 They also wanted the best seats in any house they were at. 00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:37.930 So in the synagogue, they wanted the best seats to be on display so that the cameras could see them. 00:05:37.930 --> 00:05:42.360 In the banquets, they wanted to have the highest seat of honor at the LA Laker games. 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:51.146 They wanted to be right around the court side with Rihanna and Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake Nobody, Fair enough, I'll keep going. 00:05:51.146 --> 00:05:53.406 They wanted to be seen. 00:05:53.406 --> 00:05:58.990 They wanted the best seats to be seen and to be put you know, for everyone to know that they were powerful and important. 00:05:59.029 --> 00:06:05.552 And they also had these long-winded prayers, so these very verbose and wordy prayers. 00:06:05.552 --> 00:06:14.759 They obviously didn't get the memo from my stepdad, who would always say he'd always say hey, Ryan, if you pray long, you pray wrong, especially around meal times. 00:06:14.759 --> 00:06:16.125 He wanted to get to the food, let's hurry up. 00:06:16.125 --> 00:06:17.108 We got to get to the food, let's go. 00:06:17.108 --> 00:06:18.848 I mean taking your time. 00:06:18.848 --> 00:06:20.620 Bless this food, Amen, let's go. 00:06:20.620 --> 00:06:28.766 Oh, but these guys would pray long prayers because they wanted to appear more holy, that everyone would hear their prayers and be in awe. 00:06:28.766 --> 00:06:29.348 Oh, these guys are. 00:06:29.348 --> 00:06:30.932 What a big deal these guys are. 00:06:30.932 --> 00:06:35.437 Look at these long prayers, these fancy prayer robes, or fancy robes. 00:06:35.437 --> 00:06:37.382 You know they're being greeted in public. 00:06:37.382 --> 00:06:40.610 They have these awesome court-side seats to the nuggets games. 00:06:40.610 --> 00:06:44.947 Maybe Nuggets, Okay, Tim, we all are world champion nuggets, I should say. 00:06:45.269 --> 00:06:47.423 And they wanted everyone to know they were on display. 00:06:47.423 --> 00:06:52.526 They wanted everyone to know hey, this is like an act, and they wanted people to recognize them as big, important people. 00:06:52.526 --> 00:07:00.956 These were men who mattered and they wanted everyone to know that these were men who mattered. 00:07:00.956 --> 00:07:07.110 There we go I think I have a slide for it and they put everything about themselves on display. 00:07:07.110 --> 00:07:13.834 They love being noticed and being seen and being important and being a people who mattered. 00:07:13.834 --> 00:07:15.982 I'm so glad we don't have this problem today. 00:07:15.982 --> 00:07:20.572 I mean, this is why billionaires don't want to just be billionaires. 00:07:20.572 --> 00:07:22.363 They want to own a team as well. 00:07:22.363 --> 00:07:28.867 They can be interviewed on the news or be at the you know, in the game, at the game, in the press boxes beyond the spot. 00:07:28.867 --> 00:07:33.427 They want to be people who are relevant and who matter, and I'm not just picking on billionaires. 00:07:33.427 --> 00:07:35.190 Pastors can be the same way. 00:07:35.190 --> 00:07:37.766 We don't want to just pasture our little flock over here. 00:07:37.766 --> 00:07:41.665 We want to be big deals, we want to matter and know that everyone sees what we're doing. 00:07:41.665 --> 00:07:46.824 All of us have this deep sort of desire to be people who matter and put on display. 00:07:46.865 --> 00:07:50.052 And these scribes put themselves on display. 00:07:50.052 --> 00:07:57.550 But then Mark tells us that these guys also devoured widows' houses. 00:07:57.550 --> 00:08:01.182 It's a weird line, but these guys were. 00:08:01.182 --> 00:08:02.406 These were experts in the law. 00:08:02.406 --> 00:08:07.708 They were supposed to take care of widows and make sure that they could sort of maintain their housing situation. 00:08:07.708 --> 00:08:14.829 But these men, it says, devalue interesting choice of words they devour widows' houses. 00:08:14.829 --> 00:08:24.370 By the way, like I said, Mark then ties this story about the scribes using the word widow with the following story, which is about a widow and her offering in the treasury. 00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:31.672 So right from here the scribes and Jesus pronounces warning like, don't be like these guys who put themselves on display, who want to be people who matter. 00:08:31.672 --> 00:08:34.070 Then he says okay, then he's over the treasury. 00:08:34.432 --> 00:08:36.241 And the treasury, by the way, is right here in the temple. 00:08:36.241 --> 00:08:39.518 It's just sort of this public area where anyone's kind of welcomed. 00:08:39.518 --> 00:08:42.729 There were women there and they would take up offerings there. 00:08:42.729 --> 00:08:52.557 And Jesus says at the treasuries hanging out with his disciples, and these rich people come by and they offer up their offerings to God. 00:08:52.557 --> 00:08:55.562 So you can imagine what that seemed like. 00:08:55.562 --> 00:09:11.035 These are rich people, man. 00:09:11.035 --> 00:09:11.996 They had lots to give. 00:09:11.996 --> 00:09:15.806 I gotta be careful. 00:09:15.806 --> 00:09:17.619 This is Ben's Disney savings jar. 00:09:17.619 --> 00:09:24.091 I gotta True story Disney. 00:09:24.091 --> 00:09:27.597 Oh my gosh, he's gonna need a bigger jar. 00:09:27.597 --> 00:09:31.783 If you've been to Disney and these rich guys. 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:55.355 And then it says a widow comes by and she's got two tiny little coins and she drops them in the treasury. 00:09:55.355 --> 00:10:04.759 Why bother lady? 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:11.039 Oh embarrassing, Clink, clink, what are you doing? 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:13.500 Like that's going to help anything? 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:22.621 By the way, the two coins that she offers are called tiny little copper coins and we think modern scholars think that it was probably what we call a mite, a widow's mite. 00:10:22.621 --> 00:10:24.085 Now, it's called a widow's mite because she was a widow. 00:10:24.085 --> 00:10:25.126 It's called a mite. 00:10:25.126 --> 00:10:25.668 I've got one. 00:10:26.274 --> 00:10:29.182 I bought one in Bethlehem last year, or rather in February. 00:10:29.182 --> 00:10:30.485 Here it is. 00:10:30.485 --> 00:10:33.903 If you want to see it, you might need a magnifying glass. 00:10:33.903 --> 00:10:45.261 It's this tiny little coin and in its day, Jesus' day, was the smallest, most invaluable coin in circulation, and here's how valuable or not they were. 00:10:45.261 --> 00:10:48.623 They were worth one sixty-fourth of a denarius. 00:10:48.623 --> 00:10:51.239 So just for you to see. 00:10:51.239 --> 00:10:54.166 A denarius, by the way, is one day's wage. 00:10:54.166 --> 00:10:59.566 So this woman has one sixty-fourth, actually two of them, two sixty-fourths. 00:10:59.566 --> 00:11:03.702 So for you, math majors, one thirty-second of a denarius. 00:11:06.014 --> 00:11:17.280 Not that she earned that month or not, that she found on the ground walking, not that she had in her pocket, this is all she had to her name, Two of these itty-bitty coins. 00:11:17.280 --> 00:11:18.437 That's all she had. 00:11:18.437 --> 00:11:24.706 This was her 401k, her IRA, her stock investment, her real estate portfolio. 00:11:24.706 --> 00:11:25.327 It's all right here. 00:11:25.327 --> 00:11:29.024 These two tiny little, meaningless coins that she drops in. 00:11:29.024 --> 00:11:30.398 It's all she has. 00:11:30.398 --> 00:11:36.904 And she takes these little itty-bitty coins and she puts them in the treasury. 00:11:39.857 --> 00:11:43.826 By the way, widows were one of the most helpless people in the Old Testament. 00:11:43.826 --> 00:11:51.227 They were viewed generally as vulnerable, vulnerable to abuse, to injustice, even to starving to death. 00:11:51.227 --> 00:11:52.640 They had very little to their names. 00:11:52.640 --> 00:12:01.546 They had no power, no husband, no one around to take care of them, and in the ancient world, women were like secondary or tertiary in sort of social students. 00:12:01.546 --> 00:12:03.961 These women widows had nothing. 00:12:03.961 --> 00:12:07.865 They were in the bottom of the social ladder, by all means. 00:12:07.865 --> 00:12:16.081 They were barely noticed, almost an afterthought, helpless and utterly almost forgettable, or an ignorable, totally poor. 00:12:19.057 --> 00:12:26.582 And yet God commands the people of Israel, the people of God, who were supposed to embody the will and way of God in the world. 00:12:26.582 --> 00:12:30.605 He commands them to take care of widows and poor people. 00:12:30.605 --> 00:12:32.057 Here's what he says in Exodus. 00:12:32.057 --> 00:12:38.539 The law says this do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, For you were foreigners once in Egypt. 00:12:38.539 --> 00:12:43.485 In other words, don't forget that you were once lost too. 00:12:43.485 --> 00:12:48.719 I know that you sometimes look down your nose on certain people, but don't forget you were just like them at one point. 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:53.344 He tells Israel and don't take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. 00:12:53.344 --> 00:13:06.427 I'm not saying God has favorites, but if God has favorites, it's people like this foreigners, widows, fatherless people, people that are on the outside looking in. 00:13:06.427 --> 00:13:09.794 In fact, there's this story about a woman who's a widow from Sedon. 00:13:09.794 --> 00:13:16.881 Sedon's an outside region, she's not an Israelite, she's not a Jewish woman, she's a widow and she's an outsider. 00:13:16.881 --> 00:13:27.562 And Jesus tells her story later on as if he's championing this woman like who's in the lowest of the low of the social ladder, and it almost gets Jesus killed. 00:13:27.562 --> 00:13:29.317 How about this? 00:13:29.317 --> 00:13:30.259 In Psalm, it says this. 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:37.980 The Psalmist writes this a father to the fatherless and a defender of the widows is God in his holy dwelling. 00:13:40.725 --> 00:13:56.515 By the way, I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not saying it fits your political party views, but if you are a disciple, a follower of Jesus, your job is to look out for people like this, for the widows, the fatherless, the poor and the oppressed. 00:13:56.515 --> 00:14:00.985 And I'm not saying there's a one-size-fits-all answer for how to respond to these kinds of things. 00:14:00.985 --> 00:14:02.873 It's complex social issues. 00:14:02.873 --> 00:14:05.354 But you should have your eyeballs on people like this. 00:14:05.354 --> 00:14:06.789 We should, as a church. 00:14:06.789 --> 00:14:11.136 These should be people that come in here and feel welcome here and your presence. 00:14:11.136 --> 00:14:12.990 They should feel welcome and belong a little bit. 00:14:12.990 --> 00:14:16.544 You should say hi to these people, At least know them by name. 00:14:16.544 --> 00:14:22.693 I remember Shane Claiborne once said I'm not afraid that Christians don't love the poor, I'm afraid that Christians don't even know the poor. 00:14:22.693 --> 00:14:28.631 So maybe we start there and we just get to know the poor or people like the widows in our midst. 00:14:29.807 --> 00:14:43.052 It's interesting because Mark gives all these details about the scribes, their robes, their presence, being greeted, their seats at the you know, at the banquets and at the synagogue, but he barely says anything about the widow other than, oh, she's poor. 00:14:43.052 --> 00:14:49.750 That's all he says, as if to say on the outside these guys have all these things and the widow's barely noticeable. 00:14:49.750 --> 00:14:56.352 In fact you might say she's nameless, she's kind of useless, and now she's penniless. 00:14:56.352 --> 00:14:58.090 She has no money to her name. 00:14:58.090 --> 00:15:04.269 It's almost as if in a world where these scribes matter, this woman doesn't matter at all. 00:15:04.269 --> 00:15:06.328 Like why is she even in there? 00:15:06.825 --> 00:15:11.231 Two little coins like the most useless, meaningless coins in all of circulation. 00:15:11.231 --> 00:15:12.215 Who cares? 00:15:12.215 --> 00:15:15.413 She doesn't seem to matter in any way. 00:15:15.413 --> 00:15:31.850 But Jesus sees her and says she gave more than anybody else because she gave all she had. 00:15:31.850 --> 00:15:34.476 That's all she had. 00:15:34.476 --> 00:15:36.711 Where'd my little coin go? 00:15:36.711 --> 00:15:37.554 I already lost it. 00:15:37.554 --> 00:15:40.745 By the way, these were worth less than a penny a long time ago. 00:15:40.745 --> 00:15:41.865 They're worth way more than that now. 00:15:41.865 --> 00:15:43.188 So I gotta be careful. 00:15:43.188 --> 00:15:45.196 I can't be losing this little tiny coin. 00:15:45.196 --> 00:15:52.264 That's all she had, and Jesus said she gave more because she gave all she had. 00:15:52.264 --> 00:16:03.096 It's as though she empties herself and pours her very self out to God and to the world as an offering with this tiny little coin. 00:16:04.067 --> 00:16:06.774 Do you ever notice how Jesus notices the smallest stuff? 00:16:06.774 --> 00:16:08.076 It's really weird. 00:16:08.076 --> 00:16:09.649 We don't often. 00:16:09.649 --> 00:16:13.855 We like big, flashy things, Las Vegas type things. 00:16:13.855 --> 00:16:25.030 We love Times Square fireworks, big bonfires, we love these kinds of things, but we don't often notice these small, insignificant, meaningless things. 00:16:25.030 --> 00:16:27.148 But Jesus does. 00:16:27.148 --> 00:16:34.652 He sees it and he notices her two tiny, insignificant, little tiny coins. 00:16:34.652 --> 00:16:37.769 He notices things that don't matter. 00:16:37.769 --> 00:16:42.735 In fact, this kingdom of God is built on things like this. 00:16:42.735 --> 00:16:51.258 They're small, ignorable, insignificant, almost meaningless things that don't matter. 00:16:51.258 --> 00:17:01.990 He's built an entire kingdom on Things like a mustard seed tiny little seed or a little bit of yeast Like pfft, you wouldn't even notice if I put it in there. 00:17:01.990 --> 00:17:08.092 A little bit of yeast or coins are so small, they're like, almost worthless. 00:17:08.092 --> 00:17:17.750 And children Jesus has left the little children come to me in a day and age when children were to be seen or not even seen or heard. 00:17:17.750 --> 00:17:22.470 They're ignorable, they don't matter, and Jesus will not bring them in. 00:17:22.470 --> 00:17:24.451 This is how I'm gonna build my kingdom. 00:17:24.451 --> 00:17:25.354 It's totally upside down. 00:17:25.354 --> 00:17:26.490 It's bizarre, it's strange. 00:17:27.184 --> 00:17:30.134 The smallest things, like this young lady over here. 00:17:30.134 --> 00:17:43.147 These things in the kingdom of God matter because God works through small things, things that you would think don't matter, Like that time you went and visited your friend in the hospital and you only had five minutes because you had to go to work. 00:17:43.147 --> 00:17:44.708 Like, I got five minutes. 00:17:44.708 --> 00:17:46.190 I don't know if it's gonna matter or not. 00:17:46.190 --> 00:17:49.305 Yeah, it matters. 00:17:49.305 --> 00:17:56.663 Or that time when you texted someone, you only had like I always text and just say, hey, I'm praying for you, and that thing mattered. 00:17:56.663 --> 00:17:57.266 It mattered. 00:17:57.266 --> 00:18:03.925 Or you know, when you brought your neighbor who you barely know a casserole because you knew that their mom died. 00:18:03.925 --> 00:18:05.486 I don't know I can bring a casserole. 00:18:05.486 --> 00:18:07.285 Yeah, those things matter. 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:13.944 This is a cheeky story, but when I was a little boy, I was like sixth grade and I was having a really hard week. 00:18:13.944 --> 00:18:17.182 I don't remember why, but I was having a really tough week and I was in class. 00:18:17.182 --> 00:18:19.308 My teacher was Mr Rorda, Randy Rorda. 00:18:19.308 --> 00:18:21.666 I tried to find him recently but I can't find him. 00:18:21.666 --> 00:18:23.787 But so if you see Randy Rorda around, let me know. 00:18:23.787 --> 00:18:37.444 But I was having a really bad day and I was like super quiet to stay in class and which is not like me, as you probably know and we were like lining up to leave class a day we're all gathered around the door and to wait for the bell to ring. 00:18:37.444 --> 00:18:40.246 And he could tell, I think, that I was having a rough week. 00:18:40.246 --> 00:18:58.731 And he like looked at me and there was like a bunch of kids around and he's like hey, and he reached in his pocket and he pulled out a dum-dum, a sucker, and he handed it to me, Not because I was a dum-dum although now maybe you're thinking twice about it, Maybe it was something like that but he handed it to me. 00:18:58.731 --> 00:19:00.384 He's like hey, I hope you're having a good day, man. 00:19:00.384 --> 00:19:09.786 I have no idea why he did that, but I do know I'm 44 years old and I've not forgotten that moment and how it brightened my day just a little bit. 00:19:12.119 --> 00:19:20.625 Jesus notices and in fact uses, builds his kingdom on the tiniest, most insignificant things that we think don't matter. 00:19:20.625 --> 00:19:24.490 And it turns out, in the flipping of the script, that they do matter. 00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:37.683 And this woman's little, tiny coin is a good gift that she offers, because she gives out of everything that she has and she pours her very self out as an offering to the world and to God. 00:19:37.683 --> 00:19:41.022 It's a good gift. 00:19:41.022 --> 00:19:43.319 By the way, there's a Greek word for this. 00:19:43.319 --> 00:19:44.766 It's called eukarosteo. 00:19:44.766 --> 00:19:46.244 Here it is in English. 00:19:46.244 --> 00:19:48.445 Everyone say eukarosteo. 00:19:48.445 --> 00:19:51.906 Eukarosteo means a good gift. 00:19:51.906 --> 00:19:54.246 You means good carousel. 00:19:54.246 --> 00:19:56.090 We get the word charisma. 00:19:56.090 --> 00:19:57.182 It means gift. 00:19:57.182 --> 00:20:01.750 So for you, young people, who the word res charisma? 00:20:01.750 --> 00:20:04.541 It means gift, you got gifts, you got gifts. 00:20:04.541 --> 00:20:09.590 Young man, young woman, Anyway, it's a good gift, or like good life or good grace. 00:20:10.180 --> 00:20:20.088 We often use it as an expression of thanksgiving, Eukarosteo, thanksgiving, thanks, and the early church picks up on this word and they use it to describe the communion meal. 00:20:20.088 --> 00:20:22.286 You might have heard it called the eukarist. 00:20:22.286 --> 00:20:29.023 Now, the eukarist is a meal that celebrates the death of Jesus, his body being broken, his blood being poured out. 00:20:29.023 --> 00:20:38.247 Why would the church, the early church, call Jesus' death, his body being broken in a violent way, his blood being shed all over the place? 00:20:38.247 --> 00:20:40.585 Why would they call that a good gift? 00:20:40.585 --> 00:20:45.666 Why call a horrific event a good gift? 00:20:45.666 --> 00:21:02.147 Because they believe that Jesus' body was broken and his blood poured out as a healing balm for the whole world, that somehow the work of Jesus on the cross was to bring healing to the whole world. 00:21:02.147 --> 00:21:05.567 Eukarosteo, it was indeed a good gift. 00:21:07.299 --> 00:21:09.788 Eukarosteo, by the way, 1 John. 00:21:09.788 --> 00:21:13.468 So John the apostle writes a letter called 1 John. 00:21:13.468 --> 00:21:14.785 Well, we call it 1 John. 00:21:14.785 --> 00:21:17.728 I don't know what he called it, a letter, perhaps. 00:21:17.728 --> 00:21:27.011 And anyway, he don't even know if I put this in my pocket, Katie, it's been through the washing machine one time already, I'm not kidding. 00:21:27.011 --> 00:21:30.169 So, anyway, he, what was I saying? 00:21:30.169 --> 00:21:30.641 Oh, 1 John. 00:21:30.641 --> 00:21:33.829 He says this this is how we know what love is. 00:21:33.829 --> 00:21:36.413 So I use this at weddings, like if you don't. 00:21:36.413 --> 00:21:39.288 If you want to know what love because we're confused about what love really is here's what it is. 00:21:39.288 --> 00:21:40.884 So get your pens and papers out. 00:21:40.884 --> 00:21:42.785 Here's what love looks like. 00:21:43.740 --> 00:21:50.609 That Jesus Christ came down and laid down his life for us, and now you ought to go and do the same thing. 00:21:50.609 --> 00:21:54.605 That's the part we often forget. 00:21:54.605 --> 00:22:06.960 This is discipleship you modeling your rabbi, Jesus in his death on the cross, who gave up his life for the healing of the whole world. 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:18.262 You and I are being invited into this movement of God the Father, Son and the Spirit we call it the Trinity, into this Trinitarian life of God which pours itself out for us. 00:22:18.262 --> 00:22:34.833 So there you go, we're being invited into this trinitarian action of God, offering up our very lives for the entire world, for the sake of the world, To bring a gift and offer it to God as contribution to the healing of the whole world. 00:22:34.833 --> 00:22:39.474 We're invited See, our lives are to be this Eucharist. 00:22:39.474 --> 00:22:52.605 Our lives should, and probably do, look like this a little bit your life is a Eucharist for the world. 00:22:52.605 --> 00:23:01.413 In response to the good gift of Jesus, we give our lives, we part our lives as an offering to God. 00:23:01.413 --> 00:23:11.215 Like the widow, we're to take part in the healing of the world, to save the world, to bless the world, to help bring healing and the healing balm to the world. 00:23:12.393 --> 00:23:13.565 I've got this guy that I work out with. 00:23:13.565 --> 00:23:38.048 I work out at a local gym here and he would notice how there's always teenagers at a certain time of day when he's working out there and they're always hogging all the machines and they're always chatting with their friends and they're always on their phones, not really working out at all, and they've got headphones in and they're just like, just generally getting in the way and he was always crabby about it and finally one day he's like you know what? 00:23:38.048 --> 00:23:40.214 I forget it, I'm just glad they're here. 00:23:40.214 --> 00:23:46.771 I'm going to try to change my attitude and just be a blessing to them and be good to them, because this guy was a Christian, by the way. 00:23:46.771 --> 00:23:49.174 I'm going to try to be good to them. 00:23:49.174 --> 00:23:50.605 So he starts doing this. 00:23:50.605 --> 00:23:53.605 I'm going to go up to him and start telling them good things about themselves. 00:23:53.605 --> 00:24:00.585 He would go up and like, excuse me, young man who's hogging the machine, Doing good, Good job, hey, keep coming back. 00:24:00.585 --> 00:24:01.829 He would walk away. 00:24:01.829 --> 00:24:11.512 All right, I like that you know what that is Doing, that you know what that is, Especially that young man who told good job. 00:24:11.532 --> 00:24:20.217 That's this Offering up your life to bless somebody else as a part of the healing of the world. 00:24:20.217 --> 00:24:23.605 Now you might be here this morning and you might feel like the widow. 00:24:23.605 --> 00:24:33.605 You might feel nameless or useless or utterly forgettable, Like you have no skill, no talent, no passion, Nothing to offer. 00:24:33.605 --> 00:24:41.605 And if you had anything to offer, it'd be about this big, totally forgettable, embarrassing even your little, tiny little gift. 00:24:41.605 --> 00:24:42.789 I got nothing to offer. 00:24:42.789 --> 00:24:59.545 Yeah, I hear you, but Jesus sees you and sees your tiny little gift and somehow, in this tiny little thing, is given. 00:24:59.545 --> 00:25:08.585 You're caught up into this beautiful movement of God and you're part of the healing of the world. 00:25:08.625 --> 00:25:14.605 So, mothers who raise their kids, who pour out their lives for their kids, that's a Eucharist. 00:25:14.605 --> 00:25:19.605 You're an offering to the world and a part of the healing of the world. 00:25:19.605 --> 00:25:29.605 That's what you do as a mom or a dad, A business leader, a CEO or a supervisor, when you care for your staff and your team. 00:25:29.605 --> 00:25:33.605 You buy them coffees or just say hello or create a good work environment. 00:25:33.605 --> 00:25:42.010 You're pouring your life out as a Eucharist and you're caught up in this beautiful movement of God who's healing the world, and you're part of that. 00:25:42.010 --> 00:25:46.159 Even your tiny little widows might be able to do that. 00:25:46.159 --> 00:25:49.113 Even your tiny little widows might. 00:25:49.113 --> 00:25:54.295 If you're a garbage collector and you keep our streets clean. 00:25:54.295 --> 00:26:03.050 Whether you think it or not, whether you know it or not, you're a part of the healing of the world and your little gift is sort of caught up in this beautiful movement of God. 00:26:03.050 --> 00:26:23.720 Teachers, professors, when you care for your students and you love on them and pray for them, even when they want to make you pull your eyes out, You're a part of the healing of the world, your gift, even that guy at Chipotle who creases my tortilla just right, perfectly. 00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:27.015 It's the healing of the world. 00:26:27.015 --> 00:26:33.605 I won't be at Chipotle all day when we change offices, but only because they open at 11. 00:26:33.605 --> 00:26:39.810 I got to work earlier than that Central Lutheran Church. 00:26:40.892 --> 00:26:51.557 May you know that God does and has always used the tiniest things to build His kingdom, Things relegated to the upper echelons of forgetfulness. 00:26:51.557 --> 00:26:52.662 He likes those things. 00:26:52.662 --> 00:26:53.585 I want that one. 00:26:53.585 --> 00:26:55.790 Give me that loser over there. 00:26:55.790 --> 00:26:56.472 I want that one. 00:26:56.472 --> 00:26:57.336 That's what I want. 00:26:57.336 --> 00:27:00.394 I'm going to use that one just to mess with everybody. 00:27:00.394 --> 00:27:04.773 We're all losers, by the way, which is the good news of the cross. 00:27:04.773 --> 00:27:05.154 I love it. 00:27:05.154 --> 00:27:07.593 That's some Lutheran theology for you. 00:27:07.593 --> 00:27:12.605 God loves those things and he sees them in a world where no one sees them. 00:27:12.605 --> 00:27:14.753 He sees them and uses them. 00:27:14.753 --> 00:27:17.605 So today, may you know that you are a Eucharist. 00:27:17.605 --> 00:27:23.605 Your life can be a Eucharist in the response to the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. 00:27:23.605 --> 00:27:35.585 May your discipleship be like this and may your gift, your Eucharist, be caught up in the action of God, and may it heal the world. 00:27:35.585 --> 00:27:37.309 Amen.