Mark No.21 Making the mite mighty

We're going to read first of all from the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 8. And now brothers and sisters we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability.

Entirely on their own they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Saints. And they did not do as we expected but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will. So we urged Titus since he had earlier made a beginning to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part.

But just as you excel in everything in faith in speech in knowledge in complete earnestness and in your love for us see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I'm not commanding you but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich.

And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it according to your means.

For if the willingness is there the gift is acceptable according to what one has not according to what he does not have. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard-pressed but there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.

Then there will be equality as it is written he that gathereth much did not have too much and he that gathered little did not have too little. Now in Mark chapter 12 verse 41 Mark 12 41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowds putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts but a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a fraction of a penny.

Calling his disciples to him Jesus said I tell you the truth this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others they all gave out of their wealth but she out of her poverty put in everything let me read that again they all gave out of their wealth but she out of her poverty put in everything all she had to live on. God will bless the public reading of his word. To do what you do.

O Lord give me an undivided heart. O Lord give me an unrelenting mind to seek your face. O Lord give me an undefeated faith to see victory in all that I do.

To worship in spirit and truth. To see less of me and much more of you. O Lord give me an undivided heart.

O Lord give me an undivided heart. Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee. Take my moments and my days.

Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my silver and my gold. Not of might would I withhold.

Take my intellect and use every power that thou shalt choose. Take my will and make it thine. It shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart, it is thine own. It shall be thy royal throne. Take my love, my Lord, my poor.

At my feet it's treasure store. Take myself and I will be ever holy. Let's also look at a psalm.

If you keep your finger open at Mark 12, let's turn to Psalm 40 and verse 17. Psalm 40 verse 17. Let's read that out together shall we.

Just the first two lines. Psalm 40 verse 17. Yet I am poor and needy, may the Lord think of me.

Let's just reflect on that a moment. Let's read it again. Not the second two lines, the first two.

Yet I am poor and needy, may the Lord think of me. Now it may not apply. I mean, that is literally speaking, the poverty may not apply.

It may do for one or two people here, but not for the vast majority, not relative to the way our world lives. But there is a spiritual poverty, and it may well be that you identify with that. And there is a sense that we're all needy, we all fall short of what God wants us to be, therefore we need particular blessings and particular correctives from him.

And certainly the last part is the desire of all our hearts, or else you'd hardly be here, would you? May the Lord think of me. And I want to say that he does. I want to tell you in his name that the day has never dawned when you were out of his surveillance.

I don't care where you've been or what you've done, however embarrassed you think the Lord might be having you in his company. The fact is that you are in the Lord's surveillance. He has you in his sights.

More of that in a moment. I'd like to shift the title of the address that I want to bring this morning, and I want to make a play on two words. Making the might mighty.

The first might, M-I-T-E. The second mighty, M-I-G-H-T-Y. Making the might mighty.

You may be old, you may be young, you may feel yourself insignificant, tongue-tied, and that as far as life is concerned, let alone the kingdom of God is concerned, your contribution is so minuscule. I want to speak about the minuscule offering that God can make mighty by his grace. People thought that one of the attributes of God is his generosity.

I've got a number of theological tomes in my library which purport to be a summary of the teaching of this book in regard to the character of God. And I've always felt that each of those systematic theologies are deficient in the one respect that they do not acknowledge as an attribute of God, a dominant characteristic of God, his sovereignty, his generosity. And yet, this is part and parcel of his nature.

Daily he loads our souls with blessings. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father above. Now, if I'm right in believing, and you'll see how all this will tie up in a moment or two, if I'm right in believing that God is generous and that Christian people who have responded to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ are partakers of Jesus' nature, that means to say that the generosity that you find in the Godhead should be, must be, reflected in you and me.

You can test yourself as we work through our passage this morning as to how true that is to your experience, to your discipleship. Sometimes when I'm in Chichester or one of the cathedral towns, if I can get off shopping, I'll nip into the cathedral, and particularly if it's around Evensong, and I'll go and listen. I love the Evensong service in the Anglican community, and I love being in cathedrals.

Now, one of the things about cathedrals that attract me is that they're a mixture of dark and light. I mean, the light is deliberately focused through stained glass windows, and either side of the stained glass window there is a shadow, there are the somber patches of grey and blackness. Quite deliberate on the part of the architect, because he wants to stand out.

The light to shine, he wants to underline, he wants for the light that comes through the stained glass window to be so brilliant that the stained glass window and the picture it represents is what catches your attention. Now, isn't it interesting that in this twelfth chapter of Mark's Gospel, right at the end of a very somber passage of Scripture, there's a stained glass window. There is light that shines through.

When you move into the thirteenth chapter, you're back again into the drab colours of judgement and the prediction of terrible things that are going to come to this world. So here, I argue, in these final four or five verses, at the end of Mark 12, you get, in effect, the stained glass window. Here is our beloved Lord.

Let me sketch you in, in case you've lost me, or you weren't present last week. Let me sketch you in on his itinerary. He's in Jerusalem, and he's had a pretty difficult time.

He's in the temple area, and a number of men have come, and they've put questions to him, and with great subtlety they've tested him. They want to embarrass him. They want to ridicule him.

They want to make him so vulnerable that the religious and political authorities will have reason to arrest him and to do him to death. It's treachery. It's bleakness.

The somber colours, they're all there in those first thirty, nine, forty odd verses. And then, and then you find that our beloved Lord does something that he seems to practice in the temple. For if you check in John's Gospel in the eighth chapter, you'll find him doing exactly the same thing.

And that is, he goes into the court of the women. There are several courts in this complicated structure which we call the temple. And the court of the women, well, between the Gentile court and the court of the women, there's a gate, the gate called Beautiful.

And it seems as though our Saviour sits there, and he's got people under surveillance. He's watching what happens. Desmond Morris is a name that comes to mind in terms of someone who studies human behaviour.

I very infrequently agree with him. But here is our beloved Lord, and he's a master at assessing human nature. He seems to be attracted to people.

And so, after all the traps that have been set for him in the earlier part of the day, he comes to the gate Beautiful, and he sits down in the court of the women. And just over there, there are thirteen receptacles. If you like, it's the offeratory.

They're shaped in the form of trumpets. And the monies that are placed there are specifically for the work of the temple and the priests and the poor. And our Lord is attracted to what is happening.

Verse 41, Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd. You see, he has them in surveillance, as he has you in his sights. Though I am poor and needy, the Lord thinks of me.

There's something that happens on this occasion that is both topical and typical. You see, there's a link between what you find here and the darkness of the preceding passage. I mean, look at verse 40.

Don't miss the connection. There is reference made to religious leaders who exploit the widow. And anyone who exploits the widow or the orphan or does not try to improve the impoverished lot of people in society who are in unfortunate circumstances, they are called culpable by God.

And Jesus puts this piece of criticism towards those who should have known better. They devour widows' houses. But here is Jesus now by the gate, beautiful.

And he watches the crowd and he sees a poor widow. And our Lord is going to teach you something. A lesson that if you're sensitive, you will never forget.

And that is never to call unimportant the one that God recognizes as being important. And don't think that your charismatic superstars, your Sadducees and your Pharisees and your preachers are necessarily the pillars of the church, the most important people in the kingdom. You see, Jesus comes to the temple, and the temple is Father's house.

Jesus comes on behalf of Father to see what is happening in Father's house. And he has to criticize people who have been exploiting the unfortunate. And he sees a widow woman coming across the court of the women.

And in her hands, she has two mites, two farthings, the smallest coin obtainable. One four hundredth of a Jewish shekel. Almost without any value whatsoever.

Now again, there's a link, you see. There always is in the teaching of our Lord. And these narratives, they're not put together in a hildi-pildi fashion.

There's cohesion, that's the reason for expounding scripture verse by verse and chapter by chapter. You see, Jesus before has been arrested by the, I use that word metaphorically, his attention has been arrested by those who've come to him in a conniving fashion to trap him. Money, should we pay taxes to Caesar? You remember the subtlety of the question I put to you last week? And our Lord has this sublime reply that silences them, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.

Now here's a woman, a certain widow woman. And she brings to God the things that are God's. And Jesus recognizes the significance.

Another question, perhaps put less subtly to our Lord in that dark passage of the scripture of this chapter, was the commandments. Which is the greatest commandment? And Jesus replies, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And your neighbor is yourself.

The trumpet-shaped offertory. To where does some of the money go? And the answer is, to the poor. So here is a poor woman who becomes a benefactor.

And the beneficiaries will also be those who are poor. And Jesus notices this woman. Who was she? Who is this woman who renders to God the things that are God's and has a concern and a compassion for people in similar circumstances to herself? And the answer is, I don't know.

And I reckon she's anonymous for a thousand reasons. I see her as a Romanian peasant. I see her as one of the hundreds of elderly women.

Who eke their existence in the most disagreeable and disgusting circumstances you can imagine. In Bombay or Ahmedabad. I see within her this representative of true spirituality.

Who can realize that despite the fact she is at the human level insignificant, there is a God in heaven? Who is concerned about her religious disciplines and the expression of her love shown to him in two mites? And I think of all the women and of all the men who live in poverty-stricken conditions. And thank God that when the Christ was in the temple, he recognizes this piece of service as being sterling. And our Lord will take those copper mites and kiss them.

And with his kiss he will turn them into gold. For when you give to God, you are not just donating to the Rotary Club. No disrespect.

When you give to God, you are engaging in a sacramental act of worship you are giving yourself. For this is what this woman in effect was doing. She put in everything.

If the bread and the wine that we took earlier bespeak the body and the blood of Christ, then isn't it true to say that what we give to God in the material sense bespeaks ourselves? Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Not the easiest song to sing. This lady believed that she got something to contribute.

And she was right. You see, Jesus deliberately sat there in order to see what was going on. As I mentioned in John's Gospel 8 and verse 20, he's there it seems by habit.

He carefully selected the place and he carefully watched what was happening. There's another lady whose story is in Scripture and she was at one level insignificant, but becomes significant because of God's hand upon her. I refer to Hannah.

And in her prayer in the first chapter, in the first book of Samuel, in the second chapter, she says this in the third verse. Do not keep talking proudly. Do not let your mouth speak arrogance.

For the Lord is a God who knows and by him deeds are weighed. God does not count your gifts. He weighs them.

The financial department of the tab, no disrespect to them, they count. God weighs. You see, the Lord has come to his temple.

He's a treasurer. For every good and perfect gift comes from him and what you give is his own. You return it to him.

And so he doesn't just account at the human level, the mathematical level. He weighs. I don't know whether they do this because I don't regularly buy it, occasionally on a Saturday because I like its book review, but in the Telegraph they used to report people who when they died left over £100,000 plus.

Maybe the stakes are higher now. Unless you've got to that level, it's not really worth recording your estate. I found it somewhat disagreeable on one occasion when I was in Tanzania at an African conference.

There were many thousands of people who came and they were trying to, and I'm not being critical of them, but I must tell you what it was like when the rubber touched the road in terms of their giving. When they came to the offering, the people who gave munificently, the people who gave large gifts, who brought in great bundles of sugar cane or bequeathed a couple of goats or what have you, their contribution was registered and read out to the whole assembly who would clap because, well, the bishop wanted them to clap. And it was a good African celebration.

But I was wondering about the African widow woman with her two mites. How would she have got in? And the answer is she wouldn't. But when God was assessing who was making the greatest contribution, then maybe the statistical charts would have looked a little different if you'd looked over his shoulder.

Come back to our beloved Lord and what do you discover? Well, he's observing, or rather let us observe his observing because that's what he does. Let's observe him observing because I'm suggesting that our Lord Jesus not only physically did that on this occasion, he is spiritually but nonetheless realistically engaged in the same performance at this moment. He is observing you.

So observe him observing. Go on further if you can follow the logic. Consider him as he observes a woman who thinks she is unobserved.

Not so? I mean, she doesn't know that, so to speak, our Lord has got his binoculars on her. She's completely unaware. In other words, she isn't doing this for an audience.

Now, in a different passage of Scripture, you discover a completely different scenario. The same location, but the idea of giving is so much more hyped up. The trumpets blare as these mega-rich worshippers come and as they ostentatiously and publicly pour in their shekels.

They're playing to the gallery, but there is no gallery to play to. He is observing someone who feels that she is unobserved and probably doesn't think there's any reason to observe her in any case. She's so utterly unimportant.

You know, it's doubtful that she ever knew what happened on that occasion. I mean, there's no record, is there, that Jesus came up to her afterwards and said, congratulations. I mean, she went on her own sweet way.

Maybe she got some more months or years to go in her penury, in her poverty-stricken condition. And she only knew that she had been observed when she slipped out of this world and entered into the day on which the sun never dawns. At least, the sun never sets.

And the beloved Lord showed that her copper had been bejeweled. Diamonds, the ordinary that seemed to lack luster, had been made incredibly precious. But our Lord not only observes a person who thinks that she is unobserved, he assesses what she does and finds it so important he has to summon the men that he's teaching.

Because when our Lord is moving around the temple area in his entourage or the disciples, he's always teaching. And so he says, hey fellas, come and look at this. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, and now he uses his dominical authority.

It doesn't come out so well in the NIV version. This is a verily, verily. This is our Lord Jesus, amen, amening.

Here is our Lord setting down authoritatively a principle which cannot be contested in time nor in eternity. I tell you the truth. This, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

He has a right to make that distinction. I repeat, the treasurer has come to the temple and he's come not to count, but to weigh. And he does that today.

There's a word here that haunts some of us, but I must, because I want to be true to scripture, pull it out and hoist it in front of you. They all gave out of their wealth. Better translation.

They gave of their superfluity. What does that mean? It means that they gave from that area which did not really cost them a great deal because they could have done without it. On the other hand, this woman, when she comes on this particular occasion, maybe she doesn't always act in this fashion, but she has this love relationship with Jehovah God that she feels it is right to give her two mites, that is her all.

The gift that comes out of penury is not easy. But the interesting thing is that our Lord Jesus, in making this assessment, does not then subsequently make any qualification whatsoever. So now I want to shock you and deal with the logic of our Savior at a business level, and I don't apologize for so doing.

I mean, He is the gentle Jesus, and maybe now we feel that He's just being meek and mild and somewhat patronizing to this elderly widow woman. So, men and women, those of you who are accountants, those of you who are business people, let me approach it from your profession. Was Jesus just being patronizing? Is it really the case that she has given more than all the others put together? And the answer is that what she did, in what she considered to be an unobserved manner on that particular late afternoon, has stimulated so many people that millions of shekels and dollars and sterling have been poured into the kingdom as a result of the fidelity of this unknown woman.

Isn't that the case? I mean, all of us are feeling uncomfortable at this moment, including the preacher. I mean, this sort of passage, it does hurt. It gets you really in the very vitals of your own life and lifestyle.

And one of the reasons why we give is as a reaction to the utter generosity of this selfless, unnamed, but highly significant woman. And here is our Lord who's dealt with the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Herodians. He's dealt with the political people.

He's dealt with the religious people. And when the Lord comes to His temple and singles out someone who shall be congratulated, He takes this unnamed, anonymous woman and says, She has put in everything she had. And in eternity, she's still being surprised.

Because the repercussions of what she did then are living on now. Aren't they? I mean, think it through logically. Jesus was being kind, of course, but He wasn't being patronizing.

And you can deal with this not only spiritually, but also literally and logically. This woman, again, engaged in a cumulative giving, inasmuch as she stimulated so many others. So let's try and bring some conclusions.

Giving, to be real, needs to be, in some measure, sacrificial. Giving, to be real, will sometimes involve recklessness. Giving, to be real, will on occasions involve risk.

Those of you who know me most will forgive this personal comment, but it's very hard to handle these things without being personal. Because I moved around perhaps more than many pastors in recent years, being involved in a number of mission situations. I've known what it's been to have to check mission societies and check myself.

And sometimes confess that some of the projects engaged in have not quite delivered the goods that were intended at the promotion of that particular scheme. There were times, for example, in India when we've had to return money to donors as a result of the Maharashtra earthquake, when it was hoped that the organization with which I was working might be able to deflect thousands of pounds into the state. But the army went in and there was no possibility of charitable work at all.

And so I had, as a director of this particular organization, to say, we must refund this money. There are times, and are times, when missions get it wrong in terms of their projects. They can't always see the way the cookie will crumble, to quote American expression, and make our American people feel at home.

When Doulos was in Eastern Europe, we lost thousands. As a result of not being able to engage in the program in Bulgaria and Romania, as we anticipated. With hindsight, perhaps we could have plotted it differently, but we didn't have the hindsight.

We had to run with the situation as it was. And take the risks. Now, isn't it interesting that part of this money that this woman gives is for the poor, yes, but part of the money is to sustain the work of the temple.

And yet, read the next chapter and Jesus is saying, hey, you know this temple, it's going to fall down. That didn't make him very popular, incidentally, when he said that, but he was quite correct. But he didn't go across to this woman and say, now don't give your two mites there, go down to the Salvation Army down the road and give it to them, because they'll handle it better and my blessing is upon their work.

The responsibility for the application of finances may not be yours. And sometimes the people who handle it will get it wrong, and very often with the best intentions, because they're dealing with an uncertain situation politically, especially in mission countries and third world countries. But the responsibility to give is still yours, freely we have received, freely therefore we give.

You know, I wished over the years I could say that I'd served him the most, or I'd served him better than I have, I refer to the Lord. But one thing I can tell you over the years, and coming into this pulpit and preaching from this book, is that I have never failed to be more and more fascinated by the sensitivity of Jesus. You say, why do you say that in conclusion? Well, I mean, here he's been giving this great teaching, he's put to flight the political party, he's corrected the materialists, he's corrected the orthodox religious, and then in the next chapter he's going to deal with the collapse of the temple and the dispersion of the Jews and the judgment of God, and speaking personally, just round the corner he's going to be arrested after the betrayal, and he's going to be treated like a common criminal, they're going to do him to death in the most damnable fashion that man has ever invented to rob another of life.

And yet, he takes time out to point to his disciples and say, hey, look at this, here's something, fellows, that you must not miss. Here is a certain widow woman who in the days of faithlessness and religious cynicism, her example is so par excellence I want you to see it. You see, it's a stained glass window and the light is flooding through those final verses of Mark 12, it really is wonderful.

That's why I started back in Psalm 40, though I am poor and needy, authorised version puts it more strongly, the Lord thinks on me. And he does, because you do count on whatever you offer, proportionate to what you have to give, he weighs, may you constantly be aware that in God's sight you are precious and you have a ministry. And as this woman in heaven would have been astonished at what was a follow-up of her faithful action, may it be that in heaven you will be astonished at what God wrought through your simple, commoner garden faithfulness.

God can make the might mighty. Let's pray. Lord, we're amazed.

Your sensitivity just overwhelms us. Not a kindly action goes unregistered on the computers of heaven. And you never call anyone common.

For you've made the possibility for everyone to be special. We praise you that you tuck this story into the book so that none can accuse the preacher of being sentimental. For you allocated space, both in this gospel and also Luke's gospel, and gave many parallel events to affirm what has been shared this morning.

Help us in our giving. Of time and talent and finance. To do so in a way that reflects the spirit of this woman.

And help us not just to benefit by her example, but help us to benefit by the fact that Jesus saw, Jesus cared, and the Lord Jesus made his assessment. Lord Christ, may we do something beautiful for you in our lives, all our days, until the final day, dawns when the sun never sets, and we look into your face. Amen.

Let's stand and sing. King of my nation, Lord of my heart, love me, Lord, else to me strain and throb. Thou my breadstorm, by day or by night.

Bring me, Lord, sleep in thy presence my light. King of my nation. you