TRUST FALL

A Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
November 12, 2006
Pastor Laura Gentry

Mark 12:38-44
As he taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation." He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." (New Revised Standard Version)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Many camps offer a high ropes or low ropes course, both offer physical exercises that aid in team building efforts. One of those exercises is called the trust fall. Participants stand on a stump, sometimes as high as six feet in the air, and crossing their arms over their chest and wearing a blindfold, fall backwards into the arms of their teammates. As you can tell, “trust fall” is a very good name for it because that’s exactly what happens—you must trust that you will be caught when you fall. You place your entire well-being in their hands.

I think of the trust fall when I think of this morning’s Gospel story of the widow’s mite. Here was a woman who was widowed and poor. In those days, women could not own property or work for a living so she had to depend upon charity to get by. And she was down to her last two copper coins. To this day, this is all that we know about her. She was a woman of great faith. In fact, she became an object lesson, a living sermon for Jesus. She remains an icon of faith as she was able to “trust fall” into God’s arms.

This unnamed woman is known only by her marital status and her coins rather than her name, since the story is simply called the “widow’s mite.” She is the widow who had nothing but two small coins. I remember reenacting this story in Sunday school and the teacher gave the “widow” actress two pennies to put into the Sunday school bank. But in actuality, the widows coins weren’t even worth that much. Their value was one four-hundredth of a shekel—about an eighth of a penny each. Too small to bear a legible imprint, they were the ugliest little coins in the empire of Rome.

Mark doesn’t tell us much about what’s going on in this scene. We know that Jesus has been teaching in the temple courts. Now, on his way out, he pauses by the treasury to watch as offerings are made. Each person would walk up to one of the thirteen trumpet-shaped receptacles, which were lined along the wall of the Court of the Women. Both men and women were allowed in this courtyard of the temple, but the women could not go any further. The treasury was in this courtyard and it is opposite this treasury that Jesus watched as people came up and offered their money. Each person was expected to say aloud the amount and purpose of the gift in order to be heard by the priest overseeing the collections.

It would have been an impressive sight to see people in fine clothes with their fancy rings tossing in large sums, calling out to all how much they gave. And in such a group, who would notice the widow tossing the two smallest coins in the realm into the offering? Yet, in a move that is so like him, Jesus notices and calls attention to her act of faith.

Jesus has found his sermon illustration, so calls his disciples together for a little sermon. He says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Jesus knows that these are not just any two coins, they are the woman’s last two coins. The text says, “All she had to live on,” but the Greek is more shocking. What is really said is that she put in her “bios.” It’s the word from which we get biology—the study of life. Jesus tells us that the widow put her “life” into the temple treasury that day. It wasn’t just coins, it was her very life she offered God.

This is not a sermon about tithing, for the woman did not give ten percent of her income. These were her last two coins to rub together, and rather than keep one back, she tossed both into the temple treasury’s coffers. The widow gave 100 percent of her money. The widow is down to two worthless coins, and she trusts it all to God. If this were a gamble, then the widow would be laying all her money on God. But it is not a gamble, it is trust. She “trust falls” into the arms of a God she trusts entirely.

It would be nice if Mark filled in more details for us. Was Jesus’ arm around the woman as he said, “This poor widow has put in more …” or was the woman blending back into the crowd, never to be seen again? Or perhaps Jesus asked his own keeper of the purse, Judas Iscariot, to give something to this woman so that she would not go hungry that evening. Perhaps the widow became a follower of Jesus. Did she join with the other women who journeyed with Jesus and the disciples from Galilee to the cross and then went on to share the good news?

The Gospel never answers these questions. The nameless widow who gave two small coins fades into the background. It would be wonderful if we knew her name. We could name churches, schools, and charities in her honor. But perhaps namelessness is appropriate for this living parable. And maybe it is best, too, that we don’t find out how her story ends. The nameless woman whose ultimate fate we never know is perhaps an even better icon of trust, for her story was a precarious one. She went to the temple that day not knowing if she would ever have another meal.

And yet, in facing an uncertain future, the widow reached out to God. She trusted that if she gave everything she had to God, even the little she gave would be honored. And whether she was repaid handsomely by Jesus himself, or God cared for her in some other way, we, too, have to trust. We trust that the widow’s story turned out all right, that she was right to allow herself to fall into grace. We trust that no matter what happened, she was God’s.

And by her example, Jesus shows that what we withhold matters more than what we offer. The widow was a woman of great faith, who held nothing back. She knew what Jesus’ disciples were just beginning to learn: we are to give, knowing that everything we have is God’s already. We can’t give God anything. But we can offer our very selves to the Kingdom of God, holding nothing back.

Do we even know what it means to trust fall into God’s arms? Do we give ourselves completely to anything, let along God? The theologian Soren Kierkegaard (whose grave I recently saw in Denmark), explained that God’s grace in Jesus Christ is entirely free, but it costs us everything because we must take the leap of faith. We must trust God with our whole lives. Being a disciple of Jesus is a serious endeavor. It is costly discipleship.

Today, we are receiving new members and it is exciting to have them join with us in our effort to lead faithful lives. It is not easy to trust fall. Not easy at all. And so we need one another in this important mission. We pray for our new members: that they can inspire us and we can inspire them. And together, we can come closer to the faith of this humble widow who placed her whole life back in her loving creator’s hands. Amen.

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2006