CLICK HERE for a worship video for November 10
Sermon for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – November 10, 2024
Psalm 146, Mark 12:38-44
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
In our psalm today it says, “Do not put your trust in princes.” Kind of a timely bit of scripture after a big election, huh? “Princes” is a poetic way of referring to all governing authorities, and we just elected a bunch of new ones to all kinds of offices, right? I hasten to point out that we follow the lectionary – a schedule of assigned readings for each Sunday in the church year. I didn’t pick it! Our cantor didn’t pick it! It was assigned for this day, and I’m certain that not even the crafters of the lectionary purposefully intended for it to be heard on the first Sunday after a big election. It must be a coincidence then, right? Or maybe, as some have suggested, a “coincidence” is God winking at us.
“Do not put your trust in princes,” God tells us. This does not mean we are to hold our public officials in contempt. It doesn’t mean they are inherently untrustworthy. This verse is not encouraging us all to become cynical or bitter. While we should absolutely hold all our public officials accountable, this verse is about something bigger. It is about where we put our faith. The psalm is set up in such a way that we are taught to not put our trust in governing authorities as the source of our deepest needs and our greatest hopes. We are to place our trust in God. We are taught in this psalm to place our trust in God by way of contrast: “In mortals there is no certainty,” it says. In God there is certainty – so put your trust, put your faith there! Princes are temporary, God is eternal – so put your faith in God! The plans of princes always ultimately perish, while God’s Word endures forever – so put your trust in his Word.
We are in an interesting position here in Washington state after the election in that probably nobody is super thrilled about all the results. No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on, there is cause for celebration and cause for lament.
Some are happy about the governor-elect here in Washington state and lamenting the president-elect headed for Washington DC, while others are happy about the president-elect and lamenting the governor-elect.
I don’t want to sound like I’m shaming anyone for being happy about one set of results or the other. That’s your prerogative and I have no problem with it either way. I also don’t want to sound like I’m scolding anyone for being upset about one set of results or the other. That too is your prerogative.
But what I do want to say to everyone this morning is that these public servants, whether it is the governor-elect or the president-elect, are neither the Great Satan you fear, nor are they the savior you long for. They may do things you like or don’t like. They may govern well or poorly. Their work is important and consequential and as citizens you should be involved in the issues in accordance with your Word-informed and Spirit-guided conscience.
But God’s Word, given through the psalmist, is clear: “Do not put your trust in princes.” That is to say, do not put your faith in them. They are neither your greatest enemy nor your greatest hope. As St. Paul reminds us in Ephesians, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against forces of cosmic darkness, against spiritual forces of evil – so put your faith in God alone. Entrust your life to God alone.
We have a beautiful example of completely entrusting one’s life to God in our gospel reading for today, and like the psalm it comes by way of contrast.
On the one hand you have the scribes. Jesus warned the people about the scribes. The scribes had a technical skill that few others had. They could read and write. This is why they are called scribes – they dealt with words. Reading and writing was a special technical skill at this time, not unlike writing code for computer programs today. The scribes were masters of the written word, which was an emerging skill at that time, one that was handsomely rewarded.
The scribes often dealt with scripture, and so they were what we might refer to as bible scholars, but because of this highly technical skill they also dealt with all kinds of other documents, such as estates and wills and contracts. And so the scribes were part bible scholar, part lawyer, part government official. This made many of them quite wealthy – sometimes through legitimate work, but often by taking advantage of widows who couldn’t read what they were signing.
The scribes liked to walk around in the long dress robes that identified them as part of the elites. They loved to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces as part of the upper class. They loved having the best seats in the synagogue and places of honor at banquets. They made a big show of their supposed religiosity by saying long prayers, turning prayer into the ultimate virtue-signal.
The scribes were among the rich people Jesus observed putting large sums into the temple treasury. But Jesus wasn’t impressed with their large sums. He wasn’t impressed with the amount. They were giving out of their abundance, Jesus said.
Proportionally, it was chump change to them. Despite the large sums and the displays of religiosity, the scribes and their rich friends had placed their faith in something other than God. They were placing it in their status, in their cultural power, in their popularity, in their bank accounts. They did place large sums into the treasury, but it meant little.
On the other hand, we have a poor widow. She had two small copper coins, barely worth a penny. This was all she had, all she had to live on. The fact that she had two coins is relevant here, because it tells us she had the opportunity to keep something back for herself. She could potentially have only given half of what she had. But she gave both coins. She gave everything she had.
This poor woman is often held up as an example of stewardship. She is often trotted out during stewardship campaigns as some kind of mascot for sacrificial giving. I really question this, because it can sometimes sound like we expect people to sign over every last penny to the church like she did – and we don’t! There was a whole monastic tradition in medieval Christianity with literal vows of poverty which the Lutheran reformers ultimately rejected. We are to be disciplined and sacrificial and proportional and generous in our giving to the church, to be sure, but as Luther teaches in the catechism, God gives us resources to support our lives in this world. God knows we need to use much of the resources entrusted to us to live on, to support ourselves and our families.
This dear widow deserves better than to be treated as a mascot for stewardship campaigns. She means more than this. She is not just an example of stewardship; she is an example of faith! She isn’t just praised for the amount she has given; she is praised by Jesus for what it represents. It represents her complete and utter trust in God. She has not placed her trust in herself, or her status, or her wealth. She has not placed her trust in princes. She has placed her trust in God. She has placed her life entirely in God’s hands.
I spent the very, very early hours of Election Day in the home of some of our members. As many of you know by now, our brother in Christ and OHLC’s official BBQ pitmaster Roger died. I got the call at about 1:30am on Election Day and went to be with the family. The sheriff’s chaplain was there for a while too and while we were making small talk, he mentioned that law enforcement and the funeral home had been involved earlier that night with the procession for the remains of Lieutentant Serena Wileman, who died when her plane crashed near Mount Rainier in a training accident. When I drove home in the wee small hours of Election Day, who would win what office later that day was the furthest thing from my mind.
I don’t mean to suggest that I am somehow above caring about the election, about politics, about state-wide and national issues. I do, and by the end of the day I was watching returns like everyone else. But starting Election Day the way I did certainly gave some perspective about it all: Life is so fragile, so fleeting. All of this is so temporary. There are so many things that are completely out of our hands, out of our control. What happens in either Washington state or Washington DC is important, but it seems so small from the perspective of eternity, from the perspective of God’s providence and promises.
God’s Word gives all of us some perspective today. “Do not put your trust in princes,” God tells us through the psalmist. “In mortals there is no certainty. When their breath leaves their body they return to dust, and all of their plans perish with them.” This isn’t cynicism or bitterness. It certainly isn’t resignation or despair. Instead, it is steering our trust to where it belongs. It is pushing us to place our trust where it is supposed to be. And trust, well-placed, leads to praise! As the psalm continues: “Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live! Praise the Lord, O my soul! All my life I’ll sing praises to God! Happy are the ones who trust Him, the architect of heaven and earth.”
God doesn’t just want your coins. He wants your whole life. He wants you to entrust your whole life to him. The poor widow is more than an example for us to follow. She is a reflection of Christ himself, who gave everything he had, including his life, so that you could live with God forever. He alone is the savior you long for. He alone is the savior you need. Put your trust in him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church