Inside Out
Pentecost 25 Proper 27
November 10, 2024
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today’s Gospel lays out a stark contrast in two observations Jesus makes, and both are about façades and his knowing what lies beneath a person’s exterior – the face they show to the world.
On the one hand, we see the scribes, the keepers of the law, who have a high position in society. Then, as now, with high position comes great temptation for a hardening of the spirit, learning to love the trappings of position, and inwardly scheming for personal gain regardless of the cost to others. That’s the truth.
Surely that issue of power and position doesn’t apply directly to us! Let’s see…long robes. Check. Like to be greeted with respect. Check. Best seats in church. Check. Kind of like the choir? Or me? Deacon John?
No matter who we are, we all do our best to present an acceptable façade to each other. And we all live with an uneasy compromise with sin. 1 John 1:8 (p. 1021 in your pew Bibles.) “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”1 John 1:8
The Lord has made provision for this through his atoning death on the cross. Our baptism by water and the spirit invites us to live in faith which, by grace, covers the debt for our sin IF we repent. John goes on to say, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:9-10)
The Church makes provision for this in our liturgy. We hear the word of God, complete with a sermon, confess our faith in the Creed, and pray the prayers of the people. Then, before we approach his table, we confess our sins. I’d like to call your attention to a little phrase in the confession: by (in) thought, word and deed.
Everything about us is open unto God. It is not merely a matter of acknowledging the façade – our word and deed observable to the people around us.
In thought jumps behind the façade to acknowledge before God what is going on inside us. That is critically important because everything we do on the outside flows from within. Sin percolating on the inside will either affect our words and deeds, and to the extent we hide it, it festers like a wound.
All of it is painfully open and bare before God. Jesus reads those scribes like an open book. It isn’t speculation. He knows about them and he knows about us. He already knows about our sinful thoughts, words and deeds. He wants us to admit them as a necessary step toward healing. Just like a parent knows what the child has done but wants them to own it.
This same principle applies with the widow, only in reverse. Her façade is weak. She is old. She is poor. She has only a couple of small copper coins to give. By all reason, her little gift would not matter at all to the temple. But Jesus sees through her façade as well. Her gift reflects her absolute faithfulness to God. That’s the truth.
This is a fundamental point of stewardship. Our annual pledge campaign is deeply driven by the vision and mission of this church. We do our best to discern and articulate it and carry it forward, forming Christians and doing ministry within and outside the church.
But the bigger issue for each of us is our relationship with the Lord. Scripture tells us to meet the standard of tithing 10% as a discipline. If we aren’t there, we should work toward it. Some may have a spiritual gift and capacity to do more than that.
The heart of giving, cheerful giving, is illustrated in that widow’s example. Her gift is from her heart. She trusts the Lord. Maybe she’s inspired by the widow of Zarephath, who wasn’t even a Jew yet saw the reality of God’s love as the meal and the oil lasting until the rains came and the crops could grow again.
I’d like to share with you a reflection by an early Church Father under the name Pseudo Jerome. Pseudo means false, of course, so he’s not the famous Saint Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin. We do know he lived in Rome in the 5th century. St. Thomas Aquinas preserved his comments on scripture.
Pseudo-Jerome: But in a mystical sense, they are rich, who bring forth from the treasure of their heart things new and old, which are the obscure and hidden things of Divine wisdom in both testaments; but who is the poor woman, if it be not I and those like me, who cast in what I can, and have the will to explain to you, where I have, not the power. For God does not consider how much you bear, but what is the store from which it comes; but each at all events can bring his farthing, that is, a ready will, which is called a farthing, because it is accompanied by three things, that is, thought, word and deed. And in that it is said that “she cast in all her living,” it is implied that all that the body wants is that by which it lives. Wherefore it is said, “All the labour of man is for his mouth.”
Just as we have, I hope, a healthy appreciation for the clarity the Lord has in seeing past our façades as we confess our sins of thought, word and deed, so he sees to the heart of our intentions when we bring our offerings to the storehouse of God, enacting the love of God in our hearts.
This also applies in how we love our neighbors. The most we ever see of most people is that exterior, a façade that is erected and often well-maintained. Behind it is pain, struggle, doubt and faith, hope and love. Occasionally we get invited to learn what is really going on. We should all have a care for what we don’t know.
Jesus does know. It is ultimately between every one of us and God. Consider the Lord’s call upon your life and how you are to give him your time, talent and treasure, in thought, word and deed. However helpful we may be to each other in identifying and dealing with our offerings unto God, the Lord knows. It is ultimately between every one of us and God. He wants us to give from the heart, out of love.
AMEN!