“Excellent Trust"
November 11, 2012
The 24th Sunday of Ordinary Tine
A.K.A.
Kingdomtide
and
Time of the Church
1 Kings 17: 8 – 16/Psalm 146: 5 – 10/Hebrews 9: 24 – 28/Mark 12: 38 – 44
His Eminence
The Most Reverend Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines D.D.
Archbishop of Manila
and
Primate
of the
National Church in the Philippines
and
the Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
Last Sunday, in The Old and The New Testament, we were encouraged to hear and do. The principle said that we are taught not so we will know the stories, but so that we will do as shown to us in Scriptures. It is amazing how Christianity has put much of their faith in just what they think or what they believe. When it comes to the doing, we find that it is weak. We find that it doesn’t really come out as to what we say we believe. Therefore, the world is not affected in a manner wherein they would be brought to Christ. As the Church, we proclaim the greatness of God but we, in many cases, do not live out what God has given to us.
Today’s lesson deals with trust, with confidence for a God that does not fail; a God that fulfills everything He promises. The question that we have in our minds and in our lives: if God has said these things, why does He not do them for us? The problem is not really God; the problem is more on our side. Hearing but yet not doing. Saying we believe, as we say in the Creed, “I believe in God,” and then we go out and put our faith in the world around us, putting confidence in the ways of man rather than the ways of God.
Today’s lessons tell us about people who were abused or perhaps mishandled properly and how that they kept their faith in God and how that God took care of them. In the Old Testament, Elijah was the prophet appointed by God at that time, but the nation of Israel was not following the principles of God. The kings of Israel had been wicked and when Ahab became king, he was more wicked than all of those before him. Not only was in his own life wicked, but he also married Jezebel and brought this evil force into the nation.
Elijah was truly bothered and upset about what Ahab has done. He went to Ahab and told him, “There will be no rain and there will be no dew in this nation until I say so.” The famine came upon the nation as the rain began to stop. God told Elijah to go to the brook Cherith. He said, “If you will be by the brook, you can drink of its water and I will have the ravens bring you meat and bread so that you will not starve. They will take care of you.”
This was how Elijah was surviving. However, there came a time when the brook Cherith dried up because there was no rain. God spoke to Elijah, “Arise, go to Zarephath and there, a widow will provide for you.” The interesting thing about these chains of events is that Elijah was in Israel, a Jew; but, Zarephath was not Jewish. It was Gentile. God was sending Elijah to the Gentiles to take care of him.
It is amazing of the way God speaks to us in the Old Testament, setting out principles and stories that if we would listen to them speaks to us of things to come. The Gentiles today are the Christians. Here was Elijah being taken away from the Jews and sent to be taken care of by the Gentiles. When Elijah went to Zarephath, he saw this woman, a widow. He had a witness she must be the one and so he speaks to her and asks her for a glass of water. He saw that she was poor, probably very thin and with ragged clothes. She was not a Jew; she was not covered by Ahab but she was suffering from the lack of rain that Elijah had put on as a curse on Israel. She was seen very readily as one who was affected by this drought.
God had told Elijah, “There is a woman there who I have chosen to take care of you. She will do the job.” There were no prophets in Zarephath, and yet somehow, God spoke to this widow and gave her the confidence to take care of Elijah. Elijah, very bashful and intimidated, shamed because of the condition of this widow, will first ask only for a glass of water. “Please, give me some water.” As she turns to go back to her home to bring water to him, he shouts out to her, “And bring me in your hand some bread for me to eat.” The widow stopped and she spoke to Elijah, “I have no bread. All I have is a handful of flour and a little oil. I have been out to get pieces of wood so that I could make bread for my son and I. After we have eaten this, we are going to sit down and die because we have no more to eat.”
If Elijah had not had confidence in what God told him, you can imagine the shame that would come upon him and the embarrassment that would be his of asking the widow who was ready to take her last meal with her son and then going to die. Instead of being compassionate toward her situation, he says, “Give me the bread. Fix the bread and give it to me.”
God speaks to us: life is in the bread. He is sharing with us the life that Christ has given. He is telling us that this bread will be the source of life. The widow fixed the bread and gave it to Elijah. Scriptures tells us that he had told her, “As long as you do this, you will never run out of flour and never run out of oil until it rains again.”
The widow believed. She gave the bread that she had fixed with the wood that she had gathered. The wood – could this be symbolic of the Cross? Was it not that the Cross brought to us the Bread of life? We find in the Scriptures a foretaste, a foresharing of that which God was going to give to us. He said to Elijah and to the widow, “As long as there is famine, you will have flour and you will have oil. Your family will not starve.”
Scriptures says that Elijah, the widow, her son and her household was fed until the rain came. Here was the promise of God. Here was a widow who was not involved in the evil of Israel. She was separate. Maybe, God was bringing Elijah there to bring compassion on all that were affected by his edict. Here, the widow being affected by the sin of others gave her last piece of bread to the prophet of God. She did not starve; she had plenty to eat even though there was no rain and there was famine and drought.
This story speaks so loudly to the Church today. We are in the midst of the darkness of the world. We are in the midst of sin and rebellion. God offers to us the Bread of life that we may not be affected by the things around us. We, by receiving the Bread of life, might not die according to the ways of man, but how that God will supply and take care of us.
The gospel talks to us about the widow in the temple. It lays something out before we get to that which is very important for us to understand. The leaders of the Church were supposed to be taking care of the widows and the orphans. Scriptures says that what they were doing is that they were taking even the homes away from the widows. They were persecuting the widows. They were taking their wealth for themselves. In today’s world, there are those who would want to get rid of the elderly. They want to push them off the side because it is so costly to take care of them. They don’t exactly say that they were going to murder them, but they deny them the care that gives them life.
We find this situation very much the same in Jerusalem. The scribes were taking away from the widows and taking for themselves. As Jesus was there, He said they like to walk around in their long robes. They like people to greet them and think that they are sacred and holy; and yet their lives demonstrated evil because they do not take care of others. They think only of themselves. They devoured the widows’ homes and for appearance sake offer long prayers.
Jesus sat down beside the treasury and He watched the people who were bringing their offerings to the temple. The rich were coming and they were offering much, giving a lot. The widow came and had only had two small coins which only added up to a cent. As she gave, Christ brought it to the attention of the disciples and said, “This poor widow, possibly one who lost her home to the scribes and the Pharisees, came to the temple and she gave her last amount of money.” Jesus said to the disciples, “She has given more than all the others. They gave out of their abundance. She gave all that she had. The others gave from surplus, but she gave everything. She has now nothing to live on.”
We see here two stories of the widows. Both of them have found themselves in unpleasant situations. In the midst of their need and their hunger, they gave all they had and they earned eternal life. God speaks to us in these two Scriptures – The Old and The New Testament - about our greed and our lust. It speaks to us of that which we have forgotten that God takes accounting of our giving.
Acts 10:4 talks about how that God recognized one because of his giving, who was not a Jew, but a Gentile. Cornelius, because he gave, God answered his prayer. God took care of the need that he had. It came because he was a giver. He was not holding back for himself, but he was taking care of others. In each of these cases, we see that as man gave of himself, God provided all that he needed. The widow in Zarephath did not die; her son did not die. Later he did, but was raised from the dead probably because she had given her all. God brought her son back to life.
We see that what Jesus is saying about the widow in the treasury indicates that He was giving to her something that she could never get with the few coins that she had. The temple leaders had failed her, but Christ was not going to fail her.
This speaks to us today in a society wherein we are so consumed and challenged by wealth. We want more and more. Those who have much we look at them and say, “The reason they have so much is because they are greedy and dishonest.” Those who have much look at the poor and they say, “The reason they are poor is because they are lazy and they have no initiative or drive.”
We judge one another by signs, and yet in today’s lessons we find that the favor of God was upon those who had given their all; those who had gone beyond just the simplicity of a little. They gave their all. It tells us in the Book of Acts that God keeps records. God notices and pays attention to what we do in our lives. Perhaps when He sees a heart of love and compassion, this is why He answers prayers. This is why He brings into our lives the things that we need and cannot do for ourselves because we have done for others instead of ourselves.
Today’s world is a challenged we have. We measure each success by possessions, by positions. We measure the esteem of one by how much they have achieved. God measures it in a different way. He measures those who help others. He measures those who are blessings to those who find themselves in difficult situations.
In the Book of Acts, right after the Holy Spirit came upon those who were in the Upper Room, it tells about those people who were beginning to be a part of the church at that time. They went just beyond giving of their tithe, but they gave of their properties and in some cases, their homes because there was a need. When the need was present, they gave their all. It shows the attitude that God’s people are to go beyond just the simplicity of giving a little, but to give our all. To give out of their realm of their heart, the love, the compassion that comes in knowing the greatness of God, knowing that God will supply.
The widow at Zarephath gave her last amount of flour. She had nothing left, but God supplied and she did not die. The widow in the temple gave her last coins – all that she had to live upon. We don’t get the rest of the story but I am certain that Christ brought into her life that which took care of her. He would not bring the story to us and leave it untouched. Christ was using this to teach us and to challenge us to go beyond our self-centeredness; to go beyond our wants and our needs; and to minister to the needs of others because in so doing, we open the doors of heaven for the answer to the prayers that we have before God.
How great is this God that we serve. He is not like the high priest of old who would go into the holy of holies, a place made by the hands of man. He would take the blood of animals there to provide for their forgiveness of the sins of Israel. Christ, when He came, did not take the blood of animals, but instead He took His blood. He gave His life and He shed His blood and He took the blood not into the holy of holies made by the hands of man, but He took that blood into the heavenly places, into the Throne Room of God.
Christ offered in behalf of all mankind, once for all, the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. Not the animal blood; not in that which was made by the hands of man, but He went to the height of God’s kingdom to provide for all of mankind the forgiveness, the new life. That it would never ever be necessary to do again because His grace was given forth and He brought forth, in Christ Jesus, new life for us.
This is the kindness of God; the grace and mercy of God. And yet, in our lives, are we thankful for this which He has done? Are we thankful that the sin has been wiped away permanently forever and new life has been provided for us? When He comes back a second time, He is not coming back for salvation, but He is coming back without a reference to sin. He is coming back to restore us fully in the fullness of the life that God has provided for us.
This is how great our God is! Why do we hold back? We could not earn it for ourselves. We can gather around all the wealth of the world and it will not help us at all. In today’s world, in France, they are increasing the taxes on the wealthy between 75 to 90% of their income. In the United States, they are doing very similar to the wealthy that they are taking all that they have earned – the hard work, the energy, the initiative, the creativity. They take it away from them. What good is it to build a kingdom? The kingdom that God gives is eternal. It does not pass away. Even though we may be abused, even though we may be mistreated, our hope is in Christ.
Both of these widows had a right to be angry. They had a right to reject because they had been taken advantage of, but they did not and they kept their faith in God. They kept their faith in Him regardless of the persecution, regardless of the mistreatment, regardless that someone had stolen from them, regardless of the fact that they were hungry and they were poor. They had no more, but yet they gave their last to God and God took care of them.
This is what the Scriptures tell us as a people. You gather around yourself the wealth of the world, it will pass away. But you use what God blesses you with to bless others and God will be the source of your life. He will be the source of that which we bring to Him.
Many have thought and many have been taught that if we just give our tithing, this is all that is required of us. The tithing comes out of the Old Testament. It is the foundation; it is the beginning. In the New Testament, we go beyond that. This is where our hope and our security is – in Him because we bless Him.
Think for a moment of tithing everything that you have been given. How much is your breath worth? How much is your heartbeat worth? How much is peace worth? How much is joy worth? How much of that would you give if you were paying the tithe on all that God has given you? Do we only see the gift as that which we earned? Do we only see it in monetary source or do we see it in the joy, the peace, the fact that our sins are gone and our iniquities have been wiped away?
We have been given a hope for a future. We have been given new life. We have been given peace. How much is that worth? Are we thankful for all that God has given to us? Do we really trust Him or is our trust in what we do? Is our trust in what we can accumulate? Is our trust in our investments, in our monetary possessions? Where is our trust? Where is our confidence? How do we measure what God has given in order that we can pay our tithing on it?
Let us go beyond where we have been. We have been challenged by Scriptures to go beyond just the elementary. Go beyond just the principles and begin to see that we grow in Christ. We change from glory to glory into His image, being like Him. May we find that trust in Him and in Him alone. When He heals you, how much is that worth? How much does that save you from paying the hospital, the doctors, and the medicine? How much has He blessed us with? Have we really measured and evaluated how much we have been blessed? Truly, we are falling short in giving honestly before God, that which proclaims our thanksgiving to Him.
May we be challenged by these two widows who were at the end of their rope, and yet when they got to the end, that rope swung around and it took them to the heights of life. This is what God would want from us. This is why He wants to bless us, but He wants to bless us that we can be a blessing to others. May we hear and may we do!
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