Not the God I Had Hoped For

As many of you know, Dickie and I have 4 wonderful children. Mary is our youngest, and our only daughter. She was sometimes called “Firecracker” by her Daddy. This nickname is not undeserved! One afternoon, when Mary was perhaps 4-5 years old, she and I were in a bit of a power struggle. My unwavering “No” to her repeated “YES” was tiring both of us. Finally, my frustrated little child had had enough of me and my broken record. She came over and stood right in front of me, squared her little shoulders, put her hands on her hips, looked me dead in the eye, and growled: “You are NOT the mother I had hoped for!”

Well, after several years of therapy I finally got over her accusation. But I found as I prepared for today’s sermon, I couldn’t help but remember Mary’s comment. Sometimes – oftentimes – God is not the God our childish souls had hoped for.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus pays a lot of attention to the wrongs of the religious authorities of His day. In fact, these are the final verses of a long tussle between the scribes, chief priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees - and Jesus. For nearly 50 verses, Jesus has been pretty tough on the collective religious authorities of his day.

This long series of encounters took place right after Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last week of His life. Jesus had to be weary, and He was clearly deeply saddened by the path these children of God had chosen. Their abuse of power, position, and authority, displayed the very antithesis of what God had desired them to be. In their limited, all-too-prideful minds (minds an awful lot like ours!) they questioned who in the world this upstart was who was not buying into the system? After all, they knew exactly who to expect for a Messiah, and it was not this carpenter who came riding into town on the back of a donkey two days before! It was not the itinerant, unadorned healer who – only yesterday - had dared upend the tables of their Temple! In their own way, these religious leaders were struggling and ranting because, this was not the God they had hoped for either.

We know what happened three days later. The religious authorities never did understand who this Messiah was, and they ended up pursuing him, and refusing his Good News, until they joyfully nailed Him to the cross. That fact should serve as a chilling warning to us today because, I don’t know about you, but I make a marvelous Pharisee. I am all too willing – and happy – with the idea of a God who allows me to strut, and grab for all the power and authority I can get, and seek all the money and status, and assets I can find - for myself, and at others expense. I had always hoped for a God who would wink at my selfishness, who understood the needs of my lifestyle, and who accepted my thieving heart - tactfully. That’s my kind of God!

But, as our Gospel makes clear today, God knows how we use our assets, He knows when we take advantage of those who are weaker; He knows the condition of our hearts. And He does not wink at the pride and selfishness that is always behind bad stewardship. I’m sure that the Trinity must often say to itself “These are not the children we had hoped for.”

So where was Jesus trying so hard to lead those religious authorities? Was He really leading them to a destitute, nameless widow, who not only had essentially nothing – but gave even that back to the Lord for Him to use as He would? Is He really leading you and me to such rash, irrational, self-emptying dependence on Him? The only answer I can find in the text is Yes, THIS is where Jesus is leading, and this is the sort of person He is leading us to.

So, who is this nameless widow Jesus so specifically points out? She is completely different from the religious leaders. She was almost certainly uneducated, and as a woman (unless she had sons) she was totally without financial support. She had no power, no authority, no voice, no name. But, clearly her faith and her generosity made her noteworthy in Christ’s eyes. So noteworthy, in fact, that Christ calls his disciples over to teach them, by her example, how to live and order their lives! Imagine being One whom Our Lord used to teach His own first disciples!

And look at the other nameless widow we read about today. The widow in Zarephath was so poor and despondent that she was preparing her last meal before she and her son just knew they would die. Imagine that kind of hunger and thirst! Yet, when God told her to provide her last scraps of meal and last sips of water to Elijah, she does it. She did not even know who this God was yet. (Did you notice she refers to “Your God?”) But, amazingly, she obeys the call of the God she does not yet know, to help the prophet she’s never met! I think that is obedience beyond the rational or practical!

So here we have some pretty stark examples of what our Lord shows is the right form of living. Unquestioning obedience to God’s leading, generosity even unto death, poverty, dependence, powerlessness. Yikes! Where is the Good News in that?

But suppose we have read these stories through too narrow a lens. Suppose these women are not just examples of how we are to behave; suppose they are examples of who we already are before a Holy and Sovereign God! The difference between these widows and us is that they recognized this, and responded accordingly - by laying everything at the Lord’s feet. They knew who they really were, and chose to throw themselves into Mercy’s arms. Suppose we are all powerless, destitute widows, dependent upon God for all our provision. Suppose Jesus is warning us – along with the Pharisees, Chief Priest, and experts in the Law – that we have nothing that is truly our own to hoard, nothing we really have power over, nothing to be proud of before the God of the Universe. Suppose one of the lessons of these two women is that we need to recognize who we really are – the poverty of our souls – so that we can choose to live authentically, dependently, generously, out of gratitude and trust for the amazing provision of God.

The truth is, I already knew, in my heart of hearts, that my very soul is destitute. I know I have set up lots of tables in my temple. And I’ll bet my last copper coin that I am not alone. There are lots of tables we can erect in front of our Temples: pride in your social or professional position, in our address, or our degree. Or, how about the abuse of financial power, or the self-gratifying hoarding of assets. Not to be too pointed, but how many of us here tithe…on our gross incomes!? Does anyone else besides me feel like a Pharisidical Fake, at least part of the time? We really are hypocrites underneath our finery. And we’ve all been found out, folks! There’s a scary thought! We’ve been found out for all our pompousness, and greed, and self-interest. We’ve been exposed for the self-centered, fearful, insecure, competitive, paper dragons we really are.

But, amazingly, that is the Good News! We are known - for all our poverty and pride - and incredibly we are loved anyway.

So if we are really all destitute widows, and we really begin to ‘get’ how thirsty and starving and needy – unto death – we really are, something can begin to happen inside our complacent, frightened, souls. We can begin to see how truly and unconditionally precious we must be to our God! Knowing who I really am, I know I do not deserve this kind of love! Knowing how poorly I can behave, how proud and selfish and competitive I really am, I am amazed by the absolute Grace of God. This is a silencing, staggering wonder. The God of the Universe seeks after each one of us - with such urgency and extravagance that He came to save you and me from all we had so desperately hoped we could pretend to be.

These destitute women – who are really each of us – these widows - challenge each of us to see that out of our poverty, we are to give everything… not just 10% off the top. Whether or not Jesus is speaking literally or figuratively, His message is clear. Boldly, humbly, rashly TRUST God! We must choose, as these widows did, to give the scraps we call our assets – all that we are – to Christ to do with as He will.

Respond, in the only authentic way a beggar can – gratefully and completely – to the Sovereign, Holy God of the Universe who seeks you and has provided all that you have. Our modern Pharisee minds want to find a loophole to this kind of trust. It is irrational, and impractical, and frightening to cast all we have and all we are and all that holds us in our spiritual poverty – onto God! But there is a real difference between faith and trust, and the God we had not hoped for, asks us to live trusting Him, not ourselves. The wonder is that, when we do that, it doesn’t take long to realize that we cannot outgive God.

In a few moments we will share the Lord’s Supper. As you walk up here, I challenge you to bring with you your Pharisee fakery, your self-made idols, and your destitute soul. Give out of your own soul’s poverty, all that you have. And as you kneel at the altar, look down at your open hands, and see how empty they really are. Allow Jesus to feed your starving and thirsty soul. And live generous and grateful lives in response.

This may not be the God we’d hoped for, but – wondrously - He truly is the Grace-filled LORD we so desperately need! Thanks be to God!

AMEN.