The Poor Shall be Rich: Three Voices message for 11/10/24

Last weekend I had the honor of emceeing the Greater Oneida Chamber of Commerce annual award dinner. The biggest award of the evening went to my friends from the KEYS Program, a musical outreach for children facing life-threatening illnesses. I was so thrilled to be there, celebrating with these people who have done so much to comfort children in some of their gravest times of need. I got dressed up for the event … truthfully kind of surprised that my dinner jacket still fit … donned a snazzy tie … and mingled with politicians, company CEOs and business owners for the evening. I was having a great time with friends old and new. Then I started looking around at that crowd and it struck me that I was likely the poorest person in that room of local luminaries! But how do we really justify who is rich and who is poor? In today’s reading Mark 12: 38-44 As he taught them, he said, “Watch out for the teachers of the Law, who like to walk around in their long robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplace, who choose the reserved seats in the synagogues and the best places at feasts. They take advantage of widows and rob them of their homes, and then make a show of saying long prayers. Their punishment will be all the worse!” As Jesus sat near the Temple treasury, he watched the people as they dropped in their money. Many rich men dropped in a lot of money; then a poor widow came along and dropped in two little copper coins, worth about a penny. He called his disciples together and said to them, “I tell you that this poor widow put more in the offering box than all the others. For the others put in what they had to spare of their riches; but she, poor as she is, put in all she had - she gave all she had to live on.” we find a Widow placing a paltry two coins in the offering. Meanwhile, the rich were placing large amounts of cash in there. Jesus is watching nearby and sensing a teaching moment, calls his disciples together to learn about what had happened. Jesus tells them that she actually made the large contribution because it was much more of a sacrifice for her than for them. While a big bank account might be nice short-term, in the long run money can’t buy happiness, it can’t buy love and it can’t buy health. People joke about money making life better but does it really? Who is happier, the rich people in this passage, or the Widow who has shared of herself and earned the blessing of Jesus? You definitely can’t put a price on a good reference from the Lord! Of course, I am also far from the poorest person I know. Not all that long ago, I had the opportunity to interview some homeless folks in Rome for a series of articles we were running and that was eye opening. The situation was not at all like I imagined. The people I talked to were very self-reliant and self-confident, adamant not to accept help from anyone else, nor to live by anyone else’s rules. Living in the woods with all of your belongings in a single bag was actually a choice for each of the five or six persons I talked with in the Bellamy Harbor Park. One in particular, Eric, admitted he had family right there in Rome, but he wouldn’t live with them because he wanted to do his own thing. He wouldn’t go to a shelter because he didn’t want to follow their rules. Living in the woods wasn’t all that bad … he told me how he actually dug out a small living area in the ground and even a dirt bench to sit in by his fire. If it wasn’t for all of the cold months around here, I could almost go for that kind of freedom. I doubt Noah would like to be separated from his electronics, though, and I suppose it wouldn’t really take long to miss my music. But one thing I know for sure is that God is out there in the woods with Eric. Even before we hear about the Widow, however, Jesus says to beware of presumptuous teachers of the law, who feel they are better than everyone else. They are taking advantage of others while maintaining a façade of being prayerful. They are putting on a false-face of being for the people … when they are really in it for themselves. They might be able to fool the people, Jesus notes, but they won’t fool Him … and their punishment for their deceit shall be much worse than what they have done to the people they’ve taken advantage of in the past. Have we just seen some of that in our own Election Day this week? Maybe so. Some 2,000 years since the time of Jesus and nothing has really changed all that much, has it? But there are so many teachers of law who are there to help. I dare say I think it is still the majority. We have so many teachers and helpers out there who reach out to the poor - whether in finances, relationships, health, or even faith - to make them richer. Hopefully we feel a bit of that right here. Back to that chamber meeting for a minute … besides the KEYS Program, awards were also given out to the Worthy boutique on Lenox Avenue and the CPA firm Gustafson and Wargo. But none of the awards was for making a major profit. Those awards, instead, were for the way those two businesses actually profited their community. Worthy sells gently used, high-end clothing and accessories so all women can feel, well, “worthy” of having nice things. And the CPAs were described in the award presentation as being easy to talk to as friends, rather than as accountants. There was never a mention of how much each had made in the last fiscal year because that is not what the award dinner was all about. I believe that message is the exact same message we see here today. Just as the meek shall inherit the earth, so too shall the poor become rich, and all in the name of the Lord. Jesus didn’t check anyone’s bank account when He called the Disciples to His side, nor did He stay strictly in the prosperous lands in His travels. Quite the opposite, really. And who better to minister to than the poor? There are so many distractions in the lives of rich people, as they constantly strive to stay rich. Much like a child with way to many toys, maybe his name is Noah, there is just so much there that he might not appreciate all of the smaller nuances. Some of my best friends are the simplest people I know. I find in the hustle and bustle of my every day life it actually feels relaxing to be around someone living a simpler lifestyle. And I have to admit every time I see a horse and buggy traveling down the road I am kind of envious of that life. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to last long without my modern conveniences, but I like to think about how uncluttered my mind would become without the constant barrage of electronics. Maybe someone who is too poor to afford all of the latest technology with the need for a degree in IT to run it isn’t really that bad off at all. Have you tried to buy a computer, or even an oven recently? Why do I need one that will not only cook my dinner but will walk the dog afterwards? And only after I’ve spent as much time as a full college course trying to learn how to operate the new-fangled technology. The best news of all for the “poor” folks is it doesn’t cost you anything to go to church. You can give what you’ve got. People don’t even dress up in their “Sunday finest” anymore. Everyone is welcome. Our Sunday mornings here are a great time to enrich each other with the spirit, to brighten all of our days. Rich or poor, or anywhere in between, we all are a bit richer from having gone to church on a Sunday … and we carry along that wealth as we go back out into the world when we leave. Amen.