Community Church of Wilmette

Nov 8, 2009

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This morning we have heard two stories about widows. Each is famous in Judeo-Christian circles. Ruth’s story is one of the central stories for Judaism and Christianity. And the story of the “widow’s mite” has been the foundation of countless stewardship sermons. So what is it that is so compelling about these women and their stories? Why do we remember Ruth and why does Jesus want us to remember the poor widow in the Temple?

In short, we remember them because both are faithful to God. They are exemplars of faithfulness.

Ruth experiences a kind of grace as Naomi helps her start over. Ruth’s faithfulness in God is the foundation to the trust she demonstrates in Naomi and Boaz. The shared cultural expectations, Naomi’s love, the charity of Boaz, and Ruth’s own courage come together resulting in stability and safety for Ruth that will lead to the birth of King David in another generation. When things work, suggests this morning’s story from the Hebrew Scriptures, things really work. And Ruth’s place in scripture reminds us to celebrate when things work. Thanks be to God! Amen.

The story about the widow from Mark is a little more ambiguous. Our widow is often portrayed as the poster child for church stewardship. A dubious honor, to be sure. But there she is and Jesus offers her as an example for giving.

I wanted to hold up both of these women to you because combined they demonstrate an important truth about faithfulness. True faithfulness is not based upon results – faith in God is not about the outcomes or the success of people and institutions that attempt to embody God. Faithfulness in God is just that…faithfulness in God.

Maybe this will make more sense if we shift our perspective just a little and talk about institutional loyalty. Both women participate in cultural and religious institutions of their day. The institutions and people who represent them uphold Ruth whereas the widow is oppressed. Life with institutions, and the people who represent them, is always a mixed bag of experiences.

One of the more interesting qualities that has been measured by sociologists studying generations of people is the quality or virtue of institutional trust and loyalty. And, as most of you know, for the last fifty or sixty years, institutional loyalty has been at an all time low.

Now, before you bemoan the loss of respect for the institution, recall the words of Jesus this morning from Mark’s Gospel. Jesus was and still is a strong voice of criticism against the sins of the religious institutions of his day. He levels harsh critique against the religious establishment…and he does so in the Temple itself, in the heart of the religious institution of his own time. God critiques institutions and those who lead them. We need to pay attention when we’re critiqued. God may be speaking.

The Baby Boomers are famed for their “down with the man” attitudes. Every kind of institution came under fire during the sixties and early seventies. Corporations, churches, synagogues, cultural assumptions about marriage, and the place of women and minorities in society all came under attack…and often rightly so.

The Boomers aren’t alone, of course. Generation X has even less affection for the Institution. What the Boomers proclaimed as revolutionary rhetoric hoping to create change, Generation X took as Gospel Truth assuming that the critique given voice by the Boomers was the true nature of the institution. So, they seldom protest or sign a petition. They simply don’t participate.

Now we are hearing about Generation Y or the Millennials. Though we’re learning more and more about them, studies suggest that this generation thinks of institutions as tools for self-fulfillment. No more. No less. And when the tool doesn’t work, it should be thrown away.

This, to many, paints a bleak picture for the future of institutions. Church agencies are working overtime trying to understand what these cultural shifts mean for the future of Christian denominations and congregations across the country. As membership in many traditions dwindles, and religious plurality sets in as an expected and honored norm, the question emerges: What is the place of the religious institution in our country? Or, as I like to frame it: Does the world need a Church?

My answer? Yes. Absolutely. There is a place for the Church in this world.

One aspect of generational study that is interesting to me is what statistical questions are asked in the first place. One interesting little bit of trivia is that though faith in institutions is low, faith in and the expressed need for community is high. People want and need communities. The very existence of new technology that simply helps us connect is evidence of this. People are working overtime to make community happen and are constantly seeking ways to find intimacy, spiritual fulfillment, and connectedness.

If you are someone who equates institutions with community, I hope you will find this to be good news. People want community. They are seeking community. Compassion, fulfillment, meaning, love, relationship, and an opportunity to give…People are looking for these things.

So, fear not. But something has changed, and it may be what Jesus is getting at in our scripture reading this morning.

Once upon a time in America, congregations existed because people understood themselves to be…Baptist, Methodist…Christian. First communal identity exists, then the institution emerges. We have enough Baptists. So, let’s build a Baptist church. But that has, to a great degree, changed. Now it is perhaps more common for people to enter into the life of the existing institution in order to shape their own sense of identity, to discover and articulate who they wish to be as individuals and as community.

The religious institution and the religious community are not necessarily perceived as the same thing. Those who wish to further the life of a beloved institution need to understand this important distinction.

Though there are still Baptists, for example, looking for a church, there are fewer of them. What we have now in every generation is skepticism about institutions and a love for community. The institutions that are thriving are those that uphold the community in which they are located by offering what it has…its traditions, its disciplines, its facilities, and its worship…

In short, the place of the institution is not to exist for itself (nor for the community to exist for the sake of the institution); it is for the institution to exist for the community, to help people to develop the tools to fashion community, to offer itself in service to the people who walk through its doors, live in its neighborhood, or encounter it in some other way.

When this happens, a sense of mutuality can develop and the institution may find new life.

Let’s look at the story of widow again from Mark’s Gospel. Jesus has been hanging out at the Temple teaching and challenging people’s assumptions about the nature of the religious institution and its leadership. Scribes, Pharisees, and temple priests are all targets. Some find Jesus’ challenges revelatory and hopeful while others find Jesus to be a threat.

So, after this bout of truth telling Jesus asks his disciples to watch where people put their money. What are they willing to invest in and why? How do they do it? And after stating that the leaders of the institutions are “devouring widows” he points out a poor widow giving all she has to the same institution.

We don’t know why she does this. We don’t know why she’s willing to invest in something that we are led to believe has failed her so completely. We are not given that information. All we have is our imaginations.

One piece of history, however, that might prove helpful: Thirteen donation chests were in the temple court each labeled with the purpose for which the money would be used. The widow was not giving blindly. Maybe she was giving to other widows…or to the Scribe Retirement and Benefits Fund. You know, killing them with kindness. Who can say? But we know she gave…and she gave completely.

So, as I study the passages before and after this story about the widow, I wonder if Jesus is trying to set her up as an example of someone who gets it…as someone who understands that the Institution exists solely for making community. So, she puts her money where she sees that happening. It’s imperfect. It may even be corrupt in places, but she has enough faith in God to think that the Institution might change…that it might meet the community where it lives and uphold the widow. So she gives her all.

Jesus wants us to address the injustice in the world and especially the injustice in the Church, but not in order to dismiss the institutions out of hand, but to beg their reform and to recognize their fragility. Next week we’ll talk more about the fragility of the Institution as we hear Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple.

And you will see the photo around the building over the next three weeks. “The world needs a church…” I’ve been a little obsessed with New Orleans and the Gulf Coast ever since Hurricane Katrina. The photo is of a statue of the Virgin Mary standing in the ruins of someone’s home in the Ninth Ward. I purchased it at the open-air market in the French Quarter when Trish and I went to New Orleans for a wedding this October. It’s a familiar scene. And it never ceases to move me.

Images of the church…cultural icons or relics…statues, crosses, hand painted signs with verses of scripture written upon them: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.” They were everywhere. What words to find in the face of total destruction! What courage! What faith! What a symbol of the church living for the community and not for itself.

This is the first of three sermons about why I believe the world needs a Church. It’s an important question for us to answer. Does the world need a Church? Hidden in that answer is the reason why our congregation exists, the reason why we give.

In the pews in front of you is a card. I want you to take some time and fill this out. It’ll be here for three weeks. Fill it out when you’re ready. Place it in the offering plate as it passes you by during our time of offering.

I believe that the world needs a Church…a Church that will meet the needs of its neighbors rich and poor, a church that will challenge and encourage, a church that teaches it’s tradition of prayer and loves beauty, a church that has a heart for the world and not for itself.

The world needs a Church. The world needs you.

Thanks be to God.