TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury. And many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And He called unto Him His disciples and saith unto them, Verily, I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all she had, even all her living.—Mark 12, 41-44.
And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury. And many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And He called unto Him His disciples and saith unto them, Verily, I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all she had, even all her living.—Mark 12, 41-44.
The words just read from sacred story are the simple record of a pious deed performed more than a thousand years ago in the city of Jerusalem. It speaks of a poor woman modestly putting in her contribution into the treasury of the Temple. At the time to which the text refers the Savior had just silenced the cavils and objections of the scribes and Sadducees, as we heard in the Gospel of to-day, and was remaining in the temple a few moments longer and taking His seat near the place where the people were wont to deposit their offerings. As He watched the multitudes surging to and fro and with His all-seeing eye scanned the various depositors placing their gifts into the receptacle, He had nothing to say. But when a poor widow came along, unnoticed and overlooked, as the artists generally picture her, with a little one at her side and an infant upon her breast, and drops in her insignificant coin of two paltry mites, there was something that broke the current of His thoughts, and calling His disciples, He directed their attention to the humble gift and the unpretentious offerer.
Though that gorgeous Temple has long passed away, and the magnificent city is in ruins, that simple act of piety lives on, as fresh and beautiful as the moment of its performance. This Sunday has been set aside in the course of the church-year for the consideration of Christian beneficence. It is an eminently proper and legitimate topic, and one on which instruction and stirring up is needed the same as on any other. Some think such sermons aside from the Gospel, but that only shows how imperfect is their knowledge, and how important it is to bring the matter forth from the obscurity to which some would consign it. Paul frequently introduces it into his doctrinal epistles. The Savior Himself embraced in it many of His discourses, and it is difficult to see how any Christian minister is discharging his dutyof faithfully and fully declaring the counsel of God to his people who fails betimes to give it a prominent place in his pulpit ministrations. Let us regard as our theme this morning:The widow's mite, an encouraging model of Christian beneficence, observing,I, the motive why we should give;II. the measure and proportion in which we should give;III. the method how we should give. May God bless the presentation of His Word!
First, the motive of giving. What prompted this poor widow to give? She had been worshiping in the Temple, had witnessed the beautiful and inspiring services, had been edified by the instruction of God's Word, her heart was warmed and stirred with appreciation for these spiritual blessings, and as she passes out with the throng and views the receptacle at the entrance, well knowing what it had been placed there for, she cannot resist, but under a sense of obligation, a strong feeling to reciprocate, and do something toward the maintenance of God's house, she draws forth two little coins and drops them in, then, more destitute of means, but richer in heart, proceeds on her way.
And the like motives ought to prevail with us. We confess in the Creed: "I believe that God has made me and all creatures, that He richly and daily provides me, that He defends me against all danger"; that Jesus Christ, our Lord, has redeemed us lost and condemned creatures; that the Holy Ghost has called us by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith; and for all that, what shall we render for God's gifts? His blessings are indeed always freely bestowed, without any merit or worthiness on our part; nevertheless, they call for gratitude, recognition, appreciation. And in consideration of gifts so unspeakable is any offering of gold, or frankincense, or myrrh too large? what ointment of spikenard too costly? The spirit of showing gratitude, as in the case of this widow, is one motive, and a most beautiful and God-honoring one, why we ought to give to Him: the honor of His name and the spread and prosperity of His cause—in His temple.
The other is this,—the sense of our obligation. He desires and commands us to do so. Everywhere in the Scripture of God do we find the matter of giving, especially for religious purposes, spoken of with commendation and inculcated as part of the very essence and life of true godliness, whether we look to the Old Testament or to the New Testament, to prophets, apostles, or Christ Himself, the language is the same. "Honor the Lord withthy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase." "To do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." In to-day's Gospel the Lord plainly enough says: "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." In a certain sense it is all His, of course. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." The silver and the gold are His. But it belongs to His wisdom and providence to make us His stewards in the disposition of His, and in that disposition He lays down very emphatically the law: "Render unto me the things that are mine." Every penny that we possess is stamped with the divine image and superscription. He still sits over against the treasury, and observes what we are putting into the receptacle, whether we are giving unto Him what it is our duty to give. These are, then, the motives,—gratefulness and dutifulness.
And now as to themeasure, the amount of Christian giving—the how much. As we turn to the record, two parties are distinguished. The one wealthy.—"Many," it says, "that were rich cast in much." That the rich should give and gave largely, and that this was the case not with a few, but with numbers of them, was to their honor, especially since the practice has never been common, experience showing that "many that are rich do not cast in much." And the other, indigent, the poor, selected by way of a specific example—a widow.
The idea sometimes is that poor people ought not be asked to give. This is a mistake. Poor people can give, and ought to give, out of their poverty, as well as rich people ought to give out of their riches. Poor people can hurt themselves, and injure their souls, and prove themselves niggardly and illiberal by not giving just as well as rich people can. True, they cannot give as much as the more favored, in the actual amount of their gifts, but theycangive as much in proportion to their means.
We often hear people say, if they were only rich, willingly would they contribute to every good cause, and munificent things would they do with their money. But all such charitable words and sentiments are just nothing. The thing is to give the gift of poverty, if poor, without being ashamed of it, and not to sentimentalize about the great things we would do if we were rich. The fact is that few people ever get rich, and if wealth increases, desires, styles of living, and general expenses increase with it, and the wealthy man has so many expenditures, so many demandsto meet, so many drains upon him, that he is just about as poor in his riches as he was without them. This is the plain fact in the vast majority of cases. Indeed, exceptions are very rare. It is, therefore, a mere matter of self-deception for people to talk how liberal they would be if they were rich. Moreover, what are we coming to if we regard only the rich as under obligation to give? No! Christian liberality is a thing for the poor as well as the rich, and for the most part facts prove that the poor are more liberal than the rich.
To come back to our text: Such were the donors our Savior recognized, both poor and rich. Let us note, furthermore, their contribution. While the rich gave much, the widow "threw in" only "two mites," which make a farthing, with us half a cent. It is easy to conceive what the givers themselves would think of their donations. The rich would be satisfied, imagining that they had done their duty, if not more than was required of them, while the poor widow would deem what she had done unworthy of notice, and, perhaps, felt ashamed to cast into the treasury such a mean trifle.
Others, too, who were lookers-on, had they known what the parties gave, would have extolled the one as prodigies of liberality, while they would have treated the other with neglect, or reproached her for giving what she could not afford. But how were those two mites viewed by Him whose eyes were as a flame of fire, and who searcheth the reins and the hearts?
"And He called unto Him His disciples, and saith unto them, Verily, I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all she had, even all her living." At first this seems strange, and our Lord could not mean that she had given more than all the others as to quantity, but more as to motive, more as to principle, more, relatively, as to their condition and her circumstances; more comparatively.
These men had given much; they had done it of their abundance and superfluity, and could go home to houses filled with plenty, and to tables spread with delicacies, while she went home to a lonely apartment, and opening her cupboard, found little, and that the earning of her hard toil.
What an encouragement this! And the less favored in this world's goods require it. We have known persons remainingaway from the house of God—this house of God—because they could only appear in workday clothing, and others who have been prevented from meeting with the congregation because they felt that they could not do what was expected of them. Let none such, however humble their condition, or limited their means, for a moment suppose that they are less regarded; let them beware of making the sad mistake that because they cannot do much, they are justified in doing nothing. The commendation of Mary was: "She hath done what she could," whereas the condemnation of the unprofitable servant was that because he did not have ten talents, or five, he failed to trade with the one he did have. It's not the inability that God judges you by, but by the indisposition to do what you have. In the light of these two mites let us take heart, and do what dutifulness and gratitude would prompt us to do toward His temple, knowing that it is a small thing that we should be judged by any man's judgment, but that He that judges us is the Lord.
And, again, our Lord's decision teaches us, in fact, seems to be the main inference to be drawn from the subject, that the rule with regard to liberality is proportion. These men gave "much" (much when the amount was considered, much according to their own opinion and their admirers); yet, was it much relatively? much compared with what others gave whose means were unspeakably less? What self-denial was there connected with it? "Charity," an old commentator remarks to these words of our text, "is to be judged of, not by what is given, but by what is left." These men gave of their abundance. They never felt it. True benevolence feels it. The widow did feel it; and many, I take it, among us feel it in the sacrifice of self-decoration, self-gratification, when they put their contribution into the plate in regular service, and occasionally a special donation, as on the Day of Humiliation and Prayer and Church Anniversary. That is the right kind of benevolence that feels it; those are the coins that count in God's treasury which have, as they ring in the basket, a piece of ourselves attached to them, stand for self-denial; that gives them their highest value,—not merely the 1, 5, or 10 stamped upon them.
Let each of the assembly here worshiping examine himself accordingly. There is no law in the case. Christianity does not tax, coerce, dictate how much in exact proportion to your income and means you ought to give. It is not for you to tellme how much I am to do for God and Church, nor for me to tell you. That is my business and yours, left to us individually. Only this are we to observe: All are expected to give, and all who are really touched with the Spirit of Christ and true religion give and will give, and it is for them to give in proportion as God has blessed them.
Giving is a thing of character, which, like every other, must grow little by little, more by more, until through diligent practice and repeated acts it becomes a habit. To give once in a while, impulsively, as one is moved by this or that plea, is good enough, but far more fruitful and blessed is systematic giving, however small the amount be at a time. The plan which has God's authority, and which has borne the most encouraging results, is the one which St. Paul has laid down in 1 Cor. 16: "On the first day of the week," on Sunday, when men's thoughts are turned from earth to heaven, from the things of this world to the next, when God's unspeakable gift is brought to our mind and our duties to the good Lord, then "let every one of you lay by him in store as the Lord hath prospered him."
To aid you in doing that, the system of envelopes has been introduced. The idea has never been to burden any one, to tax any one, or to prescribe to any one, but to present an easy and secure method for collecting what each one, in conscience and calmness, might consider his or her proper gift to the Lord and His treasury. The very boxes bear that name, "The Lord's Treasury," and I hope that each time as you scan the words you will think of the "widow's mites."
Nor do we have any reason to be dissatisfied with results. The waters that flow down the great Niagara with such rush and roar, and then sweep onward in deep majesty to the ocean are formed by countless brooks and rills and trickling streamlets and melting snows and little raindrops, and so the results that have all wrought for our congregation, and the amount upon which it is still largely dependent, comes from the small contributions of our members, regularly and systematically given. In view of the fact that a large indebtedness rests upon us, I feel warranted to bring this matter before you in the pulpit, asking for a faithful continuation of the plan.
"The widow's two mites"—what grand services they have accomplished, what an immense harvest of good they have brought forth to the whole world. Remembering how His all-seeing eyestill scans the church receptacle, let us not allow selfishness, avarice, and a carnal greed to hinder what conscience dictates; rather let us strive to secure this commendation which this poor widow received, and be blessed in our deeds. Amen.