“PEOPLE WATCHING”

Mark 12:37-44
  

People watching is a favorite pastime of mine.  I love to sit and watch people – in all
different kinds of situations – especially when they don’t know I am watching
them.  You’d be amazed at what you see.  

The truth is, I think we all watch people and
we have a great time doing so, don’t we? Hey, it’s not a bad thing. As a matter
of fact – even Jesus loved doing it.  

Our text for this morning is a wonderful
people-watching story.  First, let me
give you a little background. The Bible tells us that Jesus was teaching in the

Temple. This temple was huge, built by Herod the
Great.  

Now, I am aware that many of you think of him as
“Herod, the Killer of Little Boys Two Years and Under” (which he did shortly
after Jesus was born), but the history books also remember him as “Herod the
Great.”  

One of the reasons he was so great is that he was a
great builder.  For example, in 20 B.C.,
he rebuilt the temple and boy, was it magnificent. It measured 150 feet long,
75 feet wide, and l50 feet tall.  Yes,
150 feet tall; that’s over fifteen stories high.  

It took 1000 wagons and 10,000 workers one and a
half years to construct it.  It was by
far the most magnificent building around. 

The temple was the spiritual center of Jewish
religious life.  But it was also their
social center and a commercial market place where everyone sold their goods and
wares. If you wanted a good time, you went to the temple, cuz that’s where the action
was.  

It was also the place where you made your
offerings.  All the offering boxes were
on one particular wall of the temple. These offering boxes were like suitcases,
except they were made out of metal.  They
were big metal boxes with a slit in the top for people to put their offerings in.  

Jesus had been at this crowded, noisy temple all
day, arguing with the religious big shots, the Pharisees and Sadducees.  Jesus
 was all pooped out, and so he came over
and sat down on a bench near the side of the wall.  It was a great place for
 people watching. 

Now, about that time (in my imagination, of course)
“he” came riding into the temple on the best camel you ever saw and parked it
in the camel parking lot in the front.  

You should have seen him.  He was mighty fine. He was dressed in purple
and fine silk.  The man had a cumber bund
around his waist, a toga cloth around his shoulder, and pure leather sandals on
his feet.  

By looking at him (and he wanted to be looked at)
you could tell he was elegantly rich with a gold necklace and gold rings and a
gold bracelet.  

A real estate agent once told me you could always
tell a rich man by his shoes and this man had the best sandals you’ve ever
seen.  

Well, he walked right into the center of the
building and everybody watched when he pulled out his checkbook.  Everyone 
knew this was not going to be nickel, dime and quarter stuff.  This was
a big time giver.  

He wrote out his check, and then with a flourish,
ripped it from his checkbook, pompously walked over to the offering boxes, and
dropped his check in one of the slots … and of course he did it with flair.  

Jesus was watching, and so were his disciples.  Jesus nudged his disciples and
 everybody smiled. 

But then before you could count to five, here comes
a Jewish rabbi sauntering into the temple. 
You could tell this man was religious … I mean, really religious.  

He had those Hasidic curls draping down the sides
of his face; he wore a long black beard and a matching black robe, with black
onyx rings on his fingers, wearing black leather sandals, with a matching black
skull cap and he carried a big black Bible scroll.  

This pious man came piously strolling into the
temple with a prayerful look on his face. He looked religious.  

He glanced around the temple and saw that people
weren’t watching him as he wanted them to … and so he pulled out ten large
silver coins that he knew would make a large clank when he dropped them into
the offering boxes.  

He dropped them slowly and distinctly:  clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank,
clank, clank, clank, and clank.  By the
third or fourth clank, everybody was watching. 
Jesus once again poked at his friends, and once again they all smiled as
they watched. 

Well, soon after along comes this little old
lady.  No one noticed her.  She was almost invisible to the busy, noisy
crowd.  She was humped over, wearing a
brown skirt, brown blouse, brown apron, and brown shawl.  She was obviously
 poor, looking like an old washerwoman.  

She was an old widow, in her mid-seventies,
and walked slowly, like she had arthritic pain. 
She had a cane in her right hand, feeling the granite floor for edges,
as she approached the offering boxes. 
Into a box, she dropped two small coins, worth less than a penny.  

Jesus whispered to his friends as they sat quietly
on the bench.  

(whispering) “Do you see that little old lady over there?  She gave her last 
nickel.  Those other people gave from the abundance of their pocketbooks; 
they have plenty to live on, but that little old lady over there, she gave from 
the abundance of her heart; she gave everything she had.” 

And that’s what happened one day when Jesus was
people watching in the temple. 

This little old lady is the model in the Bible of a
person who is excessively generous. She is one of the four people in the New
Testament who are living examples of what it means to give generously.  

First there is Zacchaeus, the short little man – the tax
collector, who cheated everybody around. 
Jesus came to his house and got into his heart, and Zacchaeus then
announced he would repay everyone double the amount he stole from them and give
half his goods to the poor.  

Zacchaeus gave way beyond what the law required …
that’s what happens when Jesus gets into your heart.  

The second
living example was Barnabas, in the book of Acts, who sold his property and
gave the proceeds to a widow.  Again, he,
too, was far more generous than the Old Testament law required.  

The third
example of enormous generosity was the church in Macedonia.  This
congregation is described in II Corinthians 8 and 9, some of which we read this
morning.  

The text is one of the classic passages on giving
in the New Testament. The words, “enormously generous” or “rich in generosity”
are repeated at least five times in this passage.  

And finally
there is our widow, who gave her two pennies … all she had. 

Some people think that this widow is an example of
a person choosing poverty like a nun chooses to live a life of poverty.  

But I think that this is a passage, not about being
poor and choosing poverty as a way of life, but is another example of someone
who was “enormously generous” … even though she was poor. 

Now, what was this little old lady’s name?  Anybody remember her name?  Of all the
people in the Bible, the Bible certainly would have recorded her name, wouldn’t
it? What was her name? 

The Bible doesn’t bother to tell us.  She is one of the most generous givers in the
whole Bible, who gives it all away, and the Bible doesn’t even bother to tell
us her name.  

We know the name of Zacchaeus and Barnabas and the
church in Macedonia; but we don’t know her name. So, I am going to
give her a name. I think I’ll call her Miriam.

Now, Miriam was in stark contrast to the other
religious folk in the temple that day. 
She was in contrast to the Pharisees and Sadducees, in contrast to those
elegant dressers in purple and black.  

The Sadducees and Pharisees were active church
members; they worshipped regularly and they came to church often.  

The Pharisees and Sadducees were good, moral people
but they were tight fisted with God. 
They had good incomes and gave far more money than Miriam, but they were
far less generous.  That is, they gave
about 2%. 

How do I know that they gave 2% of their
income?  That’s what average church
people have usually given. I read somewhere that the average Presbyterian in
the United
  States gives
about 2% of their income to charity.  

So the Pharisees and the Sadducees, being the
average religious family of their day, giving about 2% in my mind, seems about
right. 

Can you tell me why Presbyterians only give 2% of
their gross income to charity?  Can you
tell me why? I don’t know.  If you know,
maybe we can talk after the service.  

But right now I don’t want to focus on the average
Presbyterian, that’s depressing – anyway, we’re not average Presbyterians. Instead,
let’s fix our attention on Miriam. 

The question for today is this:  why was Miriam so generous?  Why was Miriam 
such a generous giver?  I think Miriam had four qualities that marked
her as a generous person – qualities that maybe Jesus observed while he was
“watching” that day at the temple. 

First, Miriam had a genuine relationship with God.  I’ll bet she had a good prayer life, read the
scriptures, and earnestly lived out her faith. Miriam didn’t merely believe in
the existence of God.  Her’s was a living
relationship with God.  

In the Epistle lesson for today; the Apostle Paul
describes the church in Macedonia.  The church
in Macedonia was a generous church; these Christians gave
excessively; and the Apostle Paul asks the question:  Why? 
Why were they so generous with their money?  

The answer? 
They FIRST gave themselves to the Lord. 
That means they had a relationship with God – they put God first … and
so did Miriam. It is so much easier to be a generous giver if you put God
first.  

The Old Testament understands this:  faithful Jews gave their first fruits
and first lambs because they first gave their hearts to God.  This profound awareness is found in the story
of Cain and Abel.  

Cain gave some of his grain to God; Abel
gave the first and best portion of his meat to God. God was more pleased
with Abel’s offering because he gave the first and best portion of his
income.  This revealed the inner workings of Abel’s heart to God.  

The way we give offerings reveals our inner hearts,
and God knows the inner hearts of all of us, including Miriam.  Why was Miriam 
such a generous giver?  Because, like all generous givers, she put
God first. 

A second
reason that I believe Miriam was so generous was that she realized how
abundantly generous that God had been with her. 
Miriam had experienced the generosity of God.  

I don’t know why she was so poor.  Maybe her husband died when she was thirty
years old or maybe she never had children at all.  Maybe she was always poor and her husband
left her nothing to live on.  But still
Miriam felt this sense of gratitude towards God.  She knew that everything she had, and it
wasn’t much in the eyes of the world, was a gift from God.  

Miriam and the Miriams of life feel this way.  The Miriams of life know that everything is a
gift from God:  our abilities with which
we make money; our brains, our work habits, our health, our good fortune, our
abilities to make a decent income.  

The Miriams of life know this.  If you are a generous giver, you know this
deeply within your inner person:  it is
all a gift from God.   

But, if you are walking around with the feeling in
your heart that everything you have is your; everything you have you have
earned with your abilities and your work and your good fortune and your good
work habits, then chances are you are not like Miriam.  

Miriam?  She
knew deeply that everything she had was a gift from God. 

The third
reason that Miriam was so generous was that she wasn’t a shallow believer. Hers
wasn’t a Sunday only faith; it wasn’t a fair weather faith; it wasn’t a habit
inherited from her parents.  

Instead she believed and lived out her faith in
good times and bad, in times of plenty and times of scarcity.  Her trust in God 
was 24/7 and her actions proved it.

And finally,
Miriam knows that she will have more than enough to meet her own needs after
she has given her offerings.  You don’t
have to tell Miriam that.  

You never had to say to Miriam:  “After you give your generous offerings, you
will have more than enough to meet your needs.” 

You don’t have to tell Miriam that, because she has
lived that kind of life for so many years.  

It is interesting to me that in all my years of
being associated with a church, I have never met a generous giver who
complained about lack of food, lack of clothing, or lack of the basic
necessities of life – or ever regretted having been such a generous giver.  

Not once have I heard a generous giver seriously
complain about the lack of basic necessities – to the contrary – they exude joy
and gratitude.

There is a man who told this story a long time
ago:  He was a child, six years old, and
his father died and his family was dirt poor; and they didn’t know where the
next meal was coming from.  

Miraculously, a lady from the church came with a
basket of food and the family was able to eat. 
He said, “Ever since that basket of food, I knew that God would meet our
needs, and I became a tither.” 

Now I am not suggesting that you all tithe. I am
not suggesting that you even try and better the 2% Presbyterian average.  
That’s between you and God.

But I would like to submit to you two questions for
you to ponder.  One question is easy and
the other question is hard.  

The first question is easy:  Why was Miriam so generous?  

And now the hard one:  What would it take for you and me to be like Miriam?  

That question is not so easy at all.  

Amen.