PASSION THAT GOD CAN USE

(Preached on Sunday, November 12, 2006)

Then he called his disciples and said tot hem, ATruly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.@            -Mark 12:43-44

 

You may have heard the story about the farmer who wanted a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs.  He went out to the barnyard and asked the chickens and the pig for a contribution.  The chickens readily agreed; they would give the farmer two fresh eggs.  The pig, on the other hand, balked at the farmer=s request.

The chickens chided the pig.  AFarmer Brown feeds you everyday, he cleans your sty, and takes care of you.  The least you can do is give him some bacon,@ they urged.  AWe are giving him the eggs.@

AThat is easy for you to say,@ the pig replied.  AFor you, the eggs are a gift.  For me, the bacon is a total commitment.@

 

Today=s gospel story is all about the difference between a contribution and a commitment.  It is a story that comforts us in our affliction when we feel we have very little to offer.  It is a story that afflicts us in our comfort when we are willing to give everything but ourselves.  It is a story that calls us constantly to real commitment and invites us to participate in the power that can change the world.

 

God is that power.  God is the power that created the universe, our world, and everything that is in it.  God is the power that is continually at work creating each new day and creating the world new each day.

God is the power that is constantly at work transforming and recreating the world.  And God continually invites us to embrace and be embraced in that ongoing work of creation.

But there is one ingredient God needs from us for that to be possible C passion C the sort of passion exhibited by commitment.

 

We are afraid of passion, though.

Going back to the Greek philosophers, who influence our thinking in today=s culture every bit as much or more than Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, we applaud reason, rationality, balance and control.

Aristotle stressed that the good life is the life of moderation.

In all things, strive for the golden mean, the middle way, neither too far to the right nor to the left.

Even the grammar of our language has a negative view of emotions.  We say that our emotions get the best of us.  One is struck by jealousy, paralyzed by fear, overwhelmed with emotion.  One falls in love, is madly in love, green with envy, fighting mad, or insane with jealousy.

Isn=t it interesting that we say, when we have given in to our emotions, that we lost it?  To be a mature, thoughtful human being one cannot lose it; one cannot give in to emotions.  Emotions involve suffering.  The very word passion means Asuffering.@  The very word expresses the idea that feelings take us off in the wrong direction.

 

Then here comes Jesus.  An old lady passes by the temple treasury as people are putting their offering in the coffers.  It isn=t just that she gave but that she gave everything she had.  All.  Others gave more money, but she gave a greater proportion of what she had.

Why did she give it all?  We are not told.  Jesus simply notes the effusive, extravagant nature of her giving.

Whatever her motivation, we do know that this woman chose not to let fear define her or restrict her actions.  As a widow she was well-acquainted with events that were beyond her control.  Not only had she lost her husband, but with that loss, had also lost her livelihood.  We do know that widows in biblical times lived in precarious, poverty-stricken, and oft-exploited circumstances.  Yet this widow steps up to the treasury box and chooses to take action C extravagant, exuberant, passionate action, demonstrating her love for God and her trust in God to care for her and to define her and use her.

She gave all, this poor widow.  The one who had the least, gave the most.  Why?  What was her reason for giving?  Perhaps there was no reason because what she did was quite beyond mere reason.  Perhaps it was a bargain on her part, seeking God=s help with some life situation.  Perhaps it was an act of desperation.  Perhaps she got carried away in her religious devotion, by her love for God. 

Whatever the motivation, Jesus praised her for the action, for the exuberant, extravagant, passionate action of this nameless woman.

 

Passion, commitment, exuberance are what God yearns for from us.  Exuberance is my new favorite word.  Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has written a book Exuberance: The Passion for Life.  She writes: AExuberance is an abounding, ebullient, effervescent emotion.  It is kinetic and unrestrained, joyful, irrepressible.  It is not happiness, although they share a border.  It is instead, at its core, a more restless, billowing state.  Certainly it is no lulling sense of contentment: exuberance leaps, bubbles, and overflows, propels its energy through troop and tribe.  It spreads upward and outward, like pollen toted by dancing bees, and in this carrying ideas are moved and actions taken.@

 

God loves exuberance.  Look at the evidence in nature, with its lushness and abundance, it is living proof of exuberance.  One pair of poppies, given seven years and the right conditions, will produce 820 thousand million million million descendants.  God can use people who are exuberant to achieve great things.  Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, two robust men where were exuberant about the glories of the natural world, used their considerable energy to touch millions with their visions of the wonders and diversity of the good Earth.

 

That is why Jesus praises the widow, because in spite of her limitations in life she never lost her passion for life, and her sense that God=s giving to her would continue even throughout eternity.  Contrary to the scribes who felt it all depended on themselves and so they did all they could to gain positions of power and prestige so they could assure themselves and every one else of their importance, influence and control.  But they were so busy about themselves that God could not use their passion to make a difference in the world.

 

God can also use passionate people like you and me to make real differences in the world.  Two final stories.

His name is Dave, a mild-mannered man in his early sixties.  One weeknight last summer Dave went to the all-night gas station and was fueling his car when a man came up and shoved a knife in his ribs.  He said, AMan, my daughter has just had surgery, and you are going to take me to a cash machine and give me some money.@  Dave=s response was, AYou really don=t want to do this, do you?  Think about your daughter and your future.  Do you want to spend the next years of your life in jail?@  The would-be thief paused for a dramatic moment and then said, AThank you, you=ve changed my life!@ and walked away.  Dave=s passion for life, for God=s love and grace available to all people, was used by God that night to change that man=s life.

 

Her name is Mandi Caruso and she is, Aan anecdote.  In the language of modern medicine, this means I don=t count.@