Lectionary for Nov. 10, 2024
25th Sunday after Pentecost
Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17; Psalm 127;
Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44
Entering a religious space, especially a new one, can be intimidating and even scary. What do people do here? Is it like what I’m used to? Is it safe to bring my whole self, or will I be judged for being different? Sadly, this isn’t a unique experience to our time or place. People have experienced derision or even exclusion in churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and gurdwaras for a variety of reasons. Happily, this is not always the case, and many religious spaces are also welcoming and celebrate the humans who arrive.
I’ve co-taught with my good friend, Moses Penumaka from California Lutheran University, a course for TEEM students in ELCA Region 6 that explores the rituals, practices and spaces of our neighbors’ faiths. A highlight every year is partaking in langar, the intentionally nonsectarian communal meal offered by Sikhs. Without respect to religion, nationality, caste, gender or any other identity, everyone is welcome to partake of the meal. Experiencing the deep hospitality in a community that is so different from what most Lutheran pastors-in-training are used to is always deeply formative when they begin to celebrate Christian eucharist. I’m a better steward of Jesus’ meal when I have the humbling experience of receiving gracious hospitality.
This week’s lectionary passages describe Jesus’ entry and welcome into both the earthly and heavenly temples—and the kind of welcome and space he makes for us.
The author of Hebrews pulls back the curtain and offers a hopeful apocalypse of Jesus entering the heavenly temple and God’s presence for us (9:24). Jesus was, of course, already welcome in God’s presence. And now he works constant intercession in the heavenly temple on our behalf, welcoming us into God’s presence.
As Jesus set up shop in the earthly temple the week before his murder, he shared both condemnation and praise for those he found in the holy space. Jesus critiqued religious leaders who enjoyed wearing clothing to make them stand out, receiving specialized greetings, sitting in seats of honor in religious spaces and at community meals, and offering long prayers—all simply for the appearance of holiness.
As an ELCA pastor, I know I’ve been repeatedly guilty of all these things. I’m working with communities that I worship with to mitigate expectations of what a clergyperson should do. How can we live into Jesus’ words here and lessen the divide between clergy and laity? This was the focus of my ordination approval essay, because the divides between professional clergy and lay folk are disastrous for both parties.
We come as we can, not as we ought, relying on Jesus’ gracious welcome into God’s holy spaces.
Jesus doesn’t limit his speech to condemnation in the temple, however. He praises the gift of a poor widow, who donated the equivalent of pay for about 7 minutes of labor. A famous paper written by Addison Wright in 1982 called “The Widow’s Mite: Praise or Lament” suggests that instead of praising the widow’s faithful giving, Jesus is condemning the system of offerings in which some give out of their abundance while others are coerced to give out of their poverty. It’s an interesting line of thinking, but there must be something else going on.
Jesus doesn’t only offer critique here. One of my favorite poets, Jack Gilbert, writes: “To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.” I think Jesus can both critique prideful performance of religious virtue for human audiences—the givers who publicly celebrate their generosity for human praise—and at the same time be awed by the depth of the poor widow’s devotion. Jesus called his disciples together to witness the profundity of the widow’s gift, not the pomposity of the other givers. Jesus said she gave more than they did.
Jesus can—and does—simultaneously decry what is going wrong (religious abuse, exclusion, hypocrisy and failure to live up to the full faithfulness that God desires) and celebrate what is good and worthy (sacrificial devotion to the kingdom, to God and to himself). The disciples left their families, an unnamed woman anointed Jesus’ feet, Mary of Bethany studied with Jesus. These are praiseworthy actions that Jesus wants to be remembered. And here, at the Jerusalem temple, he called his disciples together to notice a widow, who didn’t seek notoriety but gave what she could. Calling her misguided is an insult to her piety and to Jesus’ lesson.
At the temple(s), Jesus provides a welcome for those who come to him. We don’t seek self-aggrandizement and certainly are not trying to earn our way into God’s presence. Instead, we come as we can, not as we ought, relying on Jesus’ gracious welcome into God’s holy spaces.
