Thomas J Parlette
“The Widow Returns”
Mark 12: 38-44
11/7/21
Jon Krakauer is a mountaineer and the author of the best-selling book Into Thin Air. The book is about his 1996 expedition to Mount Everest in which numerous climbers died in a blizzard. Krakauer was not prepared for the deadly storm. He didn’t know it was coming. He stood on top of Mount Everest and just saw some cloud formations and thought nothing was wrong.
Later, he met another climber who had returned quickly to base camp when he saw those same cloud formations. He had hustled back down the mountain. Why? This man was a pilot. In his years flying over dangerous storms, he had come to recognize thunderhead cloud formations. He had studied them from high overhead. These were a sure sign of dangerous weather. So when he was down below a thunderhead, he recognized it instantly and turned around and headed for safety.(1) Sometimes it pays off to be a keen observer.
Jesus was just such a keen observer. He was a master at people watching. In today’s passage, Jesus is in the Temple. As he taught the crowds that came to the Temple for worship and instruction in the faith, he observed two groups of people. First, there were the scribes. Jesus wasn’t too impressed by them. Listen again to Mark as he describes the scene:
“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. They devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
Harsh words for the scribes. These were the most religious people in the community and Jesus judges them quite severely. It is clear that these holy men weren’t as holy as they wanted people to think they were. Of course that is not as unusual as it may seem – there are a lot of people that are pulling the wool over people’s eyes, just keeping up appearances for the neighbors.
Recently I came across an interesting story about a man in the sports world – a moderately talented soccer player, who attempted to pull the wool over people’s eyes for years.
In his newsletter Now I Know!, Dan Lewis tells the story of Carlos Kaiser. Carlos was born in 1963 in Brazil, a country that is known for its superb soccer teams. Carlos was a naturally athletic young man, and at age 16 he joined a professional soccer club. Sadly, he was cut from the team not long afterwards. In spite of his athletic abilities, Carlos’ soccer skills simply weren’t at a professional level.
But that wasn’t the end of Carlos’ professional soccer career. If this were a Hollywood movie, we would get the classic training montage, like in one of the Rocky movies. Carlos would begin a punishing workout of soccer drills every day, change his diet and his mindset and become the most formidable soccer player in all of Brazil – all set to a driving rock song like “Eye of the Tiger.” The movie would fade out with Carlos being hoisted on his teammates shoulders after he kicks the winning goal in the World Cup. That’s how Hollywood might do it. But that not how Carlos Kaiser did it.
Carlos decided to con his way onto as many professional soccer teams as he could. Whenever coaches were looking for a few extra players, Carlos would apply. After all, he looked like an athlete. His friends all claimed he was a great athlete. They just never said he was a great soccer player.
So Carlos would get a short term contract with a professional team. Then he would claim that he needed at least a month to get in peak physical condition before he could go out on the field. During that time, he would collect a paycheck without actually playing much soccer. When he finally did get called out to play on the field, Carlos would suffer an alleged “injury” very quickly in the game – a pulled muscle was hard to disapprove back in the 70’s and early 80’s. So he would need another month to six weeks to recover from his injury before he could play.
But while he was on the bench – and still receiving a paycheck – Carlos would bribe local reporters to write stories about his amazing athleticism and soccer skills. Fans demanded to see him play. Teams would compete to offer him better contracts. All told, Carlos Kaiser had paid contracts with ten different clubs without ever having to play a full soccer match.
Carlos’ con almost got exposed in the late 80’s when he played for the Bangu soccer team. The owner, Castor de Andrade, demanded that his coach put Carlos into a game. Carlos had to think quick. He ran over to the opposing team’s stands and started a fight with a fan who was heckling his team. The referees threw Carlos out of the game. But to escape the wrath of the owner of the team, Carlos claimed the heckler had insulted his boss’s honor. The owner was so pleased about how Carlos had defended him, he gave him a 6 month extension on his contract.(2)
Some people have a talent for pulling the wool over people’s eyes. And some people, like Jesus, have a talent for recognizing such people. Jesus could examine people’s hearts. He could see what they were really like on the inside. And that’s what Jesus saw when he looked at the religious leaders of his time.
The scribes, the teachers of the law, were the most respected members of their communities. They had spent years studying and memorizing religious law. They were the ultimate religious authorities in their society. They expected praise and honor for their spiritual leadership. They expected to be applauded for their faith. But Jesus was not all that impressed by their posturing. Jesus didn’t care about the outward appearance. He knew that sometimes things are not as they appear.
Every year, the American Institute of Architects has an awards program that recognizes some of the best buildings in the country. In 1976, they chose the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, to receive one of the highest awards. In 1979, The American Institute of Architects held their annual conference in Kansas City, and they offered tours of Kemper Arena to their attendees. Everyone was, of course, impressed with the massive structure.
The day after the architect’s tour, a major storm swept through Kansas City and destroyed the roof of the Kemper Arena. A later investigation showed that the roof bolts weren’t strong enough to support the massive roof. So as soon as the guest architects left town, the roof quite literally fell in on the Kemper Arena, which was rebuilt and now goes by the name Hy-Vee Arena.(3)
Jesus aggravated the religious leaders of his day because he wasn’t impressed by their outward appearance; he knew that structurally they were weak. Jesus was repulsed by people who made a show of their religion.
All the praise and prestige that they so enjoyed, went straight to their heads. Even worse, some of them abused their position of spiritual leadership to manipulate their followers into giving more money that they could afford. You know, every time I read this passage about the faithful widow, one phrase always jumps off the page – “devouring widow’s houses.” Pretty graphic imagery.
Rodney Cooper, writing in the Holman New Testament Commentary, explains it like this: “In speaking of the scribes “devouring widow’s houses”, Jesus was condemning the greedy, predatory way in which scribes or other members of the religious establishment would not hesitate to mercilessly drive people into poverty while enriching themselves through their demands for offerings and payments in the name of religion, even if those payments would include the seizure of a widow’s estate, leaving her with no means of support or a place to live.”
“Despite this deliberate cruelty, the scribes would then put on a visible appearance of being very religious by saying lengthy prayers in public, and otherwise displaying their supposed piety in places where other people would see them do so and praise them for it, while also enjoying all the tangible benefits that came with their status as members of the religious hierarchy, such as seats of honor at religious feasts, or in synagogue during worship. Jesus said that their punishment in eternity would be greater because of their hypocrisy.(4) It doesn’t look good for the scribes.
And that brings us to the second thing Jesus saw as he people watched at the Temple that day. He saw a poor widow. As Mark says: “Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. He called his disciples and said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing. 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.”
Widows in Jesus’ day were uniquely vulnerable. There was social security back then, the only social safety net they had was the synagogue and their extended family. If others did not help them, they would be hungry and homeless. And yet in spite of her low status and her poverty, she gave what she had to the Temple. She didn’t draw attention to her sacrifice. She didn’t do it to impress anyone. If it hadn’t been for Jesus pointing it out, no one would have known. But this widow trusted God’s character and she obeyed God’s commands. Because loving God is its own reward. And the greater we love God, the more willing we are to sacrifice to follow.
You’ve all heard the name Corrie Ten Boom. Many of you have probably read her books. Corrie and her family had constructed a secret room in their house to hide Jewish citizens from Nazi deportation to concentration camps. It is estimated that the Ten Boom family was able to smuggle roughly 800 people out of the Netherlands. Sadly, one of their neighbors turned them in, and the Ten Boom family was sent to concentration camps.
Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were sent to the brutal Ravensbruck concentration camp. They were tortured, beaten and nearly starved to death. But they never gave up on their faith in God.
In December 1944, Betsie died at Ravensbruck. Corrie was released 12 days later. A few days after Corrie’s release all the women of her age group at Ravensbruck were sent to the gas chambers.
After Corrie’s release, she returned to the Netherlands and opened a rehabilitation center for victims of the concentration camps. She wrote books about her family’s experiences in the war and travelled all over the world sharing her faith. One of her more famous quotes is “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”(5)
Every year around this time, the widow returns to remind us of the truth of Corrie Ten Boom’s words – Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. That was the widow’s secret. That is the essence of faith. Faith is not an outward show of piety but an inner trust that God will provide. The widow in the Temple had that kind of trust, The scribes – not so much.
The religious leaders put on a show for the people who were under their care. The poor widow only had an audience of one – and that is God. The widow returns today to say once more – “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, p 42.
2. Ibid… p 42-43.
3. Ibid… p 43.
4. Ibid… p 43-44.
5. Ibid… p 44.
