“Active Isness”
“Active Isness”
Ruth 3:1-5 Psalm 146 Mark 12:38-44
November 10, 2024, Twenty Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Year B
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
Psalm 146 starts and ends with Praise the LORD. The English translation for LORD is in all capital letters. In the Hebrew scriptures that word for LORD is Yahweh. This is so holy for the Hebrews that it is unpronounceable. Here is a word that recognizes the limitations of words. All-caps for LORD means, God Almighty, and then some. What it really means cannot be defined. Even the term, or name, or word, God, is misleading, yet in English, it’s what we’ve got, and we use it as if we know what it means.
For the Hebrews it was LORD, Yahweh, which is more breath that grammar. For those of us with English, LORD is usually said as the word, God. But even the word God is only a pointer because nothing can capture the fullness of God. Even our own comprehension, if we can comprehend God, it is likely not God we comprehend.
God is a holy-other. God is transcendent, and imminent. God is… Wait a minute. If we put any word in that third word position, God is (such and such), then that third word is already limited and weak in its ability to express qualities or character of God.
The word God, is it a word or a name? To use God, we often assume an image. We call this, our image of God, and this is very formative to who we become as people. For some, God is pictured as an old man in the sky, flowing beard, sitting on a cloud throwing lightning bolts around, waiting for judgement day. God is watching, so you better behave. This Santa-Clause type of list keeper will remember who’s naughty or nice. This is very animated, and God can be personal in that sense, someone you can talk to, just look up, or kneel, and start talking.
Yet for others that puts God too far off, too detached. It views God up there, or out there, as a separate entity, and yet God, for many, is not a separate being, not even a Supreme Being, but more of an energy or felt Presence, like love itself.
‘Itself’ is another term sometimes used when the word God doesn’t work. The Itself points to spiritual realms that are in relationship with Earthly realms. Origin is the Itself continually becoming present, and in Christianity we call this Incarnation as spirit becomes created flesh of one sort or another.
Psalm 146 is filled with pointers. Because LORD with capital letters can’t capture the Itself, other words and metaphors join in for a combined effort to convey certain aspects, and you can notice this through verbs. We read, “the LORD their God, who made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that is in them.” God made these, keeps faith, executes justice, gives food, sets prisoners free, opens blind eyes, lifts the humble, loves the righteous, watches over strangers, upholds orphan and widow, and brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The LORD will reign.
In Mark we see a critique of assumptions through the failed practices of those who deceive themselves. We see the limitations of small thinking exposed through great reversals. In this story, less is more, small is everything, and abundance becomes empty and unfulfilling. Opposites are at play.
After warning the disciples to watch out for those scribes who are addicted to power and prestige, Jesus sits down opposite the treasury. Remember, to sit down is the posture of a teacher. Here is Jesus with wisdom lessons money cannot provide. He sits down, opposite the treasury. The treasury is the receptacle that holds money; Jesus, is the teacher who gives wisdom. The treasury assumes a system, Jesus shares new perspectives. One shows power as static, locked, and protected, for the other, power is dynamic, open, and made real through vulnerability.
Opposites are at play as we see a poetic structure take form in these sentences. “Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.”
The word many plays off the singular word, a. The word rich is opposite poor. People contrast with widow, for widows were not considered people, they had no rights, no standing in society. It continues with the rich people who “put in large sums” which is in relation to the widow and her small copper coins. Large and small. Powerful and powerless. Prestigious and considered worthless. Jesus points out society, and this has remained unchanged for the last 2,000 years.
Is that really the best we can do? Are we satisfied to inherit traditions that perpetuate wealth inequality and injustice? Do social and economic stratification, the attainment of layered standards of living, and external marks of success serve as foundational measurements of life?
The widow catches Jesus’ attention. He calls over the disciples to point her out to them as he says, Truly I tell you. That is a literary technique. ‘Truly I tell you’ is code language for ‘you better listen and learn because here is the most important point.’ Jesus then says it is the poor widow who has put in more than all those contributing to the treasury. They give from abundance, she gives from poverty; they give from what is not theirs for they have stolen it from the poor to begin with, while gives all she has to live on.
Whether those contributing that day were wealthy or poor, they are all there. For better or worse, they are all in this together. The widow is on equal grounds as a full participant, at least in that part of the synagogue. In the temple there are places woman cannot go, places even the scribes cannot go. Is that the kind of religion we want?
In the same way words cannot capture the fullness of God’s Isness, forms of worship cannot express unseen depths of devotion and qualities of faithful living. It is out of her poverty that she can put in everything, all she has to live on. The wealthy put in large sums, yet no matter how much they put in it’s a finite amount and it’s measured, compared to their larger wealth. And this is what the crowd is doing, right there, in the treasury.
The poor woman isn’t in the prominent part of the crowd. She comes in. Mark says, “A poor widow came,” and it’s as it she moves in from the fringe, the edge of the inside, she is not imposing herself, but including herself, with humility and sincerity.
Using our mind, this story only shows us so much. Our knowledge, in mental structures, is tied to the limitations of surface level observation, like counting amounts, or getting caught in loops of hypocrisy like the wealthy who steal from widows then give to the synagogue to fund support for poor widows. Well, they wouldn’t be poor widows if you didn’t steal from them to begin with. The scribes create the problem, then use religion to absolve themselves as they defer blame on those they exclude. Jesus says God will hold them accountable, but still, there’s more going on than social justice issues. We see in this passage the very making of the world, and how to be in relationship with Isness, with Itself, through the transparency of power in ways that involve more than mental thought.
We think the wealthy are mighty, able to exert power. But the woman has verition, which is not might, but truth is on her side. She is beyond counting, but filled with right relationship, and this is a lesson for us on how to live as planetary creatures. The scribes have a will to power, but the woman has a way to stand in relation to the world in a way that gives her the strength to carry on, yet even in this she does not fret about the future. She is present in fullness of the moment, to give herself to Isness, in the now. Her inner life and the capacity of faithful integrity is what Jesus sees. This is what Jesus points out to those who learn from him.
Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples, “Now that you’ve seen this widow, you need to go do…” such and such. In this story, Jesus doesn’t challenge the system that benefits the scribes, although he does give warning, tells the disciples to beware. Jesus takes what is given, reality as presented, but he shows us what to look for, how to recognize it, and encourages a larger spaciousness and different relationship with time, to live into the lesson.
The widow does what she does in relationship with all there is, seen and unseen. What she does in the moment makes no sense, that she would give away to the synagogue all she has to live on. But this shows something more than calculation, than a counting mind that frets about a future through rational, linear thinking. She moves with heart-space, with spiritual attunement, and relational trust. She puts God’s active Isness to work as she leans with humility deeper into trust. Jesus isn’t giving us a list of what to do, but holding up an example of how to be.
As we continue to live lives of faithful intention, may we learn how to be, to humbly give ourselves over to relational Presence that is perceived and embodied in more ways than one. May we learn to less comprehend God, as we rather contemplate through the beauty of the universe how everything speaks of unfolding Origin, of Active Isness. May our praise and thankfulness be awakened, for God is glorified, praise the LORD, now and always, Amen.