Lent Day 36: Tuesday in Holy Week: A Living Parable

The Poor Widow, Maarten de Vos, 1602 *

Tuesday of Holy Week encompasses nearly three chapters of the gospel of Mark. There is much to choose from.  Let's meditate upon the story we call "The Widow's Mite." Scripture can be found here.

If you'd asked, I'm not sure I could have told you that this moment in Jesus' ministry takes place during Holy Week, but here it is, tucked in among his complaints about the religious authorities, his predictions of the Temple's destruction, and what sound an awful lot like apocalyptic musings. (Spoiler was there all along: a portion of this is called "the little apocalypse.")

The scene begins with a bitter complaint against the scribes--a passage that always makes this religious-figure-wearing-a-long-robe-while-reading-it cringe just a little. We do like our robes, I'm not gonna lie.

Jesus says, 

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Jesus condemns religious leaders who enrich themselves, and in the process bankrupt those who have little to begin with. This passage transfers seamlessly to late 20th-early 21st century American Christianity; just substitute "televangelists" for "scribes" and you're good to go.

This is the essential background for understanding what happens next. Jesus seats himself near the treasury, so that he can see who gives and how much. And to be sure, lots of money is being ostentatiously given by wealthy patrons of the Temple. Then, a poor widow--see above--puts in two small copper coins.

For years I read Jesus' words as words of praise of the widow--"She gave all she had." I preached sermons containing meaningful stories of people with very little who managed to give generously. My favorite was about a guy who lived on the money he got from collecting recyclable cans, who still gave the youth group $20 towards their can drive. "He gave us 400 cans," I said, as I preached this story from the heart.

Now I'm pretty sure I got that terribly, terribly wrong. Now, I hear the echo of "devouring widows' houses" in Jesus' remarks about the poor widow. Now, I hear Jesus' voice thick with tears, because he knows the widow is literally sacrificing herself on the altar of someone else's greed, and it sickens him.

Now I think of the widow as a living parable, not about her own generosity, but about the greed that demands it of her, in the name of her faith, in the name of piety. Now, I believe Jesus is angry about it. And he's right.

If you have a moment, look at the image of the poor widow. See if you can spot her. She's dimly lit, in darkness, because we would really rather not see her. But that's what Jesus does; he sees people. He sees those the rest of us turn away from. 

Maarten de Vos got it in 1602. He understood exactly what this parable is about. 

We know who will receive the greater condemnation.

* Image: Vos, Maarten de, 1532-1603. Poor Widow, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56664 [retrieved April 12, 2022]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maerten_de_Vos_-_The_poor_widow.jpg. Used with permission.

Lent Day 29: The Parable of the Trees

Again, this season is showing me a passage I've read, but which feels brand new to me. It is Jotham's "Parable of the Trees" from the book of Judges.

Just to give you a quick overview of the book of Judges: It's nasty and violent. It covers an era when, according to the tightly woven narrative, there was no king over God's people, and everyone did what was right in their own sight. Chaos. It starts out marginally ok, and gets worse.

The story unfolds in a spiral pattern:

The people stop worshiping the one true God, and worship, instead, foreign gods, idols, the gods the neighbors are worshiping. 

   Then, God punishes them: they are invaded and slapped down in a decisive way. 

       But finally a "judge" arises-- think, not Judge Judy, but a combination of wise arbitrator, and 
       governor, and military leader. 

            They would be anointed by God. 

                   They would lead the people in a battle against the invaders, and win, and order would be 
                   restored. 

                         Until the next time, when... 

The people stop worshiping the one true God, and it would all begin again...

Except each time it gets a little worse.

The end of Judges is a bloodbath like few recorded in scripture.

In Judges 9, the people of Shechem decide to agree upon Abimelech as king, and Jotham--Abimelech's half-brother-- speaks to the people in objection.

He does so by telling this parable.

When Jotham was told about [Abimelech], he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim. He raised his voice and called out, “Listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, so that God may listen to you!

     “Once the trees went out to anoint a king over themselves. 
          So they said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king!’
     “But the olive tree replied to them, ‘Should I stop producing my oil, 
          which is how gods and humans are honored, so that I can go to sway over the trees?’

     “So the trees said to the fig tree, 
          ‘You come and be king over us!’
     “The fig tree replied to them, 
          ‘Should I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit, 
           so that I can go to sway over the trees?’

     “Then the trees said to the vine, 
         ‘You come and be king over us!’
     “But the vine replied to them, 
         ‘Should I stop providing my wine that makes gods and humans happy, 
         so that I can go to sway over the trees?’

     “Finally, all the trees said to the thornbush, 
         ‘You come and be king over us!’
     “And the thornbush replied to the trees, 
          ‘If you’re acting faithfully in anointing me king over you, 
           come and take shelter in my shade; 
           but if not, let fire come out of the thornbush and burn up the cedars of Lebanon.’  
        
                                                                              ~ Judges 9:7-15

Not everyone is qualified to be king.

They may be very good at other things. They may even be geniuses at some things.

But to be king-- or judge, or ANY KIND of leader-- requires a specific set of skills and temperament.

To chose the wrong one, to accept the wrong one, is to court a wildfire that will destroy everything.

Lent Day 19: Yeast

And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”  ~ Luke 13:20-21

Yeast.

My first experience with it was in college: I bought something called the Tassajara Bread Book, and taught myself how to bake bread. This was in an era when I was buying books about holistic health practices and imagining my life to be taking a kind of hippy-ish turn. Earthy, crunchy granola girl. Goals.

I was a junior in college, in a six-person suite, and my friend Jean was witness to my efforts. I'd grown up in a household in which my mother was self-described as being "NOT a baker." She sent me to her friend, Cecily's house at Christmastime, to learn how to bake cookies. She never made cakes or cupcakes; why should we, when there was Minos bakery in Atlantic City? The one thing I remember my mother baking was an apple pie, that was hot and fresh one day when I got home from school. But bread? Never. Not in a million years. You could buy bread anywhere.

But there I was, 19 years old and learning how yeast "proofs," or gets activated. It needs fluids and food to bring it alive-- like anyone, I guess. So, I provided, as the book instructed, lukewarm water and honey, and mixed in the tablespoonsful of yeast and watched as it spread, and bubbled, and declared: I'm ready.

Same baking book, thirtysomething years later. 

What followed was work, a kind of work I still love. Measuring and stirring, sure. But what makes bread is the kneading, and kneading is a whole-body experience. You do it with your hands, and elbows, and shoulders, and back, and hips. You put your whole self into kneading, and it is an exquisite workout. Kneading is what gives the bread its texture. Kneading helps the bread to rise by ensuring lots of air is also mixed in with what by the end of the 15 minutes (prescribed by the book) must be a thousand layers of dough folded in upon itself, again and again.

The work the yeast does is to help the bread to rise. By the time I was finished with my four fragrant honey-whole-wheat loaves, it was three in the morning and Jean and I were both delirious, me giddy with baking and the prospect of sitting down to cut into a loaf; and Jean, with French reflexive verbs.

"I've had a vision," Jean said. "The verbs are little ferrymen."

And we sat together, laughing, dipping hot bread in honey, and ate.

Jesus tells this tiny parable, only 24 words in the Greek (35 in English), and, as in so much of Luke, a woman features as the main actor in the miniature story. In the original Greek she "hides" the yeast/ leavening in the flour, until it all is leavened. Maybe "hides" because ancient people weren't so comfortable with leavening. It freaked them out. It was alive in an unpredictable way, and so it actually, for most people, symbolized something insidious, something uncontrollable, that could make mischief or even mayhem.

But Jesus doesn't use it that way.

Because now, bread is possible-- bread, the staff and stuff of life; bread, the word we use to indicate all sustenance; bread, the very least that every human being has a right to have, because no one in a civilized society should be denied it.

That, Jesus says, is what the reign of God is like.

Something unexpected, done by someone unexpected, makes something good.

Not only good, needed.

Not only needed, loved.

Not only good, needed, loved: but a source of life itself.