Sermon by Tom Are Jr. | July 7, 2024 | Fourth Presbyterian Church

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 7, 2024

A Mature Patriotism

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Philippians 4:4–7
Mark 12:38–41

The end is getting close now and Jesus had to have a lot on his mind, but for a moment his attention is captured by a woman. He calls his disciples, “Do you see that woman?”

He was sitting across from the temple treasury. He wasn’t teaching. He wasn’t performing mighty deeds of power. He was just watching as people offered their gifts to the temple. He sees a woman put in two coins, which combined is less than 3 percent of a daily wage. Jesus wanted to make sure his followers noticed her. “Do you see that woman?”

Before we proceed, let me do a little Bible study regarding Mark’s Gospel. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is constantly teaching his disciples about the kingdom of God, the promised day of God. He teaches of the life that God intends for us. But they never really get it. In Mark’s telling, the disciples can never quite catch on. As the old show Maxwell Smart used to say, they always missed it by that much!

This is still the case at the end of chapter 12, and we are just a few days from crucifixion.

As things are drawing to the end, Jesus wants to make sure his followers, who don’t quite catch on, see this woman who places all she has to live on in the temple treasury.

The Greek word for all she has to live on is bios — like biology. It can mean possessions, but it can also be translated “life.” When you give all you have away, both of those meanings are tied together.

This is a complicated moment in Mark’s Gospel: biblical scholars don’t all agree on how to interpret this text.

Some say this is a really good moment and Jesus speaks with gratitude in his voice. He sees in this woman a willingness to serve in sacrificial fashion and praises her for it.

Irene was a saint in one of the first churches I served. Her son was Martin. Shortly after Martin was born, his father left them. Martin was impulsive and erratic. He never learned to speak. Irene worked at a Presbyterian home as an activities director organizing trips in the fall to see the leaves, and trips to the beauty shop, and exercise that you could do from your chair. The folks there loved Irene, and she loved them. And Martin was with her every day. At church, he cruised the hallways like he was at home. He would be the first in line to get a cookie after worship and sometimes would stand there while he ate four or five. Even at age seventeen he would sometimes crawl under the tables in fellowship hall. Occasionally during worship he would walk around the sanctuary and wave to people.

Wherever Irene went, so did Martin. She ate all her meals with him. She never dated. She never went out except on Thursday nights for choir practice. Martin loved the music.

Every moment she loved that little guy who couldn’t even tell her he loved her too. She gave all she had — her bios — for him. And I am sure that Jesus called his angels to look down on her and said, “Do you see that woman?” Sacrificial love is inspiring.

But some commentators say not so fast. The tone they hear in Jesus’ voice is not gratitude but indignation. Immediately before we meet this woman, Jesus condemns the behavior of the scribes. They say long prayers, they wear long robes (which I hope is OK in some circumstances), and they devour widows’ houses, like those TV preachers who buy their mansions by convincing folks living in manufactured homes to send in their social security checks. Jesus hates that.

Some say Jesus is pointing less to the woman and more to the corrupt temple structure that is robbing her of her life, her bios. Indeed, Jesus will soon say the temple is so corrupt that it will be torn down stone by stone.

These scholars make a good point. All institutions are a mixed bag. All institutions are vulnerable to corruption, to failure, to oppression. The ways of the powerful usually work for the benefit of the powerful, and the powerless are left to build a life with leftovers.

These scholars read not a story of inspiration but of indignation.

Perhaps. But if I understand the text, it’s more complicated than that. You may read it differently than I, but let me tell you what I see here. I think Jesus wants to make sure that his disciples, who never quite catch on, see this woman who gives all she has to a temple she loves, even in its corrupted state, because more than anyone else he has ever met he sees something of himself in her.

As the Reverend Gary Charles says, “The widow is not unlike Jesus, who will also soon give his last red cent not to inflate the corrupt temple treasury but to redeem God’s beloved world” (Brian Blount and Gary Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices, p. 203). She gives all she has to an institution that is not worthy of her gift. But the giving grows not from the worthiness of the church but from the sacrificial love of the woman, just as Jesus gives all he has, his bios, for a corrupt world that is not worthy of his sacrifice. Maybe seeing her do what she did gave him the strength to do what he must do.

We have been reading parables this summer. And if you have noticed, the parables are citizenship stories. They declare that our ultimate citizenship rests in God’s promised day.

But I have invited us to look at this woman today because, while our ultimate citizenship is in the life that God intends for us all, we are also citizens of this nation. And this week of national devotion has reminded us that, like that old temple, civic life is always complicated.

I’ve lost count of the number of you who have said to me, I’m worried. I’m afraid. Things I thought were settled are shifting sands now. When it comes to our civic life, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in these days.

In his book Abundant Community, Peter Block describes what he calls the erosion of citizenship in contemporary America. He describes citizenship this way: “The way to the good life is a path that we make by walking it with those around us. … We, together, become the producers of a satisfying future” (Peter Block, Abundant Community, p. 18).

I read those words over a decade ago, and they rang true. Today one might wonder if citizenship, as Block defines it — producing a satisfying future together — can be recovered at all. Assuming that we were that way before, could we be that way again, even in unsettling times?

Everyone is talking about the presidential debate, which I find hard to believe left anyone inspired. The obvious lack of truth and the lack of competency reaffirms the risks of fragility and corruption of our civic life. It unsettles us. And it is why Peter Block says there is an erosion of citizenship.

Here is a place where my faith and my patriotism align. Yours may align differently, and that’s OK. But let me take a moment to share this perspective on this week of national celebration.

My patriotism begins at an odd place. Not with the Star-Spangled Banner and not with Washington crossing the Delaware. For me it starts with Christmas. I know, I know. I’m weird this way, but stick with me. In the birth of Christ, the incarnation, the heart of God chose to dwell with us, to live where we live. Why did God need to be here? To state the truth of Christmas simply: God wanted to be in this world because God loves this world. God loves this place. And as people of faith, we endeavor to love what God loves.

And if we love what God loves, then I think we too are called to love our place, to love our country. Traditional language for that love is patriotism. Patriotism has long been a good word. But I must confess, in recent times what it means to be patriotic needs reflection.

Just one example: Those who stormed the capital on January 6 desecrating the building that is the center of our common life. They sought to disrupt the workings of democracy itself. They chanted death to the vice president. And they professed to do this because they are patriots. But it is a patriotism that diminished and belittled the value of their neighbors. You can’t claim to love America while spewing hatred at Americans.

I think we need fewer patriots, and we need more citizens. We need people devoted to building a satisfying future together. It’s the harder choice. But lately patriotism has claimed that cynicism passes for wisdom and conspiracy is chosen over truth. Too much of our common life is defined by a patriotism that traffics in shaming others, in dismissing others, and lying to others. These are lazy forms of patriotism.

We can choose a better way. It is harder, but it is the way to build what Block calls a satisfying future. So, in unsettling times, I find it helpful to lean on this teaching of our faith. It will urge us not simply to be patriots but to be citizens — to sacrifice for our place even when she is corrupt and unworthy, but because that is what love does.

That’s why Jesus needs his disciples, his disciples that never quite caught on, to see: he says, “Look, did you see that woman? You don’t want to miss what love like that looks like. If you miss it, well you miss the whole point.”

It was April 8, 1974, and my dad got three tickets to the game. We picked up my friend Mark, and Mark, Dad, and I went to watch the Atlanta Braves.

In the third inning, Mark and I went to get a hot dog. We had been talking about getting a hot dog at the game since about 4:00 that afternoon. We were just about to pay, when the stadium speakers announced Hank Aaron was coming to the plate. I said, “Mark, we have to go. Forget the hot dogs.” He said, “We are just a minute away from paying.” “No, Mark we have to go.” “We will make it,” he said. I left my hot dog and ran back into the seats — and I got back in the stadium just in time to watch Hank Aaron hit a home run, number 715, the home run that broke Babe Ruth’s record.

It was amazing. My friend Mark was getting mustard on his hot dog. When we drove him home, his dad was waiting in the driveway. “Mark, what was it like?” He said, “It’s hard to describe, Dad.”

Missed it by that much.

Some things if you miss them, you miss the whole point.

We live in unsettling times. America is a nation we love, but America is not a given. This experiment in democracy is kept alive by citizens who devote themselves to the common good. Elections tempt us to ask, “What is good for me?” but a mature patriotism, a citizenship that is informed by our ultimate citizenship in God’s promised day asks, “What is good for us all?”

And when we do, I am confident that Jesus calls the angels and says, “Look, look there, do you see them? They look just like me.”