“Auto-Pilate”  (John 18:33-38)

Intro:  Our reading this morning tells of Jesus’ encounter with Pilate.  It will be the day of his crucifixion.  When Pilate asks Jesus “are you a king?”  He couldn’t understand the answer Jesus gave us.  ///

Rarely do I feel the need to offer a warning or an explanation in advance of my sermons, today I feel I should mention that I have a pilots license, I used to fly little cessnas and sailplanes.  And I seem to think it is endlessly funny that “Pilate” the Roman governor, and “Pilot” the guy who flys a plane, sound the same. 

(Skit)  “Pilot to copilot, pilot to copilot come in please.  Pilot to copilot, can you read me?  Where is that twin brother of mine?  I guess I’ll just have to fly this plane alone.  I’m used to making all the decisions anyway.  I am the emperor’s representative in the occupied territory of Judea.  That’s where I’m going back to today.  Now Judea is not the most desirable of assignments, I know but I run it.  I’m governor.   I plan to work my way up in time, so I want to do a good job.  I need to be on site for the upcoming Jewish Passover, I’ve found it helps keep the peace if I’m there.  Excuse me, I better check in with ground control.  “Ground, this is Centurion 7913G ready for departure.  Runway 13 right.”  I’ll just get this off the ground and we’ll be on our way.  I’m looking forward to getting back, my wife Claudia is in Judea now.  She says I work too much and that I’m away too often.  But whenever I go away, she leaves a light on.  Although I worry about our relationship, the light she leaves on keeps getting smaller and smaller.  First it was the front porch light, then the living room light.  Now she just leaves the little one on the stove lit.  The pilot light.   Enough about that.  Let’s talk flying.   I love flying.  You pull up, and you go up, you push down and you go down.  Cause, effect.  It’s all rational and understandable.   There is a precision to it.  That’s what I like, things that make sense.  It’s easy to make decisions up here because you know what will happen.

There is no way to overstate the power and drama of our scripture, this moment as Jesus came before Pilate.  Jesus knew what was going to happen, how the world was about to change, Pilate did not.  Here are two men with some things in common, and one huge difference.  They were both about the same age, both of them passionate, committed, opinionated about what they believed.  They could be bullheaded at times, too.  I imagine they were both quite intelligent.  All these things one could suppose they shared in common.  The thing that divided them so far apart, was how they thought.

Jesus was a Jew.  Pilate was a Roman.  And Pilate never understood the Jews.  That must have drove him nuts.  He was sent on assignment to Judea to be the over seer of the Roman occupation and he had to deal with such different culture.  As a Roman he prized reason and logic, straight forward questions with straight forward answers.  Cause and effect, rules and regulation.  Just get the system set up and maintain it.  Ask a question and expect an answer that is to the point. 

The Jews however, would answer questions with stories, or worse yet even more questions.  Think of how Jesus would often teach in parables and how wide open parables are to varying interpretations.  The scribes brought Jesus before Pilate without really answering the question of “what has he done wrong”  They bring him forward and say “kill him, he is blaspheming.” 

Jesus is brought before Pilate, and Pilate wants to do what is appropriate and necessary.  Although Jewish life was seen as having little or no value, he did not want to order an execution with no reason.  Blasphemy was not a Roman crime.    

The high priests then accuse Jesus of leading a revolt against the emperor in Rome.  They said he claimed to be a King.  Kings and emperors.  Pilate knew about those.  And if Jesus was leading a revolt that would be a crime.  But this man did not act like a king or revolutionary.  So Pilate asks Jesus directly.  “Are you the king of the Jews?  Jesus replies “my Kingdom is not of this world.” 

He wasn’t saying that it was a kingdom off in the clouds somewhere, a kingdom literally “out of this world.”  Jesus went on to elaborate the kinds of kingdoms that Pilate knew all about.  Ones that depend on raw power, that are maintained by force. 

If Jesus were an earthly king his followers would have fought to protect him.  In fact, Peter had just tried to do that in the garden.  But Jesus told him to put away his sword.  The kingdom he belonged to was different. 

In that circular, poetic style of his, Jesus was telling Pilate “The kingdom I belong to is not like the kingdoms of this world.  It’s not even a kingdom as humans usually understand kingdoms. 

As long as we think about the kingdom of God in a geographical of territorial way, as we think about the Roman Empire or the country of the United States, we’re always going to think of God’s kingdom as being somewhere or sometime. 

But Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world.  If it is not somewhere what can it be?  Every king we know has a kingdom.  Whether it is the king of England, the ring of rock and roll, even the lion king had a particular time and place that defined the kingdom. 

Jesus was at the day of his death.  Throughout his whole life he knew, he believed, that in him the kingdom had come.  Jesus lived on earth, but he lived as no one else ever has, in God’s kingdom.  Everything he did, and said and lived, he revealed the love, the influence and the grace of God. 

Pilate asks “what is truth”  Jesus lived the answer.  God’s kingdom exists in people and God’s Kingdom is most visible in him.  If we can stop thinking of the Kingdom as somewhere, or sometime, and start thinking of it as someone, a whole lot of what Jesus said will make a lot more sense.  If we can get beyond our seeking logical reasoned answers, if we can turn off our “auto-pilots” that guide us though a cause and effect universe.  Then we can begin to see the truth is not “an idea with merit.”  Truth is felt, it is acted out and enacted in life.  Truth in Hebrew means more literally “trustworthy” or “faithful” and it is a term more descriptive of a person than any intellectual proposition. 

Pilate asks what is truth.  Jesus’ word’s are describing who is truth.  Earlier in the Gospel Jesus says “I am the way the truth and the life.” 

In his institutes on religion, John Calvin reminds us “To see the kingdom of God is to inherit it… But those who identify the kingdom of God with heaven are mistaken; the kingdom means rather the spiritual life, which begins in this life by faith, and in which we grow daily as we progress in constant faith.   

As we pushed back from Thanksgiving tables, let us be thankful not for all the things in our lives, but all the blessing, all the signs of the Kingdom that come to us through people, relationships.  Let us be thankful for the truth that is not found out there, but within us.  As God is in us.  Amen.    

“What Happens Next?” (Mark 12:38-44)

Intro:  Our New Testament reading is from Mark.  As he often does, Mark puts two stories back-to-back in order to emphasize a point.  Jesus is in the temple with the disciples and they aren’t at worship, they are instead watching people.  Jesus says look at those leaders who like good seats and long prayers, don’t do what they do.  Then says take notice of this elderly woman, watch what she does.  Let us listen for God’s word as it comes through Mark’s words.  ///

I’d like to do something a little different this morning.  Our text is a conversation between Jesus and the disciples about giving to church and I’d like to start out by inviting you to have a conversation with the person next to you (or a few people near you) and consider in what ways this woman can be seen as foolish and in what ways this woman can be seen as faithful as she puts her last two coins in the offering box. This will only be a few minutes, so please don’t exchange recipes or have the conversations you can have over tea, please do try to name ways that she can be seen as foolish and how she can be seen as faithful.   Take a few minutes to do that.  (Discussion time)

In what ways Foolish / in what ways Faithful?  Does anyone have any observations they would want to share?  —-

I imagine you came up with many more good thoughts on each side of this question.  On one hand we can ask “how could this poor woman give everything away?”  What was she thinking?   And perhaps we might ask, if you’re going to give it all away “why would she give it all to church?”  Did she really think that God needed her two small coins?   Did she think that somehow her gift would actually matter in the big scheme?  We don’t know what she was thinking, we are left to guess and wonder at her motivation. 

But she is motivated, she acts and Jesus calls our attention to her and her gift. He says hers is the greatest gift.  There is something about her actions that Jesus notices and lifts her up as an image of faithfulness.  For two thousand years her “two cents worth” has been talked about.  And remember that of all the things that Jesus taught about, money was second only to “the Kingdom of God”.  Jesus often spoke about money. 

The powerful image of the widow coming forward to offer her only two coins has been often misused for many years in efforts to increase giving to the church.  Here is the ideal giver, it’s been said, or preached.  If this woman could dig so deep and sacrifice so much, as Jesus notes, why can’t the rest of us?  She gave everything she had and so should we.  Some like to note that she was a percentage giver – “100%” of what she had.  Let’s all do the same.  There are some churches badger people into giving by saying “God is watching what you put in the plate so make it splashy”  In Kenya, at one service I attended there was a special offering taken where each person came forward to make their offering and not only was the giver identified, but the amount of the gift was as well.  Mr. Kariuki gives 300 Shillings.  Everyone clapped for each  gift, but I don’t think it would catch on here.

The story of the widow’s mite has also been used by some as an example of bad stewardship and a reason to not give to the church.  Some people take delight in pointing out what a corrupt institution this must have been that would take the last coins from the poorest of the poor.  What kind of religious community would encourage that?  What kind of church would accept this gift?  Some say she must have been tricked or guilted out of all of her money and that is not right.  She wasn’t.  So I’m not going to say that this morning either. 

What I do want to is try to picture this story as vividly as possible.  Jesus did sit and watch as people came to offer their gifts.  He and the disciples are just sitting with their backs to the wall in the rear of the temple.  People would come and go and leave gifts in one of the 13 boxes in the back.  As always Jesus takes the opportunity to make a profound teaching from everyday events.  He notes that some people give from their abundance and his words are a challenge to consider how much one had truly sacrificed to give as they did.  But then he focuses on an elderly woman, a widow.  She quietly drops two coins in the box as she leaves.  He calls her action to the attention of the disciples.  Look, she what she has done.  Hers is the greatest gift for she has given out of her poverty.  She is a devoted woman who was not afraid to give all she has to God.  She has given her whole life because of her faith. 

I heard a story in Africa about a time when the offering plate went around a man took the plate and gently set it on the ground, and then he stood in it to show the depth of his conviction and his desire to give it all to God.  I don’t know how the ushers picked up the plate without hurting their backs.  That image of standing in the offering plate in one that stuck with me.  The woman in our story was doing something like that and I would like to focus on the woman this morning. 

The question I have, that is not answered in out text is what was the woman thinking and feeling as she did this?  One of the most engaging things to do when reading scripture to make the stories come to life in your head, and fill in the parts that are not told.  As this woman brings her gift, what was it like for her?  I don’t think she was pressured to make the gift.  But one wonders is this something that she had done many times before?  Was she accustomed to emptying her pockets as she left the temple, knowing that God would provide for her in the coming week?  If so her act might be one of joyful confidence, she may have dropped her coins in saying, “here you go God.  Thanks for everything, see you next week!”  She knew what would come next.  She may have found a way of living that God got everything but just the basics of what it took to live on.  The thought that she was used to putting everything in was a new idea to me. 

I had always had a picture of a very old woman, walking with a shuffling step.  In my mind, even though she had been through some hard times, her heart was filled with a sense of loving gratitude toward God.  Her gift of two small copper coins was a sacrificial gift of a truly grateful heart.  She had not done this before.  She was responding to a need to give from within her and this day it was to give it all away.  She was going to be OK; she would make this gift and then see what comes.  But she didn’t know what would come next, really.  That’s how I had often pictured it. 

From this moment on my life is in your hands” When you ride across the heavens in all your glory.  I will be like a cocklebur sticking in your saddle blanket! 

Giving is an act of faith.  We don’t know what motivates another to give.  We may not ever know what is clearly going on within ourselves as we live out our faith and make our commitments to God.  Some may know the joy of God filling us up faster than we can give ourselves away.  Some may feel like sacrificial giving is too much of a sacrifice. 

But we know that no matter what we bring before God, in loving transformation God uses whatever is brought, for good.  If we put our whole selves in the plate, or even just a little bit, God will bless and use whatever is there.  Amen.