Mass readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time:
1 Kings 17.10-16 Psalm 146.6-10 Hebrews 9.24-28 Mark 12.38-44
I grew up knowing this gospel passage as “the story of the widow’s mite” but as a boy not knowing that the mite wasn’t m-i-g-h-t, but mite, m-i-t-e referring to the two coins she placed in the collection. A “mite” is the name for a small brass coin from the time of Shakespeare; it persisted in English Bible translations long after it fell out of everyday speech – being an antiquated word, it sounds biblical. So, my understanding of the story was that this was about how mighty the widow was in her faith. And so, when one thinks of the mighty works of God, Christ’s deeds of power, we ought to put her sacrifice next to those of our Lord and understand that within the context of a life of poverty, of frailty, that a human being can do something spiritually mighty even as it looks pathetic in the eyes of the worldly.
Jesus lauds her for it above even the most generous of contributors to the temple treasury because they gave from out of their wealth, she gave from her poverty.
So blessed are all of us who make true sacrifices for our faith, not just a little distribution from out of our surplus.
Yet, what nags be about this story is that while it’s a great testament to that woman’s faith; knowing what we know about the fate of the Temple (it will be destroyed within a generation), knowing that Jesus knows this will happen, is not her faith misplaced? Is not her donation and her prayer at the Temple a waste of time and money?
I think this is germane to the question of our stewardship of the faith here, the duty of care we have for the parish which includes this beautiful building. I think we all know that nothing is forever, and that we’re aware of parishes closing, other churches shuttering, and the place being either demolished or converted to other use. Why should we sacrifice for the sake of St. Augustine’s, Dundas? It’s not like we’re a great religious centre like the Jerusalem Temple, or a place of pilgrimage for the Catholic community like Lourdes. We’re not special, are we? There is some historical significance to the parish – we’re the mother parish of the diocese, we have one of the oldest Catholic churches in Ontario, although certainly not the oldest. And so, as lamentable as it might be for this place to one day go away; such is the way of history, the way of the world.
I don’t know if such thoughts occur to those who are Catholic in our area and do not support the parish. I am aware that some of the lack of support comes of a jaded opinion of the Church born of embarrassing public scandals, but also negative personal experiences. There’s been mismanagement of the Church at times which people can point to: you know, I can waste my own money, why give it to the Church to waste; pastoral malpractice that’s been experienced through priests who really need to go on extended retreat; lousy liturgy with inappropriate or bad music, poor preaching and presiding at the mass, supposedly unfriendly congregations, lack of things for the kids, for the youth, the young adults, for marrieds with children, for singles, and so on; …but then we also hear, “my kids don’t behave in Church anyway, and because they’re such a distraction, I don’t see any point in coming”; some stay away because the heating system doesn’t work, the air conditioning is noisy and people can’t hear over it; and at the end of day, with all these complaints, and just wanting a little peace and quiet, many figure it better to sleep in for an extra hour on Sunday than to get up and get here for something they assume will be unsatisfying, that they aren’t sure they believe in anymore. And by that, we’re not talking about God so much as about belief in the Church as a local and global institution that is supposed to be a spiritual sanctuary for us. And besides, we’ve all grown up in a culture that tells us constantly that religion in the west is dying, as it should, and that whatever good Christianity has done, its work is finished. So, why not indulge in the fantasy that we can be good without God – even as Jesus made it clear that our faith isn’t so much about being good, but about our relationship with the source of all that is good, God.
The widow that we hear about today, wouldn’t have had to reach too far for some of the same complaints, and so have reason to keep her pennies. We know from our scriptures, and the history that’s been written, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction with the Temple and those who ran it. With all the political struggles that went on for control of the Temple, between Pharisees and Sadducees, those loyal to the party of Herod and those collaborating with the Romans, and those who despised both the Herodian princes and the Romans, the Temple was being corrupted. It wasn’t supposed to be about politics, it was supposed to be about God. Indeed, the result was that the pastoral care of the people suffered, in part because the theology it was grounded in was less about God and more about the disputes among the elite. It made for teaching that was harsh and legalistic, or just incoherent. We hear Jesus complaining about this as he accuses the Temple authorities, its scribes, of adding to people’s burdens instead of helping relieve them.
And then there was the problem of supporting the Temple financially, and that led to the accusation, such as the one our Lord famously made, that they had turned the Father’s house into a marketplace. And while we take our Lord’s point, we know it was a real challenge to keep the Temple going after King Herod, its patron, died. His children had to take up the responsibility, but with their lavish lifestyle, their infighting, their incompetence as rulers of lesser territories, the money wasn’t coming.
So, why is the old widow there; and why is she sacrificing what little she has?
Jews at the time of Jesus had a rather nuanced understanding of their identity, their religion and their relationship to the Temple. The ordinary Jew who lived in what was historically the territory of Israel would understand that “Israel” is the designation for the faithful people of God, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and that there always will be an Israel. Sometimes it’s a great nation, sometimes it’s just a small remnant. So, there might be a lot of Jews in the world, but that’s an ethnic group, Israel is something different and far more important that God will ensure survives.
There will always be a Temple, which is fundamentally a spiritual reality manifested by the faithful, taking on physical form from time to time: the first Temple of the wise king Solomon that was destroyed; the Temple of the wicked king Herod, that was razed to the ground. There will be yet another, and perhaps another because the spiritual temple has the potential to bring forth the monumental building of stone, burnished with gold, furnished with silver and bronze vessels, the altar of sacrifice and the bread of the presence.
So, the widow can see how the physical temple she’s standing in resembles the spiritual temple of her imagination, and that there will be times when the two coincide and other times they will not. One can think of it as being like when we look through binoculars and see two images of the same thing, and so, we have to adjust them to bring these together. But that correction and alignment of the spiritual temple and the physical temple can’t be done as we would with a set of binoculars. No, it’s for the people in their faithfulness by grace to bring about that alignment, that blessed coincidence of heaven and earth in that place. That’s not down to one little old lady, but she understood she has her part. First, keep the Temple standing and operating so that alignment can happen, and hopefully will. Second, that she had to be part of that alignment no matter what others were doing in their malpractice as spiritual leaders and followers of the religion. In her sacrifice she sets a mighty example of what we know to be so true: things need to change, and that change must start with us. The truth must be preserved and maintained, and that’s our job. I think this may be a good way to think about the Holy Father’s call to synodality: we together are trying to align ourselves as the physical manifestation of the church with its spiritual reality, the ideal that subsists in the mind of God and which he works to effect through the Holy Spirit, if we’ll let the Holy Spirit in to form us.
This theology of the Church, what we find in the words of our Lord and in their interpretation by St. Paul clearly comes from this earlier idea within Judaism. Jesus famously predicts the destruction of the Temple and its rebuilding in three days. And we know that while those listening at the time thought he was speaking about the building in Jerusalem, he had changed the location of the temple from there to his own person – he’s the new temple. And then we connect that to Paul’s teaching as to how we are all part of the resurrected body of Christ: we are the new temple. And a big part of our mandate is to manifest this spiritual reality in a way that it can be seen by the world, and so draw lost souls to the Lord. Saturday morning we celebrated the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the first proper cathedral church of the bishop of Rome. The preface of the eucharistic prayer talks about how the visible churches of brick, stone or wood, foreshadow, in their beauty, the coming perfection of the Church spiritually. So, when someone enters this place, they are then to see not just stained-glass windows and lovely gothic arches, but to experience the love of God in the community they encounter in its worship and fellowship. The physical and spiritual cooperating.
So, Christians must form the spiritual temple of Christ’s body wherever they are and then align that with whatever is built in the way of places of worship and fellowship. That is a solemn duty that arises from a faith that understands that maybe beautiful St. Augustine’s won’t last forever, but it must last as long as we draw breath and can make this witness so that world knows, the unbelievers, the lapsed Catholics, the non-Christians, that the body of Christ is alive and at work. Diminish our numbers as the world might, pull down or burn down the churches as may happen, the body resurrects, the churches rise again. The Church as a people manifesting Christ by their faith, will give physical witness in bricks and mortar, stone and wood and create a space and a place where the widows and the spiritually orphaned, those in poverty, and the poor in spirit, have a place to go. A place that is adorned so to suggest heaven, and here encounter Christ, at the altar, through his presence in the Eucharist, but also to find him in the fellowship and worship of the people who gather here as the actual temple of the Holy Spirit, the Body of Christ, the Church more real than the building that surrounds us.
Amen.