I want to assure you right off the bat that I’m not preaching a stewardship sermon today, although that Scripture reading makes it awfully tempting to do so.  In fact, I’ll make note of that: Mark 12:41-44 for next year’s stewardship sermon.  The widow’s offering…that’ll preach!

But then again you might say that all sermons are stewardship sermons, because any sermon worth the people of God hearing has to say something about our lives and how we use them; our priorities and how we arrange them; our treasuries and how we are stewards of them.  It’s the aim of any sermon for all that would hear it to walk away saying in your own particular way, “I’ve got a new goal for my life this week,” or, “I’m looking at the world a little differently now,” or, “That preacher said something that made me downright uncomfortable!”  Those are different forms of the people of God saying, “I want to see my life the way God sees it, not just the way I see it.”

That’s one of my own personal credos right there, and I share it with you hopefully: “I want to see my life the way God sees it, not just the way I see it.”  That’s hard to do isn’t it?  I heard myself speaking against that credo Wednesday morning.  Wednesday was quite a day wasn’t it?  The news was incredible.  I was shocked.  I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to do with myself.  Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were calling it quits.

That actually was a big news story on some channels, but no matter how you slice it, Wednesday was an enormous day for the news.  And I’m a news junkie.  So at some point on Wednesday morning I came out of my office and started pacing around the narthex, and then I stopped and said to Bridget, “In a perfect world I’d be at home right now eating a chorizo, egg & cheese breakfast taco, sipping a solid black cup of coffee and watching my CNN-laden TV screen.”

That’s when I heard it.  Granted I was just joking around, but I said, “In a perfect world, I would…”  So, my definition of a perfect world has to do with my own ideals, what makes me happy.  Your perfect world might be a night without homework or a day without school.  Your perfect world might be your college football team winning, a Dagwood sandwich and a big bag of cool ranch Doritos.  Your perfect world might be a clear, sunny, 70-degree day and a hike outdoors or a horseback ride.  Or your perfect world might be the kids staying at their grandparents’ or their friends’ house while you rest your head quietly and peacefully on your lover’s shoulder.  It’s like the old commercial said, “Calgon, take me away!”  Take me away to my perfect world.

Well, I didn’t get that breakfast taco or the dark coffee or the constant news feed Wednesday.  I worked instead, spent part of the afternoon caring for a sick 20-month-old, preached a sermon at night, rehearsed with the choir and called it a day.  Now, did my Wednesday turn out to be more of a perfect world the way God sees it?  I don’t know.  I sure didn’t exorcise a demon or anything miraculous like that in my pastoral duties.  Maybe a phone call I made or a letter I wrote achieved some of that Kingdom work that God appreciates.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I had some “woe is me” moments—moments when I was longing for my perfect world and not thinking at all about God’s perfect world.

It’s a much more desperate situation for Elijah in the story that Trent read for you out of 1 Kings.  But it’s the same kind of context really.  Elijah had been instructed by God to hide out in the Kerith Ravine east of the Jordan.  It was a good plan, really, because God sent ravens with meat and bread to feed Elijah there, and the brook was full of water for him to drink.  But when the brook ran dry, things got desperate for Elijah.  He was surely facing death, and he might have been thinking, “OK, God, I did what you said, and this situation isn’t working out for me!”

That’s when God talks to Elijah again.  “Alright, Elijah, I hear your pain.  Go north to this place called Zarephath of Sidon.  Now, when you get there, I’ll see to it that a certain widow will give you food and water.”  So Elijah went, and sure enough there was the widow.  His perfect world was perfect again.  But what God didn’t tell Elijah was that this widow was pretty desperate herself.  Elijah had no idea he’d be getting food and water from a widow who says, “I only have a handful of flour and a little oil.  I’m planning on making some bread for my son and myself.  We’re going to eat it and die.”

Sounds pretty desperate to me.  Why would God send his prophet to a destitute widow for help?  Elijah might have been wondering that, just like you and I might wonder why we have to go to school today, or why the weather has to be so terrible, or why our football team’s offense can’t get anything going, or why the kids won’t calm down.  But it’s when Elijah stops thinking about his own perfect world scenario and envisions God’s perfect world that he finds salvation for himself, the widow and her son.

The moment Elijah stops thinking about his own desperation and he recognizes someone else’s, God’s world comes into view.  “Ma’am, I know you only have that handful of flour and a little oil, but trust me on this.  Make a cake of bread for me, and then make some for your son and you.  As sure as God instructed me to come here, God will not let your oil or flour run out until the day when rain returns to this land.”  And just like that strangers became friends, three people instead of only two had food and water, and they stayed nourished with what they had until the day the rain came back.  Sounds like God’s perfect world, not just Elijah’s.

When we stub our toe, suddenly our world revolves around that pain.  Nothing will be good in our lives until that pain, whatever it may be, goes away.  It’s the same thing with anything else.  If there is leak in the roof, the world revolves around that problem.  If we are unemployed or without health insurance, we’re focused on those problems.  If someone betrays us or hurts us in some way, we are intent on our feeling of rejection.  It’s painful.  It’s desperate.  And nothing matters but our desperation.

But our desperation as we see it is individual.  It’s focused on the self.  I can only see my desperate situation from where I stand, and my perfect world is the opposite of desperation.  Perfection for me is a world without desperation.  But from where God stands, there is no individual desperation.  There is only communal desperation.  From where God stands one person’s pain is everyone’s pain, and God’s perfect world is all of creation working toward eliminating our shared desperation.

Elijah is desperate, and through eyes of desperation he sees another person who has fallen on hard times.  So, when Elijah offers his witness to God’s hope and perseverance, he brings salvation to the widow, her son and himself.

Now, this isn’t to say that misery loves company.  Our charge from God is to give of ourselves to the glory of God’s perfect world in good times and bad, because it is in offering God’s love even in our most desperate hours that salvation brings us all to new life.

Someone who has battled cancer shares a pain in common with another who is struggling with cancer.  In their desperation, they can share a bond that offers more hope and strength than one human being with a clean bill of health can muster on their own.

Some of the most empowering friendships and testimonies come out of the bonds shared in Alcoholics Anonymous groups; that’s people sharing their desperation and changing it into hope.

I think about our men and women fighting in Iraq and the overwhelming circumstances they might encounter every day.  And I thank God that they have each other to share their fears, because if they were all alone that desperation would eat them alive.

When Stacy was pregnant, we took those Lamaze classes, and even though Mac was born by way of a c-section that took all of 15 minutes, I am so thankful we took those classes every week.  Because when Stacy was pregnant, I was scared to death of being a parent.  But when we sat in that room with all those other soon-to-be parents, I could sense their same fears, and when they asked our teacher questions, I could hear the desperation in their voices.  Sharing our fears with each other helped make my fear go away.  And in those days after the boy was born, I don’t recall desperate fear nearly as much as I recall my abundant joy.  I can say that 20 months later even on the worst days that follow the worst nights.

2 Corinthians 8:9 reads: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.  So, the one we follow, the one we gather this morning to worship, the one we hope to learn more and more about so that our lives might change for the best, Jesus Christ—he is brought to a situation of desperation in his own life.  The Son of God is reduced to emotional, spiritual, physical poverty in the crucifixion.  Jesus is completely desperate, and in his desperation he gives completely of himself so that we would all come to know the riches of God’s salvation.  He didn’t try to make the world perfect for him—and he certainly could have done just that.  Instead he tried to make the world perfect for us.

Now, this Jesus is the one who’s hanging out at the temple, watching well-to-do folks meander around the alms boxes.  He hears the clanging of coins and wealth and riches flooding the temple treasury, and all these well-intentioned, law-abiding people of faith are going about this practice, this ritual, like it’s nothing special.  But then this poor widow approaches the temple.  (And I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that God’s story is told through the desperation of a widow who meets Elijah in the story out of 1 Kings).  The poor widow drops two coins that are worth only a cent into the temple treasury, and it might have sounded about as loud or obvious as this…

Sound of two pennies dropped into an offering plate

With all the routine commotion going on all around him, Jesus hears that faint offering being given, he sees that devotion, and he springs to his feet and says to his disciples, “That is the greatest gift anyone can offer!  These rich people are giving grand gifts out of their wealth, but this poor widow—she gave all she had out of her poverty, out of her desperation.”

Friends, our God is not concerned with the size of the gifts we give.  Our God is concerned with what is left over.  Our invitation to God’s grace and salvation in Christ has to do with giving out of our poverty so that we can taste heavenly riches.  We’re supposed to give of ourselves—our friendship, our empathy, our hope, our love—we’re supposed to give all of that until there’s nothing left.  And when we’re empty, when we’re poor, when we’re desperate, God fills us with new life.

It’s kind of like what Nancy Bertsch said in her stewardship testimony a few weeks ago, “Give until it feels good.”  That kind of good feeling isn’t my perfect world; it’s God’s perfect world.  So, what are you going to do this week to live your life not only the way you see it, but the way God sees it?  What are you going to give of yourself to get one step closer to God’s perfect world?