32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) – November 10, 2024

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

1 Kings 17:10-16; Psalm 146:7-10; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44

“I didn’t do enough.”

Back in my younger days, I was often asked to learn a piece of music on the cello. The piece was the Theme from Schindler’s List—very beautiful piece. But for years, I never watched the movie. When I finally did… woof. There’s a reason it got best picture. You probably know this, but it’s the story of Oskar Schindler who was a German businessman, a member of the Nazi party, who made a lot of money selling munitions, ammo to the Nazis. As he became wealthier he became a philanderer, a rough guy, a sort of nasty guy. His wealth revealed a lot of his brokenness. And you can see, he sort of wasted a lot of his life.

But at one point, he had his factory in Krakow, Poland—and he employed almost two thousand people at his factory, over a thousand of whom were Jews. And when he realized what was going on during the War, when he realized Hitler and the Nazi’s plan was to exterminate the Jews, he started doing what he could to hide them, to bribe the Nazi officials not to take his workers, to do what he could to save them. Again, just an incredible story. Today, he is remembered by the Jews as a Righteous Gentile, buried on Mt. Zion there in Jerusalem.

But in the movie—there’s a scene at the end of the movie, and it’s worth the whole movie.

Oskar is escaping with his wife Emily, fleeing the country, and they’re surrounded by all of those people that Oskar had saved. One of the men that worked for him presents him with a letter that will let any authorities outside of Germany, Allied forces, to know that this guy, Oskar, even though he was part of the Nazi party actually did everything he could to save them. 

And then they present him with a ring. And inside the ring, in Hebrew, it says, “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” And it’s in that moment that Oskar Schindler recognizes, realizes—it really hits him: the power, the value, the dignity of one life, of each and every life. And he begins to break down. He says, “I could have got more out. I could have got more.” And they try to reassure him with how he saved so many, 1,200 people. But he says, “I threw away so much money. [*He begins to cry*].” And a guy says, “But you did so much.” And Schindler says, “I didn’t do enough. [*And he turns to his car*] This car: what good would have bought this car. Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. [He takes off his lapel pin*] This pin: two more people. This is gold…at least one. One more person. A person is dead for this. One more person…and I didn’t.” He realizes: as much good as he had done, he could have done so much more.

“Gut Check”

We’re in this series that we started last week called “Gut Check.” And it is based off of that greatest commandment, the Shema it’s called in Hebrew, what Jesus calls the greatest commandment: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,  with all your mind, and with all your strength.” All your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. And as we started last week, the simple point was just that: a gut check. Do I love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength? Because like I said, it is very easy for us to say, “Oh yeah, I love God!” But when the rubber meets the road, I think we all recognized that that isn’t always the case. We’re good people, we do a lot of good things! But oftentimes God comes in second to a long list of other things. And “all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength” probably wouldn’t describe your love for him.

In this Gospel passage we have today, we get one very real, very concrete, very taboo topic when it comes to loving God. Here is this lady that is abundantly generous with her money. We’re never supposed to talk about money. Money is the one thing that you just leave alone. Very awkward any time Father stands up and starts talking about money. And yet—Jesus wasn’t afraid to talk about it at all. Just a few weeks ago, after his encounter with the Rich Young Man, Jesus told the disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!…It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Almost 20% of Jesus’ teachings have to do with money and generosity. And almost half of Jesus’ parables have to do with how Jesus’ disciples are to steward their resources. So Jesus not only felt it important to talk about money, but spent an exorbitant amount of time talking about it!

Why? Because even though money is a great blessing, it can also be a slippery slope. A famous line from Cardinal George—he was the archbishop of Chicago in the 2000’s, made a cardinal—Cardinal George, whenever he met with groups of donors, wealthy people who had given a lot to the Church and he was there to thank them—Cardinal George was fond of saying, “The poor need you to stay out of poverty, but you need the poor to stay out of hell.” What was his point? There is a real danger when it comes to money: money has this uncanny ability to turn us into misers, greedy, focused on what we can get rather than on how we can give, how we can be generous.

This is one of the things Jesus is getting at in the Gospel today. Jesus isn’t impressed when rich people are throwing in money. Why? Because they’re just throwing in extra cash they have lying around. No big deal. Sure, they’ve contributed to help the poor, build the Temple. But they aren’t truly being generous. Why? Because they’re just giving leftover cash, money they don’t really need anyway, money they won’t miss. Jesus is impressed with this poor widow. Why? Because she was truly generous, she gave generously, her whole livelihood. She contributed not from excess, but generously gave from her livelihood.

It’s More Than Loose Change

So here’s the gut check: we all say that we love God. But does our love for God extend even into our finances? Love isn’t a feeling, love is an action. It has to be concrete. You can’t just tell your spouse you love them and then ignore them the rest of the time. Love requires concrete action. So what does our love for God look like, especially when it comes to our money?

In Scripture, I’ve always found the idea of the tithe to be very helpful. I like it, I find it helpful. Tithe is just a word than means a tenth, 10%. Or, you move the period on your check one space to the left, that’s 10%. And the reason this is helpful—for me anyway—is because it’s how I know that I am giving back to God not from my leftovers, but I’m giving back to him first. The first thing in my “budget” is giving back to God and the Church. Again, I think that is very helpful: 10% goes back to God, to the Church, to the poor. Whether you give all 10% to the Church, or some here, some to other charities, some directly to people in need—whatever it is: 10% of my income isn’t mine, I just don’t consider it to be mine. That’s my baseline. Because then there are always kids selling cookies or trash bags or other things that come up.

What do you think when you think about giving 10%? For most, that sounds like a huge challenge! Yeah, it is. But I think for many, the real challenge isn’t so much the money. The challenge is a challenge of lifestyle. Let’s be honest: the reason that giving 10% of our money off of the top scares us is because we already live in a house we can barely afford, are paying for a car we can barely afford, trying to buy things for our kids—brand name clothing, shoes, backpacks—buying things that we think we need, but in reality we don’t. And so 10% is a scary number not because we don’t want to be generous, but because we know we would have to sacrifice parts of that lifestyle. And that’s the real challenge.

And yet, this is why I find the concept of tithing so helpful. Because instead of trying to give something to the Church or to someone in need every now and then—when I have some extra money lying around—I make it the first thing. Then I can set my lifestyle and budget from there.

Here at the parish, I work very hard to make sure that what is given to us is stewarded well and that it’s used to serve you and the parish and the poor in our community. You all get the annual report, you’ve seen the numbers. But one thing that you don’t see on the report clearly enough—mostly because we are just trying to respect people’s privacy and not embarrass them—we help a lot of people, people that even other churches and other organizations in the community can’t or won’t. Just this past month, our parish—you, because of your generosity—our parish was able to help a woman and her children to escape from a situation of domestic violence and abuse, and to get them set up in new housing, safe housing. We help families in crisis situations to keep housing, or to keep food on the table or to keep their vehicles running so they can provide for their family. Your giving here allows our parish to be a place that people in need can find help.

Now, while all of that is good—to look at the good causes we can support by giving some money—that’s not the whole point Jesus is making. Jesus is going one level deeper. Jesus is pointing out, “I don’t need you to give money. I need you to give. Generosity, giving, giving your whole life—that’s what I need.” Do you see that? Oskar Schindler—go back to him. Oskar Schindler didn’t break down because he hadn’t given a lot of money—he had given a ton! Oskar Schindler realized that he could have been a more generous person. He could have not wasted money on things that he didn’t need. He could have saved lives—if he had been a generous person, a person of generosity. It’s not about, “Hey, you need X amount of dollars? Ok, I’ll give it.” Ultimately, it’s about generosity itself. That’s why the Church—there is not required amount. Yes, tithing is a helpful starting point, a helpful “gut check” to see if I’m really putting God first or if I’m just giving leftovers. But generosity is the standard, LOVE is the standard. 

Again, it goes back to my brilliant homiletic point: it’s a gut check. We, you, me, each of us—it’s a gut check. I say I love God, I say I’m a person with love for God—but when the rubber meets the road, when love meets my finances, does love hold true? Oskar Schindler realized that he had done a lot of good, but he could have done so much more. It’s like, “I loved God… but I could have loved him with all of my heart, and all of my soul, and all of my mind, and all of my strength.” And that’s the gut check for each of us: when it comes even to my finances, to my money—am I loving God through that? Does God get whatever is leftover from my lifestyle, or does God get my first priority and my lifestyle comes second? Am I a truly generous person when it comes to my money, or do I just give some leftovers now and then?

The Rubber Meets the Road

Two ways to make this super practical, and I’ll touch on these real quick. The first is tithing, giving regularly to the parish. Many of you already make your regular contributions to the parish, and on behalf of myself and on behalf of the entire parish and people in our community, I want to thank you for that. If you don’t already make regular contributions, I want to encourage you to do so. I know when the basket comes around, you can feel a little guilty, avoid eye contact with the person, or you throw some money in. But I would encourage you to make a real, regular commitment. Think: many of us have real, regular monthly subscriptions that we pay more for than we give to our own parish: $16 a month for Netflix, $19 for Hulu, $16 a month for Disney+, $12 a month for Spotify, $10 a month for our ring doorbell, $15 a month for Playstation, $15 a month for Amazon Prime—and all of a sudden we are spending over $100 on subscriptions. Or think about your car payment: monthly car and insurance payments. Now, is there anything wrong with those subscriptions? With owning a car? No! But here’s the gut check: am I not able, do I not really and regularly give to the parish because my lifestyle cost doesn’t allow me? 

The second thing is the Diocesan Capital Campaign we are in right now. If you are a registered parishioner, you should have received a packet from the Bishop. I’ll speak for myself: when I got that letter, the number kind of shocked me a little. But I recognized, “Yeah, I can do that.” For some of you, that number may have been too much, for others you might have been expecting a bigger number. Whatever the case, the number is just a number, it’s a starting point. And the question isn’t, “Well, what is everyone else giving so we can just pay for what we need to pay for.” The question is a personal one, “Our Bishop, the shepherd and father of our local church—the Church that I am a part of—is asking for my generosity. How can I respond to that request?”

This is the gut check. And whenever money gets involved, the gut check isn’t just a nice homily on a Sunday morning, it gets very real, very quick. And so I would encourage you to sit down by yourself, sit down with your spouse if you’re married, and think and talk about your finances—pray, and ask how you can work toward giving generously back to God, how you can love God through your finances. And keep it honest and practical. I don’t know what you make, but the average household income in Rice County is $60,000 a year. So the average household should ask: are we giving anywhere close to $6,000 a year back to God through our parish, through other charities, and/or to people in need?

And as you do that, remember this poor widow and Oskar Schindler. The widow gave almost nothing, financially speaking, but her generosity was unmatched: she gave abundantly from her own livelihood, money she could have used to improve her quality of life—but she knew that God comes first. Oskar Schindler: he gave a bunch of money, but he recognized that he could have done so much more if he had truly been more generous. At the end of the day, the dollar amount is whatever the dollar amount is. But the standard, the principle—it’s generosity, it’s love. That’s the gut check. “I say I love God. But am I giving back to God first? Do I give from my livelihood? Or do I just give some of the leftovers?”