November 10, 2024 Season after Pentecost
November 10, 2024 Season after Pentecost
St. Mark has Jesus teaching in the temple created by Herod I. Herod was a convert to Judaism who built many magnificent structures, more as a tribute to himself than to the One True G_d. He was a puppet for Rome and relied heavily on the backs and taxes of the Jews to fund his follies. Jesus was warning the hearers to beware of those who offer religious piousness at the expense of the poor, devouring “widows’ houses.” After his teaching, Jesus took a seat across the temple from the treasury where the temple taxes were being collected. He sees the procession of the rich leaving sums of money to keep their places of honor in the temple and therefore in Herod’s kingdom.
Jesus witnesses a widow giving her coins, which she likely needed to buy food for her family. Jesus told his disciples, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. All of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. “The others used religion to gain fame and position, some to take advantage of the powerless. The poor widow gives her all freely, not to gain attention or assume power, but out of a heart filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.
In his letter to the Hebrews, St. Paul speaks to the nature of Herod’s temple, “a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one,” and Paul identifies Jesus as the true Temple. Jesus is the structure worthy of awe and devotion, not where we worship, but in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.” In this month of Thanksgiving find time each day to pause in thanksgiving. Whether in your abundance or in your poverty, you are blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit and G_d’s grace. You are counted as a child of G_d, promised a dwelling in the mansions of the Lord. With gratitude and humility, we must seek to emulate the widow, who gave from love and devotion. Our being a daily thanksgiving from an ordinary life recognizing the extraordinary. A faith generated not from abundance, but from our poverty. We are truly blessed to be able to say, “And here we offer and present unto thee O Lord, ourselves, our souls, and bodies.”
Pax,
jbt
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