Today we are having our fall ingathering for the United Thank Offering, the UTO. The United Thank Offering is a ministry that was originally begun by the women of the church, but in recent years it has sort of expanded to include everyone. The basic idea behind the UTO is simple: you keep a little blue box in your kitchen or on your dresser or in your office, and every time you feel grateful for something, you drop some coins into the box. Over time the coins add up, and periodically you empty out the box and bring the money in and give it in an ingathering like this--and the UTO collects that money and uses it to make grants to various kinds of mission and ministry work throughout the church all over the world. Over the past year or so, since the last UTO ingathering, Lee and I have mentioned to each other that we think we have a lot to be thankful for--what with our wedding, and sabbatical, and the fact that we just really enjoy being together--we've commented that if we were to show our gratitude in the UTO way, we couldn't use a little blue box, we'd need a big blue box, a very big blue box. But that would be kind of hard to put in the offering plate on Sunday...
Giving in thanksgiving through the UTO is one of the practices of our church--of the Episcopal Church as a whole and of St George's as an Episcopal congregation. Giving in thanksgiving through the UTO is one of the concrete and practical things we do to live out our faith. In fact, giving alms is one the most basic practices of all Christian piety--and one of the most basic practices of Jewish piety before us. It is kind of interesting that we have our ingathering today, when our Gospel lesson also turns on giving as a significant practice of faith.
In fact, our Gospel today talks about several practices, several different things people in Jesus' time would do to give a concrete and practical expression to their faith. Even more than that, in this Gospel Jesus talks about both practice and purpose, both what we do and why we do it, both the actions of faith and the motivations of faithfulness.
Jesus talks about practice and purpose by drawing a contrast, a contrast between the scribes and the widow. Both the scribes and the widow do certain practices to live out their piety. The scribes wear long robes, prayer shawls with tassels, so that their very clothing will remind them during the day to stop and pray. The scribes attend synagogue on a regular basis, and they sit right in front where they can attend to the readings and listen carefully to the preaching. The scribes pray, at length, often in public, praising God and giving thanks for all that God has given them. The scribes give to the Temple treasury--which in many ways was like the UTO of its day: a big strongbox in the Court of the Women in the Temple, with thirteen trumpet-shaped openings where people could drop coins and silver and gold when they had a special prayer to make or when they were giving thanks for a prayer that was answered; and the priests would take the money from the and use it to do good for the poor in the city. The scribes were probably among the "rich people" giving alms to the treasury--because, like wearing prayer shawls or going to synagogue or praying, giving was basic practice of Jewish piety. Jesus observes that the scribes do all the right things, they follow all the right practices to live out their faith. But, Jesus says, even though the scribes do the right things, they do them for the wrong reasons; they put on the practices of the faith, but their purposes are anything but faithful. They wear their long robes so people will show them respect and deference in the marketplace. They go to synagogue because they enjoy being seen in the seats of honor. They pray in order to look good, to distract attention from their greedy actions which gobble up people's goods as "offerings" and devour widows' houses. The scribes, Jesus says, have their practices and their purposes seriously out of whack.
The widow also practices her piety, and Jesus comments on it, but we really don't know much about what she does. We don't know if she wears a special garment or a symbol of her faith to remind her throughout the day to stop and pray--although she probably doesn't, since prayer shawls and phylacteries were for men, and since she was a poor woman she probably didn't have money for special prayer clothing anyway. We don't know if she goes to synagogue--although she probably doesn't, since as a woman she'd have to sit in the back and off to one side, and as a widow she doesn't have a man, a husband or a father or even a son, to escort her to the synagogue and see that she gets in. We don't know if she says prayers--although if she prays she certainly doesn't do it at length and in public, with the carefully structured and elegantly worded prayers of the scribes. We don't know much about how this widow practices her faith--except that she gives alms at the Temple treasury--and even that isn't very much, two copper coins that together barely amount to enough to sustain one working person for one day. For all we can tell, this widow's practice of her faith is pretty thin, she doesn't do very much. But what she does practice, Jesus notices; and when Jesus notices her practice, he notices also the purpose of her practice. Her gift is small, but it's all she has, everything she has to live on--so in a sense she'd not just giving money, she's giving her very life. Giving everything she has is in effect saying that she needs nothing of her own, that she trusts God to give her everything she needs, that she really believes the words of the psalm, that God "sustains the orphan and widow,"--her gift says that she is willing to put her absolute and total trust in God. Her practice of almsgiving says everything about her faith, and her gift may be small her faith is huge. The widow, Jesus says, has her practice and her purpose completely together.
And it is in that contrast between the scribes and the widow that this Gospel lesson speaks most powerfully to us. We can imagine a kind of spectrum, a sort of sliding scale, between the scribes and the widow--and then we can ask ourselves where, on that scale, do we fall? Where, on that scale, would we place our practices? Where, on that scale, would we place our purposes? Do we do some things for appearances? Do we do some things out of sincere faith? Do we engage some practices to enhance our sense of our own importance? Do we engage some practices because we really deeply trust that God will work in us to do something we alone could never do? The Gospel asks us: what do we practice, and for what purpose do we practice it?
So I want you to think about that for a moment. If you take your bulletin, and turn it over to the back page, you will see there an empty box, a blank space set off with a nice border line, that has the single word "Practices" in it. In every pew this morning there is a pencil. I want you to take the pencil and write down in that box three practices that we engage in here at St George's, three concrete and practical things we do here together to live out our faith. Think of any kind of practice you want to. Large or small. For the whole congregation, or small groups, or individuals. I've already mentioned the UTO as a practice we do. What others can you think of? We have services on Sunday mornings; that's a practice. We have coffee hours; that's a practice. We have Vestry and committee meetings; that's a practice. We have a prayer chain; that's a practice. Take a moment now and write down three particular things that you can think of, that we do here at St George's to practice our faith.
Got three practices? Now I want you to take another moment and think about why we do those three things. You can probably think of lots of overlapping reasons. One of our reasons for a practice may be because we've always done it that way. One of our reasons for a practice may be that we've seen it done in another church and we think it would be a good idea for us. One of our reasons for a practice may be that we're trying something new, we're taking a risk, because we think God is calling us in a new direction. One of our reasons for a practice may be that it makes us feel good about ourselves, like the scribes in the Gospel. One of our reasons for a practice may be that it's something churches just ought to do, and we'd all be kind of embarrassed if our church didn't do it. One of our reasons for a practice may be that it is a way to genuinely embody Jesus' love for the poor and the outcast and the sinful and the marginalized. One of our reasons for a practice may be sheer joy, and the unimaginable privilege in sharing in God's joy, the joy that God takes in all of creation. You may think of reasons I would never think of, and vice versa. But as you look at your list of three practices we do here at St George's, what would you say are the reasons we do what we do?
Thinking about our practice is one of the things that's really important for St George's right now. I think it's important for all churches all the time--but it's especially important for us right now because of how we're talking of wanting to grow, because we're talking about making changes in how we live together so that we can be more open and more poised and more proactive about gathering in people who are not with us now to be with us in the love of Jesus, because we need to look at everything we do and ask how it serves our participation in God's mission to reconcile the world. What we practice, and why we practice it, taken together, can be the greatest gifts of the Spirit we at St George's have to offer to our world.
Diana Butler Bass, in her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, which I said last week is a book I hope every member of St George's can get a chance to read--Butler Bass writes about ten kinds of practice, ten categories of practices, that she says all thriving congregations engage in some way or another. I'm not going to tell you what the ten categories are, because I want you to read them for yourselves. But I'm hoping that as more St Georgites get to read this book and discuss it with each other in small groups and circles, I'm hoping that we will learn more about practice, we'll learn more about our practices, we'll learn more about the purposes that animate our practices. We have a lot to learn; but we have a good place to start right here, with the story of the widow; we have a good place to start right here, with our giving in thanksgiving through the UTO. Let it be our prayer today that we may take this good place to start, and that we may grow in practice and in purpose, as we read and study and pray and and give thanks and do together.