Stephen Baldwin
NT: Mark 12.38-44
While you would never guess it after
this week’s summer weather, three years ago this week it was snowing like
mad. Do you remember that early snow
storm? It came right after Hurricane
Sandy and slammed many of the same areas hit by the storm. We in Greenbrier County were spared the worst
of it, but the Summersville area received a pounding.
The food pantry at Summersville
Presbyterian Church gave away all the food they had in that storm, and they
sent out a call for help. You stepped up
to the plate and donated generously, so I loaded up the van at Kroger with
peanut butter and produce and bread and canned vegetables and headed to
Summersville. I remember seeing
collapsed roofs all along the way—a gas station, a mechanic’s shop, but mostly
trailers. So many trailers had simply
collapsed on themselves under the weight of the snow.
When I dropped the food off at the
church, it was about 9:30am. Normally,
the food pantry is open twice a week.
But that week, they opened everyday.
And by 9:30am, they’d already served 38 families. A woman came through the door holding a bag
while I was unloading the car. I assumed
she was there for food. Her hair was
disheveled, her clothes were dirty, and she looked like she hadn’t slept much
lately. I wondered if she lives in one
of those trailers that I had passed earlier.
She asked me if I knew where Greg, the minister, was. Just then he walked back in the room. She said to him, “I don’t know if you
remember me, but you and the church helped me out during the derecho. You gave me food when my power was out for a
week. Well, this time, my power didn’t
go out,” and she handed him the bag she was holding. “So I wanted to come and give you some food
because I know you are helping others like you helped me.”
In that moment, I knew why Jesus
praised the woman who gave two coins to the temple. It wasn’t because she gave all that she had;
she needed those coins more than the church.
It wasn’t because he didn’t value what the rich gave in greater sums;
the church needed those funds too and valued the wealthy members who gave
them. Jesus praised the woman who gave
her only two coins because the value of an offering is not based on the
amount…but the spirit in which it is given.
May her example continue to inspire
us all to give back to God of that which we’ve been given so graciously. Amen.
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