^{Let me be clear about the purpose of today’s sermon. It is not a sermon about stewardship. It is not going to be about giving your last dollar, writing a bigger check, or refinancing you home in order to transform our ink from raging red to beautiful black.}

^{It is about seeing ways to express our gratitude to God in ways that call us to make sacrifices. We have talked about sacrifice before, it is giving up something we value for something of even greater value. In baseball, a sacrifice hit occurs when a batter hits what he knows will be a sure out for him in order to move another base runner farther around the base path. Parents will sacrifice new clothes for themselves in order to make sure their children have what they need for school and other activities. When my parents got ready to buy the house I grew up in, they sat us down and told my sisters and me that we would have to make a few sacrifices – for us that meant fewer toys and more clothes made by my mother’s hand, rather than clothes bought from a store. For my parents it no doubt meant doing without some things they needed, but the house was worth the sacrifice.}

^{In the church, we understand sacrifice in an even more profound way. We hear in the word itself that the root word for sacrifice is sacred. When we make sacrificial offerings in the church, we are not so much giving up, as we are taking on something that shows our gratitude and thanksgiving to God. We have in the church the witness of Jesus Christ as the ultimate sacrifice who gave up his life on this earth that we might find our lives into eternity.}

^{Jesus held people as sacred. That is why he claimed for himself and invites us to join him in seeing the sacred in everyone. His mission was to "bring good news to the poor, proclaim release for the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4.18-19). It is to give food to the hungry, and water to the thirsty; to welcome the stranger, and clothe the naked; it is to visit the sick and imprisoned (Matthew 25.31-46).}

^{So it is not stewardship, but loving sacrifice even to the last penny, down to all that we have in us to give that speaks to my spirit today. What are we making sacred today?}

^{First, we are making sacred the love of God. The Psalm we heard this morning begins with a statement of praise to God whose love is steadfast, it cannot be removed from us, whose faithfulness is sure despite our spiritual wanderings.}

^{David, the giant slayer and poet, the writer of many of the psalms who became the king of Israel was not one who sacrificed much. He was not the most faithful person – he was unfaithful to his wife, disloyal to the general whose wife is seduced, lost his son when that son abused one of David’s daughters. David’s life was a mess – but God loved him as God loves us. God held him sacred as God holds us sacred. God entered a covenant with David and by extension to us, to establish descendants forever. Here we are, representing a generation of our families and we representing a generation of faithfulness, our legacy is to pass along and share our faith with others.}

^{If you read all of Psalm 89, you will discover that God laments David’s unfaithfulness, but God does not reject David. God’s love endures and redemption and renewal come. In the meantime, the heavens praise God, whose love and reign are sacred. Make sacred the love of God as God’s love for us is sacred.}

^{Second, we are making sacred our love and care for others. That is our lesson from Jesus that day he was in Jerusalem teaching. He was already facing some criticizing questions from the scribes who were the teachers of the law (see all of Luke 20). "Who gave you permission to teach these things? Should we pay taxes to Caesar? What about this, Jesus. A man dies without leaving a child, custom dictates that his widow must marry his brother, and any children they have are considered to be the dead brother’s children. Suppose this woman marries all the brothers in a family, and they all die, and then she dies. Who is she married to in heaven? The answer to all of the questions, is don’t worry about things you do not control. Let God be God and let God be in control.}

^{We ask some of those same questions too. We want to know by what authority people dare to lead and govern, we question the wisdom of the people who collect and spend our tax dollars, we struggle in this society on how to define marriage, we wonder about what God is doing in the world. We want our faith to be real and relevant, we want meaning. And Jesus helps us find it as we discover what is sacred in our lives so he takes our questions and answers them in a way that shows us the holy. To do so he contrasts the self important scribes with the sacrificial giving of a poor widow. Look at how Jesus does it.}

^{"The place is the temple, the ones being addressed by Jesus are the disciples, the ones overbearing are the people, and the lessons come from two observations: on the one hand proud and ambitious scribes and on the other a poor widow offering her gifts among the rich" (Interpretation series. Luke. Fred Craddock. Louisville. John Knox Press, 1990, p.241).}

^{Jesus says to watch the scribes and learn what not to do. They weren’t hard to miss with their long robes and their expectation that people would rush up to them on the street. They could be seen in all the right places taking their box seats at the theater and sitting at the best tables in restaurants and in the front row at worship.}

^{The scribes were religious people. They loved God and like everyone of us they loved a bit of attention. Of course we sometimes dress to impress, we like a bit of recognition. I doubt that many of us would turn down tickets to see our favorite singer in concert or a good table at a fine dining establishment. And I must confess that I have never refused an upgrade from coach to first class on an airplane. But while Jesus cautions us against this kind of "look at how important I am behavior", he doesn’t want us to miss the larger point.}

^{The scribes Jesus talks about love to pray out loud, but they are all about being seen, but they mistreated the poor among them, symbolized by the widows in the community who had little beyond the roofs over their heads. These scribes would take advantage of people and take possessions of their homes. We know the story well here in Ohio. We are among the nation’s leaders in home foreclosures, predatory lending is rampant. It seems that rather than building enough affordable houses to buy, or helping people keep the homes they’ve purchased, modern day scribes use the letter of the law to be seen, but care little about the poor who need their help. Don’t be like them.}

^{Third, we make sacred our love of God’s house and God’s people. The temple in Jerusalem was located so that the treasury, or offering box was located in the Court of the Women. As people came and went, they put their offering into one of thirteen receptacles that were shaped like a trumpet. Just like in those congregations where people walk to the front of the church to leave their offering, were no offering plates passed along rows of worshipers to the sound of nice music, every body could see if you put money in the offering plate.}

^{Jesus watches the wealthy members come by, peel off a few bills and leave their offering. Then he watches as a widow come by, digs deep into her pocket and puts in the last handful of change she had. Jesus says, "be like her." No one would blame her if she never gave another dime to the temple treasury. But her love for her place of worship and her love for God and for God’s people was greater then her poverty. She could not, not contribute.}

^{Jesus understood that there is no inherent virtue in poverty, and there is no sin in being wealthy. The point is to live gratefully and to make sacred our offerings to God, no matter what we have.}

^{"He did not romanticize the small gift or strike out against the large. He weighed all the gifts not by sentiment but by a standard that was the same for all: How much does one have remaining after the offering is made? Thus measured, the widow’s gift was by far the greatest, because she had nothing left. The offering of everything, whatever the amount, is the unexcelled gift" (Craddock, p.242).}

^{What is the offering we will give to God and to God’s house today? We need the time, we need the talents, we need the treasure, you can bring to this place. We need you, and I am grateful for those of you who have given so much to this church, especially in this year of transition.}

^{Now is the time to make sacred all that we have, to continue to give all that we can as well as we are able. We are called to love sacrificially, to make sacred our love of God. Now is the time because we love God, we love this community of the faithful, we love this household of God, and we want to be part of the community that is beyond our doorstep.}

^{Tuesday night when we gather in a special congregational meeting, we will make one of the most important decisions ever in the history of our congregation. I want the decision about whether we move from full-time pastoral leadership to part-time pastoral leadership to be made faithfully, sacrificially, and lovingly.}

^{Faithfully because we will spend much time between now and then praying for God’s insight and revelation. Sacrificially because the ministry God calls us to, and the people God calls us to engage are sacred. Lovingly because the one who loved the world so much that he made sacred the life and death and resurrection, hope we have in Jesus the risen Christ loves us still, wants to bless us still and calls us always to act not for show like the scribes, but out of love and gratitude like the widow who gave all she had.}

^{God calls us to offer gifts to love, to give, to make sacred all that we are. As we do, the good news is proclaimed, the world is blessed, and Jesus Christ is praised. Thanks be to God. Amen.}