Before traveling to Malawi, those who took part on the mission trip
were encouraged not to take too many gifts with us.
We were told that if we brought many gifts
there could be issues about who would get the gifts
and problems would arise from heightened expectations.
It was better to keep whatever we brought to a minimum,
or at least bring gifts that could be given to a community rather than gifts for individuals. Our team was able to bring a quantity of medical supplies for the hospital in Ekwendeni, which is where we stayed,
and we also took over the pneumonia vests
which had been knitted by members of the various WMS groups throughout our Synod, and each of us also took a quilt from our quilting group to present to our home stay hosts. Beyond that, we followed the suggestions from the national church
to keep our personal gifts to a minimum and rather put our resources
towards supporting the work of PWSD and its partners.

When we arrived in Malawi all of us were struck by the extreme poverty of the country. But we were equally struck by the graciousness of the people in the midst of this poverty. During my home stay I took a walk to a rock quarry
which had been abandoned by its owners a number of years earlier.
Now, however, it was occupied by local villagers,
some, young mothers with young children still tied to their backs in slings,
others, children around the same age as my two kids, 7 and 9,
and many more young adults who could not find a job after finishing school.
All these people were now doing by hand
the work which had been done earlier with dynamite and crushing machines.
They took large sledge hammers to break chunks of stone from the side of the mountain and carried them to a flat part on the quarry floor.
From there they took homemade hammers and began breaking these large rocks
into ever smaller pieces until they created small piles of rock, no bigger than a golf ball. Every now and then a truck would come by
and someone would take a look at what had been prepared,
and if you were lucky, they would buy your rock pile for use in paving roads.
The going rate for this rock, I am told, is 7 tonnes of rock for about $15 Canadian dollars. It would take an average person around 2 weeks to produce 7 tonnes of rock
and you only got paid if the truck driver thought that your pile of rocks was worth taking.

In the midst of such poverty there are, not surprisingly,
many stories of great need and suffering.
One night our mission team was approached by a woman named Maria
who was part of the hospital staff and had acted as one of our hosts in Ekwendeni. Though she was staff, her position was not a high one
and she would have earned less than $50 dollars a month in wages.
This money was used to pay for all her living costs, including the cost of food
and to attend to the basic necessities for herself and her four children.
Her husband had died earlier and had left her without any assistance as a single mother.
Her youngest son was ten years old
and she had no money to be able to send him to school for the upcoming year.
She quietly made some inquiries
as to whether our mission team might be able to help in her situation.
We decided that while it would not be completely appropriate for us
just to give her money, it would set a bad precedent,
and there might be some bad feelings if word got around,
there would be less of an issue if she could make something that we could buy.
So she created a number of HIV/AIDS pins, in the colour of the Malawi flag,
and each of the mission team bought a number of the pins
in exchange for something around $10 Canadian.
For about $100 Canadian, Maria’s son was able to attend school for a full year.
It was no hardship for any of us on the mission trip,
but it was a life changer for Maria and her son.

The next evening Maria,
along with Mary, another woman from the hospital who also was hosting us,
came to see us and they brought along gifts for each of us.
We all received a couple of metres of cloth,
typically used to make the wrap around skirts which were so very common in Malawi. Though the fabric would not have cost a great deal of money,
each of us couldn’t help but think of how much it would have cost
in terms of what these women could have afforded.

I immediately thought of our story from Luke 21,
where Jesus was watching people putting their gifts into the temple treasury.
A poor widow was among those who gave to the treasury
and she put in two small copper coins, the smallest coins in circulation at the time.
It would be equivalent to two pennies for us.
But Jesus was quick to point out
that this poor widow had put in more than all of the others,
for the others had contributed out of their abundance,
but she, out of her poverty, had put in all she had to live on.

One night earlier our mission team had, more or less, given Maria $10 dollars each.
It was nothing to us to be able to give that amount.
We gave out of our abundance.
But that night Maria and Mary, gave us something which,
while it didn’t cost as much in terms of price as what we had given her,
but still had cost her far more in terms of what she could afford to spend.
She gave us what she had to live on.
There is no doubt in my mind that she gave up part of her food money,
her money for the basic necessities for her family,
to provide us with this extraordinary act of generosity and kindness.
I know that I speak for all of the mission team when I say
that we were very conflicted as we received our gifts.
Though we were so surprised and grateful,
part of our hearts were breaking to know that because of these gifts,
there would be less food on the table and less of the necessities of life to go around.

I learned something that night.
A little goes a long way.
Ten dollars in Canada these days isn’t really a whole lot of money,
even in these days of the loonie on steroids.
You might get a decent lunch for it,
you could flag a cab or get a day pass on city transit and have some left for a coffee.
But ten dollars, at least ten people giving ten dollars together,
can put a kid in school for a year in a place like Malawi.
A little goes a long way.
Did you know that $8 could buy you 15 organic apples
OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.
$30 could buy you a DVD Boxed Set of the Tv series ER,
OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.
$73 could buy you a new mobile phone
OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.
$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV
OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.
(Figures taken from The Global Rich List)
If you’ve ever struggled with giving because you thought that your little gift
wouldn’t make much of a difference for someone in need, think again.
A little goes a long way and each little gift we make for someone who is in need
can and will make a significant difference.

But let’s not forget what Jesus said.
He said that the widow had given more than the others
because she gave all she had to live on, while the others gave out of their abundance.
I’m not sure that Jesus was actually condemning those who gave out of their abundance. In fact Jesus seems to be merely making an observation.
If you have an abundance, shouldn’t you be giving something for others?
And isn’t that what the people were in fact doing?
At least they were giving out of their abundance.
Don’t we know people who find it so difficult to be generous even in their abundance?
But there is hardly an instance that I know of
where scripture records Jesus’ words for the mere sake of recording them.
If it was important enough to the gospel writers to record what Jesus had to say,
and both Mark and Luke record the account of the widow’s gift in their gospels,
there is, no doubt, something more that we should be paying attention to.

When we go just a bit back in Luke’s gospel account, back in Chapter 20,
we read about the scribes and chief priests asking Jesus a question, trying to trap him. Those of you here last week will recall Rev. Walker
speaking about the Sadduccees trying to trap Jesus with a question on resurrection, despite the fact that the Sadduccees didn’t themselves believe in the resurrection.
In this case the priests and scribes ask Jesus about paying taxes to the emperor,
again knowing that it was a question which had no right answer.
If Jesus said that one ought not to pay taxes to the emperor,
it would have been grounds for his arrest
and if Jesus said that one must pay taxes,
then he would be despised by the crowds
who resented paying taxes to an occupying power.
But just like the question of the resurrection,
Jesus sees right through their scheming
and answers the question in a way that cuts to the heart of the issue.

Its not a matter of whether it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor.
The reality is that if something belongs to the emperor,
if it bears his image, he is entitled to it,
but if something belongs to God,
if we bear God image, if we are created in the image of God,
then God is entitled to what bears his image, what is created in his image.
God is entitled to us, all of us, every part of us.

If we bear God’s image,
then really isn’t Jesus saying that what the widow did in giving all she had
was far more in keeping with his understanding of stewardship
than those who gave something out of their abundance,
but still were able to walk away in their abundance as if nothing had changed?
Please hear me clearly on this.
The text is not saying that we should go out immediately
and sell all our possessions and give all we have to live on to the church.
But there is something underlying our text that leads us to ask,
what do we put our trust in and what do we value,
by what gospel do we truly live, and not merely confess?
The woman gave all she had and would have had nothing left but her trust and conviction
that somehow the God she served would care for her.
I wonder if those who gave out of their abundance would have had the same conviction? When was the last time we gave out of our abundance in such a way
that it left us feeling a little bit uncomfortable?

Jesus takes time to notice and mention the poor widow
because she understood the truth about God’s idea of stewardship.
A little can go a long way, but we shouldn’t necessarily stop at giving a little.
If a little can go a long way, a little more can go a much longer way.
The point Jesus is making is that all we are belongs to God
and all we are ought to be used some way in God’s service.
There are some in the church who would understand our stewardship obligation
to be limited to the idea of a tithe.
You know the standard understanding.
Give to God 10% of your earnings, whether that’s 10% of the gross or net earning,
is up to how you understand whether you pay God first or pay your taxes first.
But the problem with the idea of a 10% tithe, or a tithe of any percentage,
is that Jesus didn’t say,
give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s
and give to God 10% of the things that are God’s.
Jesus says give to God the things that are God’s.

Are we God’s people?
Are we God’s people only in part, or are we God’s people in whole?
Are we only created 10% in God’s image or wholly in the image of our creator?
The stewardship Jesus speaks of implies that all we are belongs to God.
To understand that we are only obligated to give a percentage is just that, an obligation. If I give 10%, then I’m done.
I don’t need to do anything more.
I’ve met my obligation, now let me focus on something else.
God isn’t interested in receiving our gifts out of a sense of obligation,
but God is delighted with those who give out of joy.
We don’t have to give a 10% tithe
to prove that we are the right kind of people in God’s eyes.
There are many among us who live on fixed incomes.
And with rising cost of everything in Calgary,
I know how hard it can be to make ends meet.
Don’t become a slave to a 10% tithe,
give what you can, when you can, and give it joyfully.
In essence, that is what God desires in our stewardship.
There are no set amounts, no minimum amount and no ceiling.

I recall a lady from this church who was very distressed
that she could no longer afford to support the church financially.
I told her to please stop worrying, but she never did stop and as often as she was able,
she would give me an envelope to take back to the church after our visits.
There wasn’t much in those envelopes, but I’ll tell you, it was often all she had to live on. We don’t need to become a slave to a 10% tithe,
but conversely, we can’t let it become our ceiling either.
Jesus didn’t put a cap on how much of what belongs to God should be given to God because his view of stewardship was never limited by numbers or percentages.
If our abundance allows us to be generous,
why would we think that by reaching 10%,
we have somehow satisfied what God desires of us?
Why would we stop at 10%
when that wouldn’t even begin to make a dent in our sense of abundance?

My friends, the work of God’s kingdom requires resources.
But it requires more than merely our money.
It requires our compassion, it requires our commitment,
it requires our gifts of intelligence, patience, humour, grace and love.
It requires us to understand stewardship in a very different way.
There is a great need for the generous stewardship of God’s people.
Not to do our duty, not to fulfill our obligations,
but to be joyful stewards of all that God has entrusted to our care.
We can give out of our abundance,
but maybe we should try to give in such a way
that we aren’t left feeling just as abundant as before we gave,
as if it made no difference at all to us.
Perhaps in noticing and pointing out the example of the widow,
Jesus is showing us an example of what courageous, faithful stewardship
truly can look like.

The truth is this friends,
I can stand here and tell you that we are created in God’s image
and that we belong to God, all of us, every part of us.
I can tell you that since we bear God’s mark and image in who we are,
there is nothing that should be withheld from God, for the work of his kingdom.
But honestly, I don’t have the authority to tell you to give all you are in God’s service. But God does, and God does.
God didn’t give a tenth, God didn’t tithe his love for us,
he didn’t give us a percentage of his love, his mercy, his grace.
God didn’t only give us something out of his abundance.
No friends, God in Jesus Christ, gave us everything, he held nothing back.
And its this God who invites us to give of ourselves in his service,
for the sake of his kingdom.
God alone has the authority to invite us to this understanding of stewardship.
A little goes a long way.
Now, imagine if we didn’t stop at a little,
but followed the generous example of our God.