Do It 'Til It Hurts

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
1 Kings 17:10-16
Heb 9:24-28
Mk 12:38-44

About 14 years ago St. Mary’s embarked on our capital campaign to build this beautiful new church. As part of the fundraising, we hired a professional consultant to help us. He said that as part of the fund raising effort we should have some people from the parish get up at Mass and tell everyone what they planned on giving to the project. As you might expect, there were some folks who said they’d give some substantial sums, after all, this is Park City. But most of the people said they would give smaller amounts, because that was all they could afford. The idea was not to show how rich some folks were and how not so rich others were. It was to show that everyone could give something, and that everyone should give enough to make a difference…to them, not to the building. The gifts given were to be enough so that it took a leap of faith to give them. To give out of our need, not our surplus. It’s not the amount that matters, but the cost.

We can see that wonderful things do come out of sacrificial giving. Beautiful buildings, wonderful programs, vital aid to those in need. But I wonder how that sacrificial giving affected the people who gave it. It would be interesting to have those same people who stood here fourteen years ago to commit to giving from their need, and hear how it ultimately affected their lives.

The two widows in today’s readings had no idea of how their lives would be affected by their decision to give until it hurt. They trusted in God open-endedly, with no conditions and without asking for anything in return. What we don’t hear in today’s scripture is that after the widow gave her all to Elijah, her son died, and Elijah restored him to life. She had no idea of the payback she would receive for her generosity. She gave anyway. She didn’t even believe in Elijah’s god. She gave anyway. We never hear if Jesus did anything for the widow in the gospel. He uses her to teach a lesson to his disciples and to us, but we don’t know if he ever said anything to her or did anything to ease her situation. The folks who gave generously to the building of the new St. Mary’s church had no idea what they would receive in return. But I would hazard a guess that they, like that poor widow, could point to many little things that have gone right in their lives since that time.


Why do we believe that if we do what is right God will reward us? Because the entire history of God’s interaction with the human race has had one consistency – God is always faithful to us, even when we abandon him. We heard it again today in the responsorial psalm: The Lord keeps faith forever. We never know how our lives will be enriched by our giving of ourselves to God and his people. We never know when it will happen either, but we believe that it will happen because we have faith in God’s faithfulness to us.

Why does God ask us to give out of our need? Why does he ask us to sacrifice for the benefit of others? Because he wants us to rely on him completely. He wants us to prove to ourselves that we can’t always do it all by ourselves. And he never lets us down when we surrender ourselves to his will. He wants us to be like Him, and he gave his only son to us to die for our sins on the cross. What better example of giving until it hurts?

A friend of mine told me once that he had been having a hard time breaking some sinful habits, and he had been embarrassed to keep going to confession and telling the priest the same sins over and over. In frustration he said he couldn’t seem to change his ways. His confessor stopped him in mid-sentence and said, “Wait right there. It’s not about you. That’s the problem. You can’t do it all by yourself. But God can. Give it to Him and let Him take those sins away.”

What are you carrying around in your heart that needs healing? What fears are keeping you awake at night? We all have them. And we all seem to want to take care of them all by ourselves. We don’t think God can help us, or we don’t even let God into the equation. And what do we do when God’s answer is for us to give more of ourselves? What do we do when we ask God to give us more and he turns around and says, “No, you give more instead?” What we have to offer may seem insignificant, but if we give it to God he will magnify it and use it for great good.

What these two widows did is extremely difficult for all of us. No matter how great our faith is, it is profoundly difficult to put our total trust in God. There is something within us all that looks for solutions to our problems outside of the realm of faith. Perhaps as rugged individualists we think that we can solve our own problems, conquer all obstacles ourselves. Certainly, we are all tempted to believe that the proper amount of cash applied in the right places can heal all ills.

I know you will agree that the great fallacy of our age is that money can solve our problems. It is the job of advertisers to convince us that we can buy happiness. The fact is that among those who have been blessed with material success the happiest are those who have no qualms about sharing their wealth. Too often the comfortable give to God as though they were poor. And the poor give to Him as though they were wealthy. And not just monetarily.

Someone has enumerated four different types of giving. The first is called grudge giving. I hate to part with this twenty dollars but I will. The second is shame giving. I must match whatever the Jones family is giving. The third is calculated giving. We part with our money with what, someone deliciously called, a "lively sense of favors to come." Bingos, Las Vegas nights, and raffle tickets fit in very nicely in this category. The final category is thanksgiving. I part with my funds precisely because God has been so wonderfully generous to me. The widow of today's Gospel fits comfortably into this area. The folks who gave so generously to the building of St. Mary’s do too.

This tale also points to another truth about our Christian selves. The majority of us do not fully give ourselves to Christ. We are marking time with our Catholic lives. We are hedging our bets. The clever Mark situates his famous story during the last week in the life of Jesus. None too subtly he is reminding us that in a few days He will give His life for us on Calvary. What do we give Him in return?