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Offerings Don’t Work, August 12, 2019

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

A few days ago, I visited Legoland in San Antonio with my grandchildren. First, I have to tell you how amazing to see some of the things you can build with Legos. Imagine a replica of downtown San Antonio, complete with the Tower of the Americas and boats on the Riverwalk. Truly amazing design. 

Legos made a splash a long time ago as a fad for kids, kind of like Lincoln Logs when I was a kid. Lincoln Logs are pretty hard to find today. Legos are everywhere and look like they will be around for a long time. In fact, when asked his dream job if not in dental school at his entrance interview, my son’s answer, “I’d like to be a Lego designer.” What a job, spend all day playing with Legos. His now five-year-old builds better than me. 

The two of them have dozens of kits and thousands of pieces that they will put together to make incredible things. Rockets, boats, buildings, animals, people, just name it and it seems to come alive in different colored bricks. My hobby at both their ages dealt with pencils, paper, canvas, and paint. Not such a great artist, but I painted and drew stuff. They do it in 3D.

Back to Legoland. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our time there for the first couple of hours. After we’d been there a while, I started noticing the attitude of some of the kids and parents. First, you have to know if you’ve ever bought any Legos, they are not cheap. Those await special events and special occasions because of their popularity and price. Supply and demand economy makes it possible. In fact, a few of their classic Star Wars sets top $1000 each. 

Well, I watched a few parents try to win their kids affection (or at least their better behavior) with Legos. The kid wanted this set or that kit, and the parent with creased forehead pulled out a credit card and slipped it into the machine to soothe the savage beast. On offering to appease the approaching storm. 

As I watched, sometimes it was a toy. Sometimes food (make that candy) was the bribe of choice. Occasionally, the promise of more time in the playground or another ride on the spinning swing. Offerings to procure the favor of an out of control child. 

In some ways, it reminded me of the words Isaiah heard from God in his earliest days as a prophet. In the first chapter of the book that bears his name, we read these words:

Listen to the word of the Eternal One,

    you rulers of Sodom!

Attend to God’s instructions,

    citizens of Gomorrah!

Eternal One: What do I care for all of your slaughter-gifts?

        I have had enough of your burnt offerings.

    I’m not interested in any more ram meat or fat from your well-fed cattle.

        The blood of bulls, lambs, or goats does not please Me.

    When you come into My presence,

        who told you to trample down the courtyard of My temple bringing all of this?

    Just stop giving Me worthless offerings;

        your incense reeks and offends Me!

    Your feasts and fasts, your new moons and Sabbaths—

        I cannot stand any more of your wicked gatherings.

    Likewise, I deplore your holidays,

        those calendar days marked specially for Me;

    They weigh Me down.

        I am sick and tired of them!

    When you summon Me with your hands in the air, I will ignore you.

        Even when you pray your whole litany, I won’t be listening

    Because your hands are full of blood and violence.

    Wash yourselves, clean up your lives;

        remove every speck of evil in what you do before Me.

    Put an end to all your evil.

    Learn to do good;

        commit yourselves to seeking justice.

    Make right for the world’s most vulnerable—

       the oppressed, the orphaned, the widow.

    Come on now, let’s walk and talk; let’s work this out.

        Your wrongdoings are bloodred,

    But they can turn as white as snow.

        Your sins are red like crimson,

    But they can be made clean again like new wool.

    If you pay attention now and change your ways,

        you can eat good things from a healthy earth.

    But if you refuse to listen and stubbornly persist,

        then, by violence and war, you will be the one devoured.

These things were spoken by the very mouth of the Eternal.¹

What does that have to do with the parents in Legoland?

I think we often give because we believe it will appease God. If we give enough or do enough, God will be happy with us, and all will be well with the world. But it doesn’t work that way. If it did, the wealthiest among us would drop a check in the offering occasionally guaranteeing themselves a seat on the heaven-bound bus. 

Isaiah lived during a part of Israel’s most prosperous history. The nation’s economy was on fire. If they had had a stock market, it would have looked very much like our Wall Street numbers today, through the roof. Scary high. The country had some really rich people. 

Israel also had a load of very poor people. Involved in several conflicts, young men died in battle, leaving widows and orphans behind. But they had no life insurance, no Social Security, no decent-paying jobs for women. In Isaiah’s day, unfortunately, women were of less value than a cow. They fell just below the rank of a slave. And the orphans in the caste system dropped a peg below women until old enough to work in the fields. 

The Mosaic Law, which the Sadducees and Pharisees threw in Jesus’ face so often required the Jews to take care of widows and orphans. God condemned the nation for putting money into the temple but forgetting about the poor and destitute. They forgot the task he gave them. Show God to the rest of the world through their love.

So what does that mean? God told Abraham the whole world be blessed through him. We most often interpret that as meaning Jesus came through his lineage. I know God includes that in the promise, but I’m not so sure that completes the two-part promise. I think the promise carries with it the task of actually blessing those with whom we come in contact every day. 

Abraham’s offspring failed in that mission. They enjoyed the abundant crops, the remarkable economy, the riches that God allowed them to accumulate. God gave them those things to bless the world, though. God gave them the riches to take care of the needy and spread God’s love. He allowed them to become a powerful nation in that era to demonstrate the rules in God’s Kingdom rather than man’s.

They failed in their mission. So God sent his message through Isaiah. Time was running out. Change their ways fast. It’s not about outward behavior, it’s about inward transformation. It’s about God cleaning up the inside, so we behave on the outside with a heart of love. Because they failed, the nation crumbled. 

Jesus came to show us what right looks like. He did a lot of good things. I’m pretty sure Jesus gave tithes and offerings to the temple. We know he paid the required temple tax every year by the story we find with Peter’s fishing expedition and finding the coins in the fish’s mouth. 

I expect Jesus’ offerings were pretty meager, though. He understood poverty. He grew up in Nazareth, the “other side of the tracks.” We assume Joseph died when Jesus was a teen, and Jesus would have picked up the responsibility to provide for the rest of the family until his brothers were old enough to take over the carpentry business. He told some of his followers, “the son of man has no place to lay his head,” remember?

So what does God want? He wants us to let him make us new. He wants to transform our mind to begin thinking as he thinks. He makes the same promise through us he made with Abraham, “I will bless the world through you.” Jesus told his disciples they would do more wondrous things than he did. But that happens only when we let him transform us and make us his instrument of love.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

¹ The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Don’t sound a trumpet (Mark 12:43-44) September 4, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – 2 Timothy 3-4

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Mark 12:43-44
Jesus (calling His disciples together): Truly this widow has given a greater gift than any other contribution. All the others gave a little out of their great abundance, but this poor woman has given God everything she has.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

I haven’t seen one in a long time, but I remember you could find them at least while my kids were little. Okay, stop the suspense. What I’m I talking about. I’m talking about those big yellow or red plastic or metal barrels with a funnel shaped top that you put a coin at the top and it spins around and around until it falls into the hole in the funnel and disappears into the big barrel. It’s fun to see how many times you can make the coins spin around the outside of the conical shaped top before it finally disappears into the cavern below.

We tried to limit the size of the contribution to those things to pennies at those amusement centers whenever we found them, because of course you’d never see the coins again and the only excitement was watching the coin spin around and disappear. But on the metal ones, nickles sounded so much better than pennies, and when dimes and quarters were real silver, the difference in sound was really incredible. The coins seemed to sing as they spun around that metal cone before the barrel gobbled them up.

So what does that have to do with Jesus’ words. Well, at the entrance to the temple, there were these contraptions similar to the devices I just described from my childhood that you’ve probably seen as well. But these were made of brass. They were designed so that when coins were dropped into them, the coins would fall into the container at the bottom, but no one could put their hand into the opening at the top and steal any. But this conical shape at the top made it easy to just toss money in without much fear of missing the opening. Surprisingly, the word used to describe these vessels in Hebrew, was the word trumpet.

So get this picture. When Jesus talks about not sounding your trumpets before men, picture these scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees dressed in their fine linens and purple robes. Picture them in all their tapestry and finery walking into the temple gates and brushing aside all those layers of robes to unveil their money purse. They watch in your mind as they loosen the ties and reach into that purse to find the right silver coin. He holds it up to the light and checks to see if it well rounded with no rough edges.

Then with years of practice, he puts a special spin on that coin and it twirls around and around that brass trumpet singing to the crowd as gravity finally pulls it into the hole and into the treasure chest. Finally, the clink of the coin echoes in the chamber and he looks around to make sure everyone heard that familiar sound. He has paid well. His trumpet has sounded before men!

Contrast that to the widow Jesus describes. She comes to the temple in her rags. She barely has enough to eat. Remember, women have no place in society. Without a husband, she is left to beg and hope that some family member will have mercy on her and give her some means of sustenance. But she still comes to the temple and as she approaches that same trumpet, she has already been holding tight to the only two coins in her purse. It’s only two pennies, but it’s all she has. It’s not much, but it’s everything.

She’s almost embarrassed to walk among these great men of prominence who have made their money sing in the trumpets, but she is determined to give what she has and so she reaches far over into the middle of the device and slips the coins into the hole, careful that they don’t touch the sides. She would place them on the pile of coins at the bottom so they would make no noise at all if she could. She wants no attraction. She just wants to give her offering and get to the court of women to pray.

Jesus admires the woman and her gift. Not so much those who want the fanfare for their “generosity”. He says they have already had their reward, the praise of men. But what is that worth? I’d much rather have the favor of God. When we do things to please men, we lose because we can never please everyone. And the next time, they will expect more anyway. But when we do things to please God, He knows our heart. He knows the motive behind the action. He doesn’t care about the size of the act, but about the heart behind the act. But remember He does know the heart behind the act.

God will be thrilled when He gets “C+” work from His “C” student. But don’t expect Him to get very excited when He gets that same “C+” work from His “B” student. He expects us to give Him our all, to work hard for Him, to commit everything to Him. After all, He is God and He deserves it. Don’t sound your trumpet, just do it.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.