Challenging Silence
The silence is tangible. It punches in the belly, leaving me
breathless in its silence. It beckons. It is a frustrated probe that prods me
to search. It chafes and rubs. The challenging silence rings from Luke 21:
“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering
box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, ‘Truly,
I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all
contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she
had to live on’” (Luke 21:1-4).
And then there is
silence.
What happened to the widow? Did she starve to death? Did God
care for her like the widow in Zarephath whose oil and flour never ran out? (1
Kings 17) Did someone else watching have mercy on her and provide for her
needs?
The silence leaves a gap for us to fill by faith. We must
remember by faith that God is the “Father of the fatherless and protector of
widows, is God in his holy habitation” (Psalm
68:5). Faith tells us to look to the God who says to understand him and to
know him is to know that he is the “LORD who practices steadfast love, justice,
and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight” (Jer.
9:23-24). Again and again, the Bible attests that this is the character of
God. This silence asks for faith.
The silence leaves a gap to fill by worship and trust. I
want a sentence that says, “Jesus comforted her and told her she didn’t have to
give all.” But God is a God that demands all. We are not our own, we are living
sacrifices (1
Cor. 6:19-20; Rom. 12:1). We are to hate family and our own life in that we
give ultimate allegiance to God (Lk.
14:26; Jn. 12:25). Christ “died for all, that those who live might no
longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised”
(1
Cor. 5:15). He is the Lord who can rightly command that the rich young man
sell all and give to the poor (Mk.
10:17-31). I want to have an assurance of “The Lord then cared for her” before
I worship him with my all and follow this woman’s example of faith. Worship.
Trust. Faith. This silence invites us to a huge vision of a great and mighty
and holy God who is worthy of all.
The silence of unending asks for us to fill the story. This
story should never have been. More than an oxymoron, a paradox, implausibility,
imponderable—these are far too weak of words. It is a NOT-SHOULD-BE. God had commanded, “There will be no poor
among you” (Deut.
15:4). Not only because the Lord blesses them, or that he is the Giver of
the land, but “If among you [Israel], one of your brothers should become poor…you
shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but
you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever
it may be” (Deut.
15:7-8). This is the God who commands his king and his people to “Give
justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and
the destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the
wicked” (Ps.
82:3-4; cf. Isa. 1; Isa. 58; Amos 8:6; and more). This account should never
have been.
The silence invites us to look at the surrounding context in
search of an answer—and this silence falls in the words of judgment by Jesus. Before
this account Jesus condemns the scribes who fear man and love man’s praise and “devour
widows’ houses…. They will receive the greater condemnation” (Lk.
20:45-47). From these words of judgment (and I can picture Jesus weeping as
he says it, just as he did a few verses earlier in Luke 19), Jesus “looked up”
perhaps still with tears in his eyes and “saw the rich putting their gifts into
the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins” (Lk.
21:1-2). The very illustration of what he had just said. The Lord who had
blessed them all so much, who had wanted these Israelites to care for the poor
as he delights in justice and he himself is the protector of the widow, sees
this. And Luke immediately goes on to give Jesus’ words of destruction of the
temple (Lk.
21:5-9). The disciples speak nothing. The watching crowd says nothing.
Jesus’ words of destruction of the temple, pointing to a new order and a new
people ring out. The silence asks Jesus’ new people to follow in his footsteps,
Jesus the true Israel who cares for the poor, to step into that silence.
This silence leaves a gap that asks me to engage with the story.
Will I in faith trust this God who demands my all with my all? Will I be that
widow? Will I step in the messiness unendings of faith and trust? Will I honor
this great holy God who rightly demands all? Will I care for the poor so that my
“abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their
abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness” (2
Cor. 8:14) because “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that
having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good
work…. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way” (2
Cor. 9:8, 11)?
In this silence steps Christ, the revelation of God. The silence
asks for faith—but faith is not blind, and Jesus concretely in flesh and
history shows us God being the defender of the orphans and fatherless, raising the
widow’s son in Nain, taking care of his mother at the cross, etc. The silence
asks us for worship and trust—but trust in a God who “though he was rich, yet
for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2
Cor. 8:9). Our God gave all. And if he did not spare his own Son, how can
we not be confident that he will graciously give us all things? (Rom.
8:31-32). Will he pay so much for us and then abandon us? The silence asks
us to engage with the story—Jesus looked at this widow and he had an answer:
his people. Christ himself would minister to her and widows throughout the ages
through his hands and feet, his body. Will we step into that silence in faith,
worship and trust, and giving?
Does your faith cringe
at this request? How does God’s revelation of himself in the Bible and in Christ
build your faith to trust him with all?
Are you worshipping and
trusting this great God? Are you willing to give him your all? What fears do
you have? How does Christ answer those fears?
How are we being
Christ’s hands and feet to the poor?
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