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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolfmuller and you are listening to the Sunday Drive to church podcast for November 10, the year of our Lord 2024. For the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, it's really Widow Sunday. It's an interesting thing that this theme in the text is that the Lord is the one who takes care of the fatherless. And the widows is going to run through all of our readings today and give us some marvelous comfort. It's really, really fantastic. And we'll talk about it Now. Let's begin, though, with the PR today.
[00:00:33] Almighty and ever living God, you have given exceedingly great and precious promises to those who trust in you. Grant us so firmly to believe in your Son, Jesus, that our faith may never be found wanting through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Well, we've finished the two end of October feasts. So we had Reformation a couple weeks ago. We had All Saints last week. Those just fall on that October 31st for Reformation Day and All Saints on November 1st. And then they kind of split whatever week they're on. It kind of moves forward and backwards. So we had Reformation and All Saints, and those are the.
[00:01:23] It's interesting that we're kind of easing our way into the festive part of the church here. So it starts with St. Michael's at the end of September. September 29th. Yeah. Is that right? St. Michael and All Angels. Yeah. September 29th. And then end of October, beginning of November, we get two more. And now we're in a little bit of a kind of back to normal. Let's see, it's Pentecost 2025th Sunday after Pentecost, we're kind of back to normal for a few weeks. And then we'll be Thanksgiving week whack right into Advent and the festive season of the church here. So it's kind of nice. So we're still in this summer reading. We'll switch to year C at the beginning of December after Thanksgiving when we get into Advent. So that'll be really nice. But we're kind of winding towards the end of the church year. Pretty soon the readings are going to shift towards end times readings and end of the world readings with the end of the church year. But we're not quite there yet. And so we're back into Mark. We're in Mark 12:38,44 for the main gospel reading. And there's a double discussion here from Jesus on the widows so it's Holy Tuesday. So maybe we'll work backwards because we have Mark 12 and then 1 Kings 17, which is where Elijah the prophet goes and visits the widow at Zarephath. And then we have Psalm 146. Marvelously, it's the. This is actually the perfect week to have Psalm 146. It's the trust not in princes psalm. But I think it's in there because it says in verse nine, the Lord preserveth the strangers, he relieveth the fatherless and widow, the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
[00:03:18] So the psalm is grabbing a hold of that as well. But let's start with Mark chapter 12. So it's holy Tuesday. Jesus has been disputing with the Pharisees and the scribes in the temple, fighting about, well, remember they asked him these questions. The lady who died and. Sorry, the lady whose husband died and she got married and married and married and married. Whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Jesus says, you know, neither the Scriptures are the power of God. And answers their question, then is it rightful to pay taxes? And Jesus shows him the coin. And then what is the third one? The lawyer comes and says, what's the greatest commandment? This is maybe the only real legitimate question Jesus got.
[00:04:04] And he says, love the Lord your God and love your neighbors yourself. And then Jesus turns it around and says, all right, I got a question for you. And then all these woes.
[00:04:14] In Matthew 23 we have a list of maybe seven woes to the Pharisees. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees.
[00:04:23] You travel around the world to make a proselytite, to make one convert, and you convert them to being worse a child of hell than you yourselves are. It's amazing. Well, we get one of those woes in our text.
[00:04:38] It's verse 38. In his teaching, Jesus said, beware the scribes. They like to walk around in long robes and light greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows houses for a pretense, make long prayers, they will receive the greater condemnation. And so Jesus is getting after the scribes and the Pharisees too. But here, specifically the scribes, they are all about the outward piety. They wear robes, but their hearts are far from God. They love greeting in the marketplace and they neglect their prayers. They have the best seats in the synagogue and the place of honor at the feasts. They devour widows houses, so they don't care about those People who are poor, who need help. Remember, the Lord has a special place for orphans and for widows. If, if something happens where the father is not in the home, it's particularly difficult. But the Lord takes up the cause of those who are in need and cares for them. But the scribes, no, they just care only about themselves. Now I think we should keep that in mind for the next part because Jesus is now going to sit down with his disciples there in the temple and watch the people who were coming to make their offerings. So there was an offering box in the temple and people would come and offer their tithes. There was a required double tithe in the temple, 20%. It was like a flat tax. 10% that paid for the state and 10% that paid for the government. I think at this point they were probably just putting in a 10% tithe because Rome was collecting taxes to pay for the government. I'm not sure what the tax burden was. That'd be an interesting question. Try to sort out what the tax burden was in Jerusalem under Roman oppression.
[00:06:42] I don't know. Anyhow, they're sitting there watching and all the rich people are coming and putting in a lot of money. But then here comes this poor widow and she put in two small copper coins which make a penny.
[00:06:55] And they're watching this. And Jesus calls his disciples and you think to yourself, here are these huge donations. Blam, blam. All these people are given all this money. And then here this widow comes along and gives something that's basically nothing, just change. It's like maybe something that would fall between the seat of the car and get lost.
[00:07:17] Two little copper coins. And the disciples are probably sit in there and think to themselves, why even bother with that? But Jesus says, truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than those who are contributing to the offering box, for they contribute out of their abundance. But she, out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. Now on the one hand, I think Jesus is commending this lady and her dedication. On the other hand, I think this continues as a rebuke to the scribes who already said they were devouring widows houses and they were taking even the money that she had to eat on. And now she was going to be destitute. And it just shouldn't be that way in the Lord's church, everyone should be provided for and cared for. It should be the confidence that all of us have that not only in our family and our friends, but in our church that I have A family here. And so I'm not going to go hungry. It might be tough, but I belong to the Lord in this church, and so I know I'll be cared for.
[00:08:25] That's part of the teaching in First Kings, chapter 17. So this goes way back to when was Elijah. This was time in the divided kingdom. Jezebel, I should look up the dates of Elijah.
[00:08:44] All right, I got a King ahab ruled from 874 to 853 BC.
[00:08:52] So that's a hundred years. Let's think about that. That's a hundred years after.
[00:09:03] Let's see, 1025. Oh, sheesh. It's too early in the morning this Sunday morning. By the way, this is a lit. I could have really done a Sunday drive to church recording while driving at church. I decided I'd better stay home and record before I drove in. So it's too early in the morning to do this math. David became king in 1010. He died in 971 when Solomon became king. Solomon died in 931, and that's when the kingdom was divided. Am I doing the math right? 1010. Yeah, yeah. So 50 years after the divide, King Ahab and Jezebel, remember that? And Elijah was the prophet up north, but he travels all the way over to Zarephath in Sidon, which is outside of the borders of Israel. And Jesus will mention this in his own preaching that there's lots of widows in Israel at the time of King. King Ahab at the time of Elijah. But he goes to this widow at Zarephath, not in Israel. And he goes to this widow, and she says, could you give me something to drink? And she gives her something to drink. She says, can you give me something to eat? And she says, no, I can't, because I just got these two sticks and I have a tiny little thing of flour. And I'm going to go home and I'm going to make a little cake so that me and my son can eat the last of our food and then die. I mean, this is it.
[00:10:34] This is poverty level maximum.
[00:10:39] And this is a despairing day. But listen to what Elijah says to her.
[00:10:45] Do not fear. Go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me afterward. Make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the jar of flour shall not be spent and the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth. And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty. According to the word of the Lord that He spoke to Elijah. So the Lord provided for her beautiful. And took care of her and took care of Elijah. And it showed this. So there's a lot of things here.
[00:11:30] There's something about the priority that she first is to give a little cake to Elijah and then one for herself. So that when we're.
[00:11:38] When we're offering to the Lord, it's not the leftovers, but the first fruits. It's one of the reasons I'm so proud of our congregation. That takes the. We take 10% just from the offerings, and we're going to send it to other people to help them.
[00:11:51] Some goes to the district, some goes to the Synod, some goes to all these different missionaries that we have.
[00:11:57] It's taken it off the top. It's not using the leftovers. That's part of it. And that the Lord cares for people in their generosity. So the Lord is turning us into generous people so that our first concern is not how to take care of ourselves, but that we can help and bless other people.
[00:12:20] I think there's something interesting here also, that it's not a daughter of Israel that's being taken care of, but a daughter of Zarephath, a daughter of Sidon. And that the Lord is saying, look, my kingdom is much, much bigger than your boundaries that you've set here in Israel. That the Lord will bring in people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation into his church. That the church is really, truly catholic. And it's not like a nation that has borders, and those borders are protected and defended.
[00:12:59] And there's wars that happen at the Borders of Nations, etc. No, the church goes into all nations. Absolutely beautiful.
[00:13:08] But the basic idea is the Lord will take care of us. He can make us rich and poor in a day, and he will provide for us. He'll give us all that we need. Okay, the Epistle is remember back. So since we're back to these normal Sundays, remember the Old Testament and the Gospel kind of matched up with one another, as well as the Psalm. Oh, I forgot the Psalm.
[00:13:30] Psalm 146. Look at this. Put not your verse 3. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the Son of Man in whom there is no help. This is good on election day, no matter what you're thinking about the election. But I mean, it seems to me like a really profound week.
[00:13:48] No matter what it's a really profound week in the history of our nation this week with the election and also been thinking about this all week, that it must be that Austin is the most important city in this election. Because if there was two people who really threw their weight behind President Trump and the Republican Party and maybe pushed them over the finish line, it was Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, both of Austin, Texas.
[00:14:18] Keep an eye out for them in church today. Who knows, Go Austin in a way, but still here, no matter what, put not your trust in princes, nor the Son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth. He returns to the earth in the very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth, the sea and all therein, who keeps truth forever, who execute. And here's the reason why. This psalm is our psalm today, which executeth judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners. The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind. The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous. The Lord preserveth the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and widow.
[00:15:14] But the way of the wicked, he turneth upside down.
[00:15:17] So the Lord is the one who takes care of us. And this is. Remember what it means to have a God. Who is it that we look to for all good? Who is it that we run to in time of trouble?
[00:15:28] And it is not the king or the president or the government. It is to God that we look at all times.
[00:15:35] Okay, the Epistles, Hebrews 9. You'll remember this from our Sunday school a few months back, this beautiful parallel between heaven and earth and the heavenly tabernacle and the earthly tabernacle. And how the things that were happening in the earthly tabernacle or in the temple in Jerusalem were a shadow of the heavenly reality that was.
[00:16:04] And that heavenly reality is what was accomplished by our Lord Jesus. So in the earthly temple, remember that you'd have the high priest who would go into the holy of holies once a year with the blot of bull, and he'd offer it there on the Ark of the Covenant for the sins of the people. Well, that is a picture of what Jesus has done, who entered not into the copies, but into the true thing, into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
[00:16:30] Remember that Jesus is before the throne of God, interceding for us as our advocate, our paraclete. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. So we read in 1 John, nor verse 25 in Hebrews, it says, was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood not his own? No. He went once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[00:16:58] And just as it's appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once, bears the sins of many, will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
[00:17:15] So just like the singularity of our death and judgment, so Christ's death and anti judgment, he stands in place of it. His death is the death that undoes the deserved judgment of God that should be harsh because of our sins.
[00:17:36] Fantastic. Such a beautiful picture that if you have this in your mind, the temple where the priest would go in with blood, and then you take the cross and the ascension of Jesus and you say, aha. It's what it was preaching. It was preaching the ascension of Jesus. He's going to the right hand of the Father so that he can intercede for us.
[00:17:58] We'll sing the hymn of the week, Lord of all hopefulness. It's a really interesting. It's a new hymn and kind of a. It's a simple hymn.
[00:18:09] It runs through. It's almost like a meditation on the day.
[00:18:13] And so the heart of the hymn is this prayer that's in the third line of each stanza. Be there at our waking and give us, we pray, bliss in our hearts at the break of the day. And then be there at our labors and give us. We pray in the middle of the day. Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day. And then be there at our homing when work is done and we're headed home.
[00:18:43] I didn't know that homing was a verb, but it is here in the hymn.
[00:18:46] Your love in our hearts at the eve of the day. Be there at our sleeping and give us, we pray, your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day. So Lord, be with us when we wake up and give us hope. Be there when we work and give us love. Be there when we are home or sorry. Give us strength, give us love and be there when we go to bed and give us peace. It is a beautiful prayer.
[00:19:13] His bliss, his strength, his love, his peace all throughout the day, all for us. So we pray this prayer and it is a beautiful one to think about.
[00:19:24] All right, let us see any announcements we give thanks to God for the wedding of Gabe and Haley yesterday.
[00:19:35] I think I made it all the way through without saying habe and gaily.
[00:19:41] Gabe and Haley's wedding yesterday. God be praised. If you see their family will probably be hanging around in church so make sure to say hi to them. That'll be really great. And I think in some ways that concludes our wedding season for the year where God be praised though for all the weddings. We'll continue to study Hebrews chapter 12 in Bible class. After a presentation we'll see a few pictures of the mission trip to Puerto Rico and hear from the team that went down there. That sounded really great. And we'll also have a Veterans Day presentation. Lauren is going to give a little thing about Space Force which she serves in and then thanks for the veterans and then we'll dig into Hebrews chapter 12 in Bible class. I hope to see you there as well. All right. Drive safe. See you soon.
