A homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 10, 2024
1 Kgs 17:10-16, Heb 9:24-28, Mk 12:38-44 or 12:41-44
The other day, I was at the bank to trade in my coins for a couple of greenbacks, but I had to wait behind a couple who were emptying two water-cooler jugs filled with coins.
Well, actually, the jugs had been filled at one point; I luckily arrived as the duo was down to the last third of the second jug and the bank teller had snapped empty coin bags into the sorting machine.
As I stood there with my quart-size Ziploc, I wondered what the couple might use the money for (it turned out to be a lot). Mortgage payment? Vacation? A new car or repairs on their old one? Bet MGM Casino on a new iPhone?
But then, years of hearing MYOB from my mother and the teachers at St. Leo the Great kicked in, and instead I wondered what I’d do with the 20-ish dollars I’d walk out with.
I must confess that a work of charity wasn’t the first thing that came to mind.
Shame on me.
Long before debit cards became universally held and universally accepted, I kept an emergency $20 bill in the glove compartment of my car. And before E-ZPass, I kept loads of quarters for tolls as well.
A friend tossed all the loose change from his pocket under the driver’s seat when I bought the car, to bring me good luck.
I occasionally — though rarely — find coins in my couch when I vacuum out the popcorn kernels and chip crumbs.
Sound familiar?
Many of us are blessed enough to have tiny stashes of money in places we pay little or no attention to, or even have forgotten about. It’s not a case of, as Sen. Everett Dirksen said, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
No, but a coin jar here, a couch cleaning there, and the found funds can help someone. Random acts of kindness via the jingling of coins.
Our Scripture passages today, from the First Book of Kings and from St. Mark’s Gospel, tell of charitable acts that came from the heart and had profoundly positive impacts on the lives of the people involved.
But did they solve anything for the long term?
In Kings, Elijah’s visit to the widow and her son gave her the ingredients for a year’s meals. But was her overall situation improved? Dunno.
In Mark, Jesus used the humble charitable action of the other widow to shame the hypocrites who showed off while tossing in their excess wealth to the House of God. The widow is praiseworthy, to be sure, but she’s still poor and on her own.
This is where we come in, we who live in a time and place with systems of justice and governmental and nonprofit agencies to protect and uplift people to whom life has dealt a lousy hand.
Charity, especially around the holidays that are now approaching, is beautiful, magnificent, Christlike. Our Thanksgiving food drive and Christmas gift drive show that we are trying hard to live the Law of Love.
But after the wishbones are broken and the pie pans are washed, after the bows and wrapping paper are tossed and the AA batteries sputter, will the recipients of our charity be back where they were in September or July? Or, God forbid, worse off?
As we reach into our pockets or look under the cushions or dump the piggy bank to be charitable, let’s also rattle our brains to think in terms of social justice. Of ways to eliminate, or at least reduce, the reasons why our sisters and brothers slip to the edges of society.
Our Scriptures today tell us that acts of charity put out figurative fires. Praise God for that.
But when we think deeply about these passages’ overarching message, we realize the problem that God calls us to solve is stopping those fires from igniting in the first place.
And God calls each of us to use our God-given brains and hands and hearts — our unique talents — to find a way and act on it.
