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Mark is fond of drawing comparisons as he tells the story of Jesus. He does just that in the two deliberately framed scenes presented in our gospel lesson. The poor, vulnerable widow stands over against the learned scribes and the ostentatious rich. What a contrast, the public and financial somebodies and the welfare recipient. Think first of the contrast between the scribes and the widow, the teachers and the taught, the learned theologians and the simple devout believer.

A word about the scribes is in order. They were the brains of the religious community. They were the rigorously and highly trained custodians of the theological and juridical traditions of Israel. Mark overdraws their picture here in order to score by excess. They were as mixed a group as any group of clergy in any time. Many lived on the edge of poverty and yet carried out faithful teaching ministries supported only by subsidies from those they tutored or income from self employment as an artisan. The Apostle Paul who came from scribal ranks was a tent maker. Of course, many were tempted to covet public recognition and to sponge off of the devout who could ill afford such exploitation. But then that sort of hankering after chief seats was going on among the 12 disciples of Jesus and avarice was not unknown in the early church among those leaders Paul called "peddlers of the Word of God." We have examples of that on the religious scene today. There are clerical leaders who covet access to power and love the chief seats at political conventions. We too can get enamored of titles and testimonials.

The story is told of a new pastor in the community who placed a call to the pastor of a neighboring church. "Is Mr. Brown there?" he asked the secretary. A voice oozing affection replied, "No, DOCTOR Brown is not here, do you care to leave a message?" "Yes," said the pastor, "tell him BACHELOR Smith called." While Mark in his way of telling the story had the clergy of his and every day in mind let's include the unordained within the target area. The clergy have no corner on sashaying around. An associate pastor at Riverside Church during the days of Harry Emerson Fosdick recalled a Sunday morning incident when the sanctuary was quite full. Mr. Rockefeller arrived a bit late for the service and seeing the full sanctuary, said to the usher, "Don't bother to find me a seat, I'll just sneak up into the balcony." A huffy worshiper who had just arrived and overheard that exchange snapped at the usher, "You may find me a seat in the sanctuary. I am not the balcony type."

The poor widow in the temple stands there as the model of devout Jewish piety. And there is a comment by the late Swiss theologian, Emil Brunner, that sums up this contrast between scribes and widow, the teachers and the taught. "Greater faith can dwell in the heart of a devout peasant than in the head of the most learned theologian."

Enough said? Well, enough has been said to bring us all down to size. But a warning cries out to be inserted here. There is a sting in this comparison, but it is not to be taken as a charter for anti-intellectualism or theologian bashing in the church. The church needs thoughtful expositors of the scriptures in the classroom and even more crucially in the pulpit. Anne Douglas has written a challenging book, The Feminization of American Culture. In the book she has a fascinating and convincing discussion of the effect of the disestablishment of the church in Massachusetts upon Congregational and Unitarian clergy. The clergy experienced a status blow and an identity crisis. They abandoned the one role that was theirs to fill, their role as the teachers and custodians of theological tradition. There has been right through to this time a decline in solid biblical exposition in the preaching ministry. Every decade seems to bring its own fad to the pulpit. During the '70s one pastor asked another, "What are you doing in your church with transactional analysis?" "Not a thing," replied the other, "What are you doing in your church with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?" Today the fad is the telling of the preacher's personal story as if our little stories could supply the inexhaustible resource of the big story. This is not a clergy issue alone; the whole church is the custodian of the biblical tradition and the expectation of the congregation is involved. Mark's aim is to keep us humble, not to keep us thoughtless.

Scribes are not the only ones who stand in contrast to the widow. The ostentatious wealthy also stand out in comparison to the widow and her pennies. Any number of stewardship sermons have been preached on this scene extolling the widow's offering. The pit into which such sermons can fall is the praise of small gifts. The text has been so romanticized that one ought to avoid it on stewardship Sunday. The figure of the widow does not symbolize today what it did in the days of Jesus. The widow in the New Testament tradition represents the poor and vulnerable because that's what widows were then. They were supported by charity and as women had no role in public life. Today a large share of the wealth of America is in the hands of widows. When stewardship Sunday comes around in late November many of the widows in our congregations are preparing to move to their condos in Florida.

There is a powerful statement about giving here, but it deals with motives. Jesus is watching the ostentatious wealthy put their gifts in the temple treasury. Many of the rich were placing large gifts. It was show time. This was calculated giving to earn brownie points under the law, impress others, gain social recognition, and even to control institutions this way. The devout rich had another alternative. In the temple there was a Chamber of Secrets where the rich could give charitable contributions in secret. This was the way of giving prescribed by Jesus.

Note the rich and poor were in the church together. They were together in the early church. They are together in the church today. The mix was not without its problems. Ostentation and class division posed a severe problem in the congregation at Corinth. In other parts of the church also. Read James' scathing sermon on one congregation's propensity to fawn over the wealthy visitor and ignore the poor newcomer. You'll find the sermon in the second chapter of his epistle. Economic divisions still are a problem mix in the church.

Archie Hargraves, one of the pioneer founders of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, tells of a meeting in the early days of the parish where a group of men from the parish sat down with a group of men from a wealthy suburban church. To begin, the convener suggested each introduce himself and state his work. All of the suburban men had powerful professional and business titles. It was soon noted that the visitors from East Harlem felt dwarfed. The convener suggested that they go around again and each answer the question "Why I am a Christian." The men from East Harlem gave answers that dwarfed their hosts. This is the way our gospel lesson gets to the essentials. The gifts of the ostentatious were vastly greater than the two lepta of the widow, but when judged by the measure of her faith and sacrifice, her contribution dwarfed the others. I hear here an imperative that democratizes the church. The importation into the church of the values of the larger culture has no place.

There is a memorable statement by John Knox made during a sermon in St. Giles Church in Edinburgh during the years of his contention with Mary, Queen of Scots. Pointing his finger at the Queen, he declared, "Madame, in the kingdoms of this world you may be a Queen, but in God's kingdom you are just another silly servant." That's all any of us are, just another silly servant.

So here are the contrasts that stare out at us all from the gospel lesson. The scribes and the ostentatious rich, the smart set and the jet set, are set over against one vulnerable and poor widow. What a contrast, the big people and the little people, for the widow is one of these. This is a contrast that runs throughout Mark's gospel. In his gospel the little people surface and shine. In Mark's gospel the giants turn into dwarves and the dwarves into giants. The disciples wrangle over chief seats while blind Bartimaeus sees what they do not see. He becomes a giant of the faith while the 12 start looking like the 12 dwarves. The widow dwarfed by privilege and wealth is judged the giant in the faith. As Jesus makes his way to the cross heroism erupts in unexpected persons, Bartimaeus, Simon the Leper, Simon Cyrenean, Joseph from Arimathea, the poor widow, Mary, the mother of James and Joses to name some. They all courageously make some contribution or take some risk on behalf of Jesus. Collectively they make a significant impact. They are little Christ figures and models of discipleship. Meeting them we are ushered into another world of values and measurements. And thinking of the impact of little people think of the grandmothers of the former Soviet Union who have been credited with passing on the Christian faith to children growing up in an officially atheistic state. They are modern day descendants of the widow in the temple.

This story of the widow's offering closes Mark's account of the public ministry of Jesus. Ahead lies the cross. The widow's offering foreshadows Jesus pouring out of his own life on behalf of others. And speaking of contrasts, there is a third group, unseen but present. They are us, the hearers of the story. Over against the widow, how do we measure up, or down?