Giving All That You Have


 

But a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins worth only a fraction of a penny. Mark 12:42


Yesterday was Youth Sunday at our church. It was a mix of preciousness and chaos. The preciousness coming from the fact that to most of us, though they see themselves as pretty adult, these people are still children. The chaos results from the fact that they are not children so much as they are the “youth”, teenagers, people who don't need a lot of advice or guidance, as far as they are concerned.

They're in church every Sunday. They help out. They watch how things work and therefore know how things work. They've got this, right? Um, not so much.

What we saw was a comedy of delightful errors, delightful from the seats, terrifying from the perspective of the kids, I'm sure. One young man was designated to give the sermon. Much like Monday morning quarterbacks, many people know what they would say and/or how they would say it. It looks pretty easy. Get up and talk about our faith, our beliefs for fifteen to twenty minutes. No problem! I could talk about Jesus all day long. Add to that erroneous view the impetuous confidence of youth and oh dear....

To begin with our sweet young man was not exuding confidence. Add to that, he had no notes. No paper or electronic gadget to guide him. Somehow I felt a train wreck coming and I wasn't completely wrong.

His sermon lasted a record two to three minutes before it stalled on the tracks. There was a silence that rapidly turned into an awkward silence that was saved by our pastor. After a several agonizing hours, okay, maybe another two to three minutes, our pastor, a pretty young guy himself, bounded up to stand beside our young man and rescue him, but not without tossing a little dig his way. At first that shocked me until I realized a sweet sympathetic approach would have undone the poor kid. Pastor Ryan knew that teasing him would lighten the moment and it did. Pastor then gave an impromptu sermon on giving sermons, giving of ourselves and they both sat down.

Perfect! It wasn't their plan. I'm sure our young man had envisioned something entirely different. It wasn't their plan but it was Someone's plan. The Someone who orders every minute of our lives.

The sermon was supposed to revolve around the verse above, Mark 12:42 and it did. A young man stood on his faith and stepped up to speak. He didn't have much to offer, the verbal equivalent of two small coins, but it didn't matter. God took what he offered and filled in the rest. Merely standing in front of us that young man showed what risk, what a leap of faith looks like. As our pastor said, “Actions really do speak louder than words.” Both of those young men demonstrated what it means to be obedient. I doubt that anyone jotted down a sermon note yesterday but I also doubt that many will forget what they learned.






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