?¨Hannah and the 3 %?Æ May 21, 2006
Part 2 in Stewardship: ?¨How we give?Æ Pastor Mark Nieting
Text: Mark 12: 38-44

Do you like to ?¨people watch??Æ I do?ñ.and I have a few favorite places to do it. First is along the driveway before and after school, watching the big SUVs swing through with most of the moms busily chatting away on cell phones while they drop off or pick up their precious cargos. It??s fascinating. Downtown Asheville is fun too, with all the ?¨interesting characters?Æ along Lexington Street and the like?ñit??s almost like a trip to the zoo! 

Today??s text is a perfect example of Jesus doing some people watching. Let me set the stage for you. Jesus was in Jerusalem, teaching in the Temple courts. This temple was HUGE, built by the same Herod who was the baby-killer in Bethlehem. History records him as ?¨Herod the Great.?Æ In 20 BC he rebuilt the temple into the magnificent structure it was. The main building was 150 feet long, 75 feet wide and 150 feet tall?ñ.nearly 20 stories! It took 1000 wagons and 10,000 workers a year and a half to build it. It was the spiritual and cultural center of Jewish life?ñ..in Jerusalem it was where the action was.

Jesus had been at this crowded, noisy, busy temple all day, arguing with the religious leaders. Tired, Jesus sat down on a bench opposite the place where the offerings were taken. According to research on this, there were 13 offering boxes, built like metal suitcases with a slit in the top so people could drop their offerings through. There were little signs on each one: one said building maintenance; another said utilities, another for rabbis?? salaries, you get the idea, 13 different offerings. And it was a great place to watch people. So Jesus did.

About that time (and I??m going to take a small liberty with the story), ?¨he?Æ came in, riding on the best camel money could buy. He double-parked it right up front in the main camel lot, so everyone could see ?¨his ride.?Æ He slid off the camel, dressed in fine purple silk, with pure buffed leather designer sandals on his feet and a ?¨Mr T Starter Set?Æ around his neck. He walked right up to the middle of the row of offering boxes and whipped out his checkbook, attached to his belt by a gold chain. Everyone KNEW this was going to be a big-time giver. He signed his check with a flourish, ripped it out and dropped it into one of the boxes with a flair and a smile. Jesus was watching, and so were his disciples. Jesus nudged John and Peter and everybody smiled.

But before you could count to five, there was a Jewish rabbi who came sauntering into the temple. You could tell this man was religious, I mean REALLY religious. He had the long black robe and matching long black beard with matching black leather sandals. His phylactery was neatly tied around him and he carried a leather Bible scroll. 

He walked in with a prayerful look on his face, glanced around and saw that most of the people were still paying attention to the guy in purple with the fancy camel, so he pulled out ten large silver coins, ones that he knew would make a heavy ?¨clank?Æ as he dropped them slowly into the box, one at a time: clank, clank, clank, clank. By the fourth or fifth ?¨clank,?Æ everybody was watching. Jesus poked Thomas and they all smiled.

Well, then came a little old lady. Nobody really noticed her. She was almost invisible in the crowd, humped over, wearing non-descript clothes and a long dark shawl over her head. She was obviously poor and quite elderly, walking like she had arthritis and gout together. She poked along with her cane and as she approached the different boxes, she quietly dropped two small coins, worth less than a penny, into one of them. Jesus whispered to his friends as they sat on the bench, ?¨Do you see that little lady over there? She gave her very last nickel. Those other people gave from the abundance of their wealth, but she gave everything she had.?Æ Then Jesus got up and they headed out.

This lady is the model in the Bible of a person who is excessively generous. She is one of four people in the New Testament who are living examples of good stewardship. The first is Zacchaeus (Luke 19), the short little man who had defrauded everybody around him. After Jesus got into his heart, Zacchaeus announced that he would repay everybody he had stolen from, double. That??s what happens when Jesus gets into your heart.

The second living example was Barnabas, who, in the book of Acts (Acts 4) sold his property and gave the proceeds to a widow. Again, he was far more generous than Old Testament law even suggested. The third example of enormous generosity was the entire church in Macedonia, described in 2 Corinthians 8-9, as the church that gave ?¨way over the top?Æ to the work of the greater church. And then there is the widow who gave her two mites. What was her name? The Bible doesn??t bother to tell us! We know the names of Barnabas and Zacchaeus and the church in Macedonia, but not her name, so I am calling her ?¨Hannah.?Æ

The Pharisees and the Rabbis and the Sadducees were the main ?¨church people?Æ of the day. They stood in stark contrast to the little old lady in so many ways. They were good, moral people who worshipped regularly and came to church often and they had good incomes. Many of them were quite wealthy, but they were tight fisted when it came to God. I will call them the ?¨3 percenters.?Æ

How do I know that? Because that??s what ?¨average church people?Æ have given for centuries. Because that??s what most church people still give today, including most ?¨average?Æ Lutherans?ñand I think I am being generous with my assessment. This week I am not focusing on us, but on Hannah. Why was Hannah so generous? Why does Jesus regard Hannah??s giving so highly?


Hannah had four qualities and these four qualities are the marks of a generous person and a good steward. Remember the definition of steward? Here goes: Stewards are people who take care of precious property that is not their own.

First, Hannah KNEW the Lord, in a very personal way. She was involved in daily prayer and a daily walk with God. She didn??t just believe God ?¨existed,?Æ she had a living relationship with God. Paul describes the church in Macedonia in the same way, they FIRST gave themselves to God. So did Hannah. The Old Testament calls it ?¨first fruits?Æ from people who gave themselves FIRST to God. First Fruit Giving reveals the inner heart of someone, a heart that truly belongs to God.

A second reason that I believe Hannah was so generous was that she realized how abundantly GENEROUS God had been with her. Now we don??t know if she had once been married or had once been wealthy or whether she had always been poor, but it didn??t matter to Hannah and it doesn??t (or shouldn??t) matter to us. GOD IS GOOD, all the time, and Hannah KNEW IT and LIVED it. She knew that everything she had, and it wasn??t much, to be sure, came from God, was a gift to her from God and still belonged to God. The Hannahs of this life know this. But if you are walking around with the feeling that everything you have is because of your hard work and your good fortune, chances are you are not like Hannah?ñ.and you know it.

The third reason Hannah was so generous was that she was a mature, religious person. She wasn??t a baby Christian or a shallow believer. I have seen this again and again, that it is the mature Christians who are the generous givers. Mature Christians have a depth of discipleship that includes not only Sunday morning Christianity, but so much more. You wouldn??t have to teach Hannah about Biblical stewardship, because she already knows it, and trusts God enough to practice it! If anyone is a generous giver, a tither, it is because God??s grace is truly at work in their lives. GUILT and obligation only produces 2 or 3%. 

Finally, Hannah knows that God has already provided for all her needs, and there is no need to hold back because of worry and uncertainty. Hannah knows that when God receives the "first fruits" of believers, He has promised to open the "floodgates of heaven" and take care of their every need. You don??t have to preach to Hannah about this. You don??t have to tell the Hannahs of this world or this church about this, they get it. I have NEVER met a generous giver, in 21 years of being a pastor, who complained about not having what they need in life. Never. I have never met a Biblical giver who complained about a lack of shelter, food, clothing or the lack of basic necessities of life. In fact, just the opposite is true, as God promises to ?¨open the storehouses of heaven?Æ to those who trust Him enough to trust Him with their money. (Sounds redundant, but think about it.)

In conclusion I ask you two questions, one easy, the other hard. First, why was Hanna so generous? That??s easy. And now the hard one: What would it take for you and me to be like Hannah? That question is not so easy at all. 

Amen.