Commemoration of the War Dead Sunday

By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church

(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Nov. 10, 2024)

So it's commemoration of the war dead Sunday here at our memorial church. This is always a sacred and solemn day. I know some of you in these pews have family members whose names are written on these walls. We're grateful for your presence here with us as ever, and it's our honor to remember those to whom this church is dedicated this day. It's also the Sunday after an election, a consequential election, as I said in my last sermon last Sunday, and I want to talk about that a little bit. Also, in this sermon, because it is war dead Sunday, it's appropriate that we had the lesson that we had. I'm sorry about the error and the bulletin, but the gospel lesson assigned for today that Sarah read so well and so on the fly because I changed it for her is the lesson from the Gospel of Mark. Mark 12 starting at verse 38.

The scribe is praying loudly and asking for attention, and the widow gives all she has two pennies and puts it in the treasury. It's a story about sacrifice. And it's an appropriate story for a number of reasons on a day when we remember the war dead. Wednesday morning, the day after the election, was when I was supposed to proof the bulletin, so that's why the gospel passage is wrong. Wednesday morning was a complicated morning for lots of folks, I'm sure. I want to tell you about waking up my kids. On Wednesday morning, Danny gets up first. Danny goes to school first; Danny's 10. I woke Danny up first and Danny always pops his eyes open as soon as you wake him up. And he popped his eyes open and said, "Did she win?"

Danny has a very acute sense of right and wrong, and when I told him, she just looked disappointed and confused. I told Cami, woke her up next. Cami was in first grade in 2016, she remembers. And she just didn't look very surprised. I'm not sure which reaction bothered me more. Sam, I told last. Sam doesn't like to wake up. Never. This time, they pulled the covers over their head and Sam was upset for days, Sam's still upset and they've been trying to put words to it. Our child, Sam uses they/them pronouns. I don't know if they saw those ads that I'm sure you saw the awful transphobic ads that were running. But on Thursday we were trying to ask Sam why they were so upset and they said, it feels like I count less as a person now.

So I don't know if they saw the ad. It doesn't really matter. They got the message. I will say more about this election. I actually think that the gospel lesson about the widow's might invites us to say more about it and think more about it, but I want to speak directly to this day. This day, we commemorate every year the remembrance of the war dead. Because I do want to talk about sacrifice, because this is a lesson about sacrifice. But it's also a lesson that challenges us to think about what sacrifice is and what it's for.

It begins with this kind of picture of the scribe. Jesus sees the scribe and condemns the scribe. He says, the scribe loves to speak in places and give long prayers. Now, I want to be clear that what's going on here, this kind of language, language that accuses the scribes or the Pharisees and some of the other gospel texts has been used historically by Christians towards awful anti-Semitic ends, and that's not, I don't think what's going on here. This is not an anti-Jewish discourse from Jesus. It's an intra-Jewish discourse from Jesus. And that's not just because Jesus is Jewish, but also because Jesus turns to the widow and points at the widow, the invocation of the widow. This is a long-standing tradition out of the Jewish prophetic tradition. This is Jesus turning towards this, doing something that is absolutely true to his scripture, to his people's scripture and lifting up the widow as an example against the scribe.

And one of the things this tells us, the widow gives the two pennies, all she has. Jesus says she has given more. One of the things that communicates to us right away is that Christianity is not a pure numbers game. Our arithmetic is different. You couldn't be part of religion where giving a cup of cold water to a child is the sign of discipleship or loving your neighbor is fulfilling all the law. You couldn't be in a religion like that which had simple math. Jesus is trying to say something about what this woman has done, which defies easy tabulation.

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But I also worry when he says she has given more in her poverty, she has given more than all the people putting in all the money than the scribe, this wealthy scribe who puts in so much, she has given more. I worry about how sacrifice is valorized in that formulation. I worry about it because the poor have been told their poverty is holy by religious leaders like me for generations. And I worry about it on this day in particular when we remember the sacrifice. The sacrifice of those whose names are on the walls of this church who gave their whole lives, but also as Amy said in her prayers, those unnamed veterans right now who are active service members right now who are giving so much, sacrificing so much, whose families are sacrificing so much.

I worry about it because I think too often we say sacrifice is a good in itself rather than on behalf of some other greater value. And when we say that sacrifice is a good in itself, we are tempted to ask people to make it again and again and again because that's good. Go sacrifice, go do it again. And we have done that. We have asked folks to sacrifice again and again and again and not asked enough questions about what they were sacrificing for, whether it was worth all they were giving. I want to return to though this turn to the widow, this invocation of the widow, which comes... I read this in a commentary so it's not mine. I can't take credit for it, but it comes out of the Jewish prophetic tradition. And Jesus is doing it on purpose because when he looks at the scribe and condemns the scribe, there's a particular accusation he makes. He condemns the scribe for devouring widows houses.

They devour widows houses and then he looks at the widow. This prophetic tradition that always calls for justice for the poor, calls for justice, for strangers and foreigners and widows and orphans. That prophetic tradition would never want this widow to give everything she has away. That prophetic tradition would ask a different question. It would ask, why does she have so little? And what is causing her to give it all away? Jesus, I think, is saying, "Look, she has nothing." Why does she have nothing when these others have so much? And what is it that is causing her to give even what little she has away?

And he shows us, he points to it. It's the scribe. The long-winded, loudmouthed man in fancy clothes who loves to be seen in the marketplaces. He's the reason she has nothing. The long-winded, loudmouthed man who loves to be seen in the marketplaces. So, back to the election. For months, for years, we have been paying attention to the powerful. They want us to, they thrive on it. They're experts at attracting it, at exploiting it, at redirecting it, at manipulating it, at instrumentalizing, and weaponizing it. Attention is what feeds their power. And I was thinking about what Jesus does here, turning away from the scribe and toward the widow, I started wondering what other turns I might be invited to make by Jesus's teaching here. I started to wonder whether maybe I should be turning away from the headlines on my phone, the latest bluster and threat. And if I shouldn't be looking elsewhere. Maybe rather than looking at the long-robed priests like me who for generations have praised the virtue of poverty, I should be redirecting my attention and my efforts towards those widows with only two pennies.

Maybe rather than looking at our leaders who trumpet the virtues, trumpet the virtues of self-sacrifice, I should be looking at our service members who are harried by endless war. Maybe rather than looking at statesmen who here and around the world preach the necessity of security and the precision of smart bombs, I should be looking at the civilians, the dead civilians who have outnumbered combatant casualties in every war since World War I, by the millions. Maybe these other folks don't deserve my attention, and maybe the folks who do deserve my attention are waiting for it.

Over and over again, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus shifts our attention away from the powerful, away from power, often away from his own power towards the least, towards the most vulnerable. It happens throughout the Gospel. The man weeping among the tombs, cutting himself, Jesus turns our attention there. The woman who has been hemorrhaging blood for 12 years, who no one sees Jesus turns our attention there. The Syrophoenician woman who everyone ignores, Jesus turns our attention there. And here in this moment, while the scribe is loudly shouting and talking about how great he is, Jesus turns our attention to the widow.

Even Easter morning, the day of his resurrection. Jesus is not there, and Mary's attention is given to the stranger. That other category that the Hebrew Bible invites us to remember and welcome. Widows, foreigners, strangers, orphans, childrens, all of these coming out of the prophetic tradition. For Jesus, his concern is always to turn our attention away from power and toward them. Not to ignore the violence of the powerful, but to respond to it where it counts most, where it matters most, where we can do most in the lives of strangers and foreigners and widows and orphans and service members. Over and over in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus does this. Over and over in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus asks us to do it too. So today, this morning, this commemoration after this election, we do it. We turn our attention to the names on these walls. We give them our hearts and our prayers. We do it today. May we do it also in each difficult and trying day to come.

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