There’s a whole television industry capitalizing on this very American phenomenon. The show titles tell it all – “How Do I Look?” “What Not to Wear,” “Extreme Makeover” and the like. All the shows have one thing in common – someone wants to change their image to impress. There have been complaints about their outdated look, or they want to lose the flab around the middle, or they fixate on the crooked nose they’ve always wanted to change. A TV crew rushes in to save the day. New wardrobe, surgery, or six weeks of intense training at the gym promises an all new you!

The changes made seem to have not only a physical but an emotional impact. The teary eyed average Joe or Jane isn’t sure what it will be like to be beautiful or stylish. They talk about hiding behind a self-image that helps them to fade into the background. And the audiences flock to these shows because most of us all would like to change something about ourselves. We all want someone to say “Wow” when we walk into a room. We yearn for an overcritical mother to tell us how beautiful we are. Or we hope for a compliment from a spouse or significant other who seems not to have noticed our appearance for awhile. Too often we’ve heard the critiques and the pointed jabs about the extra 20 pounds or the graying temples. Even when we mean well – all of this contributes to a nation obsessed with self-image.

So we open the Bible to today’s scripture reading and look – Jesus is talking about another culture of another day that is just as obsessed as we are – minus the media hype. But instead of saying – good for you for wanting to be impressive – he says “Beware!” “Beware,” Jesus says, “of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!”

I know, I know. It’s different. We aren’t trying to be snobs about our appearance. We just want people to look nice and feel good about themselves, right? We don’t want to outdo everyone else – just be accepted. Sadly, no, we are a “feel good culture” in which we more often feel bad than good. Feeling good is fleeting when it’s about the “wow” moment, because the “wow moment” never lasts. Styles change. Bodies age. Image is fluid. And riches don’t last.

The scribes were in the same kind of cycle that we are, and regular people aspired to be like them, important and put together. And Jesus says, for that, “They will receive the greater condemnation.” And even if Jesus never said a word, we condemn ourselves, it’s true. We condemn ourselves to wishing we “looked” different, when looks are far, far, far from Jesus’ mind.

Fortunately, this story doesn’t end only with condemnation. It ends with hope on a real rags to riches story. After Jesus remarks that the scribes don’t get it, he tells us why looking important isn’t being important. He watches as different people put their offering into the treasury. He’s people watching in the extreme – because he can not only tell what’s on the outside, he can determine the inside value of the gift. The big shots are making big donations – the kind you get a plaque for, or at least your name in the list of annual donors. He watches these types of gifts, and I’m sure that the community is watching too. We like to see who the big givers are. In fact a stewardship brochure that I just got in the mail tells me that a good way to increase giving in the church is to use lists of names – to personally solicit the big donors – to give people a reason to contrast and compare.

But not Jesus. Jesus singles out the most unlikely giver – a poor widow who puts in two coins that are valued at no more than a penny. She’s the example that he picks. He picks the person who is hiding behind her tattered coat. He picks the one who didn’t gussy up for the event. He picks the one who anticipated not being noticed at all – and he talks about the raw beauty of her gift.

I don’t think that the stewardship gurus flock very frequently to this text to remind us of how to give to the church. Two weeks ago, I preached from the text in which the rich man was asked to give it all. Now there’s an example for charitable giving! This one honors the gift of a penny, perhaps with inflation, we could say it’s the gift of a dollar, but even at that it’s not much. Jesus is all over the place about this concept of giving. At least the Old Testament was more consistent in suggesting a percentage amount – the 10% tithe.

With a goal budget that comes close to $400,000 for 2007, it would be foolish of me not to be thankful for our big givers who are able to contribute out of their abundance, as Jesus puts it. We need those contributions because they make a difference in the kind of ministry we are able to do as a church. Without them, we’d be operating quite differently. Just doing some guess work, the top 10 supporting families probably account for a quarter or more of our annual budget.

But I guess Jesus’ question is this – do those 10 families get greater respect than the person who gives a much smaller amount but has significantly less to draw on? Do those givers get special attention when it comes to setting program or deciding what we do as a church? Do they flaunt their gifts as they put them into the plate so that people notice who they are? Do they worry more about how they look than about helping the ministry to others?

We all want to look good – whether that’s our waistline or our bottom line. Jesus’ lesson here reminds us that the values of the world are not the values of God’s heavenly realm. In God’s accounting, the dollar gift and the $10,000 gift are equal if the goals are the same – to care for the widows and orphans, to maintain divine worship, and to challenge the economic structures that lead to injustice. It doesn’t matter the size of your gift if you’ve devoured widows’ houses to get there. There will be condemnation for those who seek only the pride of being able to say – yes I can influence First Synagogue of Jerusalem, or First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge.

This church, like many churches, maintains very private records about the pledges that are made and the gifts that are donated. Other than some general guidelines we put in our stewardship packets to let you know the general range of gifts the church gets as a challenge to grow in your giving, we rarely ever attach a name to a gift, and when we do, it’s to remember someone that we loved very much who has been very generous. But imagine this, if you will, Jesus is watching the gifts that come into the treasury, into our offering plates. Jesus is keenly aware of our pledges, and of why we made them, of how we feel about them, if we’re gladly giving or using our money to win friends and influence people.

How then can our gifts be more like that of the faithful widow than of the underhanded scribes? We need to care less about how we look and more about how we are helping others. We need to be aware of our own need for grace, that God doesn’t owe us anything, and yet God has given us life and redeemed that life through Jesus Christ. We are all, in that sense, charity cases in need of divine intervention.

Like I said a couple weeks ago when we explored the flip side of this text with the rich young ruler, I’m no Jesus. I can’t look into your heart and know if your pledge is on target, or too little, or only for show. I don’t know if God wants you to give away everything or if you have given absolutely all that you can. I can only present these texts and ask you to think about what they mean to you. Who do you relate to in these stories? Ignore how the world wants you to look, and imagine how Jesus wants you to be. Be thankful for what God has done for you.

Amen.