In 2010, across the parking lot from my cute little hippy café, the Republican Party set up shop for a serious attempt to take down Harry Reid. Harry Reid was a Nevada Senator but also the majority leader. He was a dominant force and this year, the Republicans had him in their sights. I wasn’t super into politics back then, so I wasn’t sure why Harry Reid was so hated. I’m sure he was corrupt. He was a Vegas Senator, after all. Not surprising.

This campaign office was the secret office with no signs, where the DC power players were at work. We got to know these folks because they practically lived at their office, which meant they spent a lot of time at my café.  

Paul was the main guy there, living far from his home in DC. He was miserable the day after they lost. He sat with me the day after the election in a sun beam and shared his dismay and frustration. He was asking me that question all political losers ask. Why?! I had a lot of compassion for him in his misery, even though I didn’t like his candidate. To be honest, I don’t think he liked his candidate.  

Oddly, we had never discussed politics in the previous months, so I said apologetically in response to his question, “Well, you know I’m a Democrat.” He laughed and laughed. He said, “Of course you’re a Democrat. Look at you. Look at your shop. Look at what car you drive. Of course you’re a Democrat.” I guess I give off heavy Democrat vibes. Anyway, given our obvious divide, I was honored that he brought his questions and sadness to me. I had nothing to give him but compassion, even as I was grateful to not be sharing in his heartache.

These elections can be heart-wrenching. That year was a good year for me, heartache wise. It wasn’t a good year for Paul. But then the next elections come and the tables turn again and again. These political battles keep going back and forth, it seems. Ideally somehow incremental positive change is made. All the while, these battles continue … sometimes feeling quite disconnected from our actual lives, the actual needs and concerns of the people, our actual problems.

In our gospel today, Jesus’ interaction with the scribes is towards the end of a long string of arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the scribes. These are skirmishes of words, ideas, and teachings. These are struggles over the interpretation of the Law and about God.

This part of the text we’re hearing today is nearing the end of this string of struggles. Jesus tells his disciples to watch out for those who pretend to care for the poor while profiting from their misery. “They devour the widows’ homes,” he says. They pretend to pray and follow the Law, and yet a widow, who is supposed to be cared for by the community according to God’s Word, is seen dropping the last of her money – a pathetic pittance – into the coffers of the temple.

We don’t know what’s going on in the widow’s heart and mind. We don’t know if she’s giving out of a sense of abundance despite her poverty. Or out of a sense of obligation? Or gratitude to God. We don’t know if she’s giving up on her hard scrabble life, because her two coins, what she has left is not enough for anything. She has nothing left. Maybe she’s waiting to starve to death, like the widow in our first reading. We don’t know.

What strikes me is she seems to be invisible to everyone but Jesus, who sits down to watch her in the act of giving everything she has left away. She is invisible in her poverty amid wealth, pomp, power, and swagger. Her gift in the counting would not be noticed for how small it is. But Jesus sees her, sees the injustice of her situation, and her act of giving anyway.  

This scene reminds me of our political battles that are so extraordinary in their opulence and expense. There’s swagger and pretension. There’s lip service given to the poor, but the wealthy of our world, who invest a lot in our political process, are also busy devouring “the houses of the widows” in one way or another. The race for more money and power rages on.  

But here is Jesus, sitting down amid all the hubbub, disengaged from that scene to be a witness to this destitute widow, who should never have been destitute if God’s will was being honored. If people were listening to the prophets, following the Law, and loving God’s people, this widow should not have been in a situation where these two tiny coins were all she had left. Jesus was tuned in to what really matters – the reality of those on the bottom rungs of society.

In past few days, I spent too much time online. In the blur of memes, hot takes, and ideas, I saw a wise thought that that too often Christians want to change the world in the way that Rome changed the world; through domination, winning, and control. Less often, we attempt to change the world how Jesus changed it – through love, integrity, and focus on the vulnerable.

Jesus in our text is sitting down to witness this woman, to notice the injustice, to lift up her gift as more precious than all the riches given because what she gave must have been so dear to her, such an expression of what her true reality was. Jesus had his focus where he wants our focus. On the widow. On the vulnerable. On those without power.

Granted, that said he spent a fair amount of time in these fights with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes. But, he also sees these folks he was engaged with as power- and money-obsessed folks. So, he doesn’t just say engaged with them. Instead, he notices and honors this widow.

In our struggles and wars, it is always the poor and vulnerable who suffer the most. It reminds me of the Thucycides quote we talked about a few weeks back. “The strong do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.” The ones without resources or family get stuck in situations created by our blustering fights between the mighty and the powerful, while the powerful are barely hurt by these situations they create. A billionaire in one situation will still be a billionaire in the other situation. I’m not too worried about them. I’m not particularly worried about myself. But I am worried about the fall out of these struggles and wars on those living on the edges.  

So, friends, in the days and years and decades to come, however our political skirmishes go, I wonder if we can follow the example of Jesus here and let his focus be our answer to the question, “What do we do now?”

Whether or not your team wins an election, the question of “What do we do now?” looms large. We can get so lost in how we answer this question, in the ensuing fights and pitfalls. The hullabaloo will always be there to distract us, keep us spinning in arguments and outrage. But if we follow Jesus’ lead, focus on the widow, on the vulnerable, on those hanging from the dicey lower rungs of society and care for them, we will indeed not get lost. We might, in fact, find ourselves found and find powerful and important answers to the question, “What do we do now?”

AMEN