Category: December

For the son of man is come to seek and say that which is lost.

                

In April, 2014 tragedy struck in South Korea when its ferry sank off her coast. About three hundred of the 475 passengers on the vessel were students  of Danwon high school for their trip. The Coast Guard, local fishermen, and government organizations got involved in the rescue effort. From helicopters, life-lines were dropped to survivors in the water and were pulled to safety. However, only 179 people could be rescued, while 290 were reported missing. One of the students died after giving his life jacket to his friends. The captain and the crew who escaped were blamed for not doing enough to save the passengers.

Today, multitudes in the world are sinking and slipping into hell through sin. Many Christian youths are avoiding the rescue effort. Some preachers, like the captain and crew of the ferry, are not rightly guiding sinners and doing enough to try to save souls. Don’t be like them. Throw out the Gospel of Life.

And he said unto them, ‘Go ye into all the worldand preach the gospel to every creature.

The decree of death is upon all who have sinned, but the offer of eternal life is available to those who will believe. “There is a way of escape. We must go! We must tell, ” says Dr. Prince Guneratnam. The manner in which any life activity is started often shows its success or failure. A good sprinter may lose in a race if he fails to start at the blast of the whistle. That is why an old adage says, “Delay is dangerous.” when Jesus commanded his disciples to go and preach the gospel, they obeyed, and God blessed their efforts in evangelism. The Lord is still commanding you to “go” and save souls that are dying in sin. You meet them at school, on buses, in the streets, and on the trains. Do not delay, but go and tell them that Jesus only is the Saviour and sin-bearer.

What do you think two small coins and a butterfly have in common? You will find out by the end of this homily. If you were walking down a busy street and you spotted a twenty-dollar bill laying there on the sidewalk, would you take the trouble to stoop down and pick it up? I am sure most of you would, but what if it were just a penny? My guess is that the majority of us would just walk right by because the penny these days is almost worthless. In today’s Gospel we hear about the widow contributing to the temple’s treasury two small coins, worth about a penny, which was all that the widow had in her life.  We will get back to the widow and her two small coins in a minute, but now I am going to talk to you about the butterfly.

The butterfly is a beautiful creature; it often s people of the Christian faith. They symbolize not only beauty, but they have a lightness and an excitement that reminds people of Christian joy. In looking up information about a butterfly I came across the term, “The Butterfly Effect.” This term is used in chaos theory; that is, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on which a small change in one state can result in a large difference in a later state. For example, in dealing with the weather, our atmosphere can be very sensitive and the theory is that  a single butterfly flapping its wings in Peking, China, might affect the weather next month in New York City. That is a lot of influence for a tiny butterfly, isn’t it?

Now, back to our Scripture today. It describes a poor widow who had only two small coins, but she gave them both to God. Jesus saw her making her gift, and He praises her because even though the gift was very small, He knows that it was the best she could give. Those two coins were all that the widow had to live on. I wonder if this generous widow overheard what Jesus was saying about her. In a way one wonders why Jesus did not speak to her directly and praise her for her goodness. Maybe Jesus could see into her heart and recognize that by God’s grace this widow had grasped the true meaning of being generous. Because Jesus did praise her, and her story got into the Bible and our gospel today.

Without being aware of it, the widow’s gift has influenced hundreds of thousands of people over the years about the true meaning of generosity, in the giving of time, talent or treasure. That is a lot of influence from two small coins, isn’t it?