In today’s readings we heard about two widows. One was not very old: she still had a young son at home. The other was probably close to death. One lived out in the country, in Zarephath, far from the big city. The other lived in the heart of Judaism, in Jerusalem. Both were poor. All widows were poor. It went with being a widow.

In Judaism, a woman’s sole means of support came from her husband. If he died, so did her income, unless her family or her husband’s family took her in. That didn’t happen very often. Widowhood was looked upon as a curse, even the result of sin. It was almost as if the woman was being punished because her husband died. And, often she really was. It was not unusual for a widow to be destitute, even in the best of times.

These two widows had much in common. When we encounter them in today’s readings both, it seems, are near death. The widow of Zarephath, when the prophet Elijah knocked on her door, was out of money, out of food, out of oil to heat her home. The land was in the middle of a long drought. She had enough food to make one last meal for her son and herself, enough oil to cook the meal and warm their bodies. Then she and her son were going to curl up on the bed together and die together. The widow in the Gospel didn’t even have two cents to rub together. She had one. Not a pretty picture in either case.

And yet these two widows, one down to her last meal, the other down to her last penny, freely gave away what they had. The one gave away her last meal on the tenuous promise of some old man who called himself a prophet that if she fed him, her food and oil supply would not run out until the drought was over. The other simply gave her last penny to the church.

If you are a practical person like me, a realist, you’re first thought was that they had to be crazy. Why give away your last meal? Why give away your last penny? If you’re a cynic, you might say, "Why not? If you’re going to starve to death, why not make it one day sooner? If you have only one penny, why not give it away?" But, then, we realists and we cynics usually can’t see past our noses. All we see is what we want to see. All we see is what we see, not what is really happening.

In the Gospel Jesus is watching what is really happening. He is watching people give money to support the church of his time. Some people were giving a whole lot of money. Others, like the poor widow, were putting in only a penny. The realist, even the cynic, watches what people give not how they give. The realist is impressed with the Bill Gates’ who give million of dollars to the find cures to diseases. But he’s not even vaguely interested in the poor widow who gives five dollars to UNICEF to help children’s programs around the world. The realist is impressed with the person who writes out a check for $10,000 to the local food bank but thinks nothing of the person who brings only a can of soup.

Whether we admire the two widows or think them fools really does not matter. It doesn’t matter why the two widows did what they did. That was their business. Whether we admire Bill Gates or the man who gives the $10,000 for their generosity or think them to simply be self-serving, that doesn’t matter either. What someone else gives or does not give and why they give or do not give is, number one, none of our business, and two, doesn’t really matter. What matters is why we do what we do with what we have been given.

If you are like me, we are more like the other people in the Gospel than we are the widows. We give out of our abundance. Bill Gates will admit that it doesn’t cost him a penny to give all that money. When the stock market goes up, so does his net worth. All those million are a lot of money, but it comes from his abundance. You and I give away money -- to the church, to our favorite charities, to children and grandchildren. But it all comes from our abundance.

Arlena and I tithe. Our pledge to Christ Church next year will be over $10,000. I tell you that not to brag. I tell you that to admit that it comes from our abundance. Like Bill Gates we have been blessed. We are not as financially blessed as he, to be sure. But we are very blessed. Sure, we could use that money for a trip to Vietnam to visit two of our foster children or to build a swimming pool or a buy bigger car -- none of which we need. In fact, we don’t need anything. We have more than we need and more we than we deserve. So like the people in the Gospel, we give out of our abundance -- which means we could give more.

You know where this is leading, don’t you? Well, it’s is true, isn’t it? We all give out of our abundance. None of us gives food money or mortgage or rent money, none of us gives utility money or car payment money to the church or to any other charity. The basics are the basics and that’s what we take care of first. If there is anything left over, then we will give some of that leftover away.

We’re not like the widows in the readings. They didn’t have any leftovers. They gave all they had. But we are not asked to be like them either. Why they did what they did, only they knew. Why we do what we do, why we give what we give, only we know. The reality, of course, is that for most of us, there are leftovers. We just don’t see it that way very often because we have come to see the leftovers as necessities.

When the two women in the readings became widows, the first thing they had to do was downsize their lives and their lifestyles. They no longer had the income they used to have. That was not easy for them, just as it is not easy for anyone who has to downsize because of a change in income. Lose a job, we downsize. Take a pay cut, we downsize. Retire, we downsize. It is often a struggle, but we make it. When we downsize, we have fewer leftovers. Fewer, not none. But we still have the basics: food and shelter and clothing.

Providentially this is my official Stewardship Sunday Sermon. So let the stories of the two widows remind each of us that we are all abundantly blessed. Let the stories remind us that when we give of our money, when we give of our time and our talent, we are giving from our abundance; we are giving what is left over. We are not reducing the basics. We are not giving up necessities. What we are doing is going on a diet. What we are doing is reducing the fat. We would all have more leftovers, if we had less fat.

I don’t know about you, but there is a lot of fat in my lifestyle. Fat is what makes food tasty. Fat is what makes lifestyle enjoyable. God doesn’t ask us to give up all the fat. What God does ask, I think, is that we take a good look at our lifestyle, go on a diet, reduce some of the fat, and then give it away. Others will appreciate our leftovers. I know Christ Church and the people we serve in our many ministries certainly would.