Sunday, October 14, 2018

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (21^st Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 23)

The Revised Common Lectionary passages for the Lord’s Day are:

First Reading: Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15
Second Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16
Gospel Reading: Mark 10:17-31

The liturgical color for the day is: Green

Miss Ruth Hess.  Her shoes and her purse were always something I noticed.  They stood out because she was the only one sporting a white purse and white shoes all year long.  She had that one white purse always hanging from her arm—even in church it would just hang there, and she did not release her tether to it.

She lived in a tiny apartment that was part of a modest house.  She always appeared happy and joyful—and, dare I say it, hungry.  There in the cloakroom adjacent to the narthex we kept a large willow basket to hold food for our food pantry to the needy.  More than once I recall her emerging form the cloakroom with that white purse bulging in the shape of a canned good.

I knew of her poverty.  Others had clued me in—I needed no clues.  She always said to me, “Tom”—eventually I just gave in and let her call me Tom.  “Tom, you did not get your due.  It is not until the 3rd.”  The 3rd would have been when her next Social Security check came.  Almost every Sunday she said it: “Don’t you worry now, you’ll get it.  You’ll get your due, Tom.

Without any family, the neighbors downstairs called me when Miss Ruth Hess died.  I went in only to find her peaceful.  The white purse was right there beside her.  Her little apartment neat and tidy.  Her box of church envelopes on the kitchen table.

Time passed, and the letter came from the attorney.  There was an estate to settle.  What estate?  She was a single, poor woman with only one purse that couriered her canned cranberry from the narthex of the church.

But there was an estate.  I would discover that she left the church $10,000.  $10,000 from a woman who I feared never had more than 10 dollars.

Why?  How?  She had saved it all.  She had saved it all and given it all.  Had she lived on so little, so she could give it all?  In faithfulness she was always there.  She was always joyful.  She was always happy as she greeted me calling me, “Tom.”

It was as if she lived all her life in that dynamic trust.  There was no concern over her white purse in October—instead she promised,

Miss Ruth Hess passed into glory and only after she was gone did I put it all together why she was so joy-filled.  She did not worry about things or the color of her purse—her faith and trust was in the Lord.  She has received her due.